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High-tech comms tested for interoperability

By Cheryl Reddy
Johannesburg, 19 May 2006

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and 40 military and peacekeeping organisations are taking part in Combined Endeavour 2006, a two-week operation designed to test and document the interoperability of communication systems for joint relief efforts.

This is according to Cisco Systems, which has implemented a real-time video teleconferencing, Web-casting and local area network infrastructure for the exercise.

"This exercise is breaking new ground in many of the network areas that are being tested, such as in multinational information sharing. Our goal is to tackle these types of challenges long before the call comes to deploy," says Thomas Verbeck, Cisco`s director of international interoperability, concepts and experimentation directorate.

More than a thousand tests that began this week will focus mainly on the ability to pass data with a high level of security over an Internet Protocol backbone, using voice over Internet Protocol, private mobile radio, high frequency and satellite communications and information assurance, he says.

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