Defence exercise demonstrates seamless and secure comms

Mutualink recently took part in the 2014 Joint Users Interoperability Communications Exercise (JUICE), held at the US Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG). The exercise brought together participants from the US Army, US Marine Corp, NATO Special Forces Headquarters, National Guard units, FEMA, TSA and several other federal, state and local agencies.

In this complex communication environment, Mutualink was used to seamlessly and securely connect all participants via a resilient, peer-to-peer ad hoc network.

According to members of the Joint On-demand Interoperability Network (JOIN) team, this was the first time in 21 years that all parties - the services, state emergency centres, first responder, allies and other partners - were able to securely communicate while cyber-bandits were actively assaulting the network.

Mutualink successfully defended against more than 3 million real-world cyberattacks while simultaneously providing uninterrupted collaboration during several training scenarios to include a simulated earthquake and a widespread power outage.

Mutualink’s Multimedia Gateway (MMG) enabled a range of participants to communicate using their own communication equipment and commercial-off-the-shelf tablets and devices. Personnel were able to remotely join, collaborate and share multimedia resources - radio, telephony, video, chat, files and data - regardless of their location, available network or device.

During testing and evaluation of the Mutualink Data Gateway (a data conduit), troops were able to quickly and dynamically share real-time situational awareness from high- to low-side systems between multiple units on three continents. Mutualink used numerous networks and delivery mechanisms to exchange information, including Ka, Ku, WGS satellites, open internet, cellular 3G/4G, Wi-Fi and more.

Also demonstrated was the ability to connect and interoperate multiple HF radio systems with each other as well as with various disparate radios around the world using proprietary waveforms and protocols. This capability also connected HF radios to land-based and cellular telephone carriers.