January 19, 2008: The U.S. Army is dropping conventional phone
lines (based on copper cables), and moving to an all-Internet (packet switched
data) network. This VOIP (Voice Over IP) approach simplifies things, and
produces a more robust communications system. That's because the Internet was
originally designed to survive a nuclear war. Fault tolerance is built in. Once
Internet systems take over all administrative communications, all combat
systems will do the same. The newly developed battlefield systems, introduced
in bits and pieces over the last decades, are also based on Internet
technology.
Other nations are doing the same, but
often out of necessity. The Internet uses more efficient, and cheaper,
communications technologies than the century old analog telephone networks.
Many less developed nations never fully implemented the old analog networks, so
it's cheaper to go with the new tech. That's why many poor nations are finally
getting decent telephone systems, courtesy of
cell phones (which, like the Internet, use digital technology, rather
than the older analog stuff.)
