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Military unveils £200m next-generation comms network

Falcon takes flight

Tags: army, falcon

By Jo Best

Published: 31 March 2006 16:00 BST

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has signed a deal with BAE Systems Integrated Systems Technologies for a new £200m military communications network.

The network, to be known as Falcon, is designed to give senior military commanders a high-speed, air portable network with 10 times the throughput of the current systems it is set to replace.

One of the networks which will eventually be replaced by Falcon is the army's Ptarmigan, a system which consists of trunk switches connected by satellite and multi-channel radio relay links that provides voice, data, telegraph and fax communications. Ptarmigan was also provided by BAE Systems.

According to the MoD, the introduction of Falcon will mean a smaller number of Royal Signals operators will be needed than for the current systems such as Ptarmigan.

The system will be deployed from 2010.

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£200 million, eh? So I guess we should count on...
Ken Munn

In 2020, it may reach the troops, meanwhile hang o...
Anonymous

Thanks Goodness I left the Royal Signals when I di...
Anonymous

The value of this is perhaps debateable. While it...
Chris Goodman

Not a lot of use to the soldiers on the ground whe...
Chris Goodman

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