Can You Hear Me Now?

An Electronic Systems Center team from Hanscom AFB, Mass., is working to provide the Iraqi air force with the connectivity that it will need to defend itself from external threats. The team oversees the Iraq information technology infrastructure project, or I3P, which is linking four Iraqi air bases together with Iraq’s defense and intelligence network. This is done via systems such as Voice-over-Internet Protocol phones, radios, command and control equipment, and hundreds of miles of fiber cabling. “The current conditions in Iraq are rudimentary. They currently have sneaker communications, meaning they are running notes to one another,” said Richard Dellovo, a network engineer with the ESC team. The work is expected to be completed by the end of August so that the Iraqis have a robust capability in place prior to the withdrawal of US forces by the end of 2011. (Hanscom report by Patty Welsh)