WASHINGTON – With a $300,000 jump-start from the federal government, IPFW could become a major center for wireless technology and help the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security overcome difficulties with communication, says Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.
Lugar has asked the Senate to approve the money in the 2011 budget so IPFW could run a test that identifies the key problems in restoring communications in Washington if there were a terrorist attack that wiped out all communications systems.
If IPFW performs well in that tabletop exercise, Lugar and IPFW Chancellor Michael Wartell say, the campus would be a good site for a permanent communications test center.
In many cases, communications systems within the military branches and between the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security can’t talk to each other. Systems that easily talk to each other – off-the-shelf BlackBerries and other mobile phones, for instance – are easy for hackers to eavesdrop on.
Although the military has several communications research facilities in the U.S., no one has solved the problem of secure communications systems able to talk to each other.
Wartell said it’s a good idea to have a research center at a university to avoid the perception of bias.
Major defense contractors fight hard to win multimillion-dollar contracts for all sorts of weapons and equipment that the Pentagon buys, and each branch of the military defends its existing communications system.
And Wartell said northeast Indiana is ideally suited to provide the experts that center would need.
“You’ve got the world’s best industry wireless expertise here in Raytheon, ITT, General Dynamics and Northrop. You’ve got a wireless research center that has two endowed chairs here at IPFW. You have a confluence of expertise. Besides that, if there are areas we can’t cover, we have Purdue and IU to call on. So there are areas of expertise that we can do virtually better than anybody else,” he said.
In a letter to the Pentagon’s top acquisitions official, Lugar said the center would save money by figuring out how to have defense and homeland security communications systems that are both secure and able to trade information – called interoperability.
“Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the American homeland, it has become clear that many of these devices cannot communicate with each other,” Lugar said to the chairman of a subcommittee that will decide which lawmaker funding requests – called earmarks – will be included in the 2011 Pentagon budget.
“Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan report that the enemy exploits these communications gaps among the services. This lack of interoperability has also led to friendly fire deaths,” he said. “However, it is also clear that moving all communications devices to the same platform would make them vulnerable to cyber-security attacks.”
If IPFW did well on the $300,000 test, Lugar said in the letter to the Pentagon official who oversees all equipment purchases, the federal government and other funding group could create the Indiana National Interoperability Laboratory to establish standards for communication devices for all military and homeland security users.
“This will address one part of the cyber-security issue and save taxpayer money by ending duplication of standards,” he said.
