Alleviating Bandwidth Constraints by Implementing Quality of Service on Teleport Site Connections

Abstract : In the deployed environment, the Marine Corps' data network operates with a handicap. It has to support a growing number of users and applications with a limited amount of bandwidth. To illustrate this handicap, most users have high speed broadband Internet access at home that measures about 5 (or more) megabits per second (Mbps) to support a household of about four users. Meanwhile, the Marine Corps supports 150 warfighters with a paltry 1.5 Mbps. The Marine Corps' transmission systems, satellite and terrestrial, are technologically behind the power curve in keeping up with bandwidth demands. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Network Infrastructure and Integration (ASD/NII) along with the Joint Staff J-6 had the foresight to demand that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) upgrade their satellite Standard Tactical Entry Points (STEP). Strategic STEP sites were upgraded to become Teleport sites to support the growing tactical requirements of the warfighter. Teleport sites support the termination of commercial and military band satellite access. The end state of this upgrade is that Teleport sites can now provide as much bandwidth per service as the warfighter requests. Moreover, the Marine Corps is going through the world-wide conversion to an all Internet Protocol (IP) environment called convergence. Convergent services are defined as the ability to provide voice, video, and data via an IP network. This allows the network to provide and control a multitude of services to support the demands of the user community. To alleviate bandwidth constraints and input Marine Corps requirements on DoD Teleport Generation (Gen) II network-centric (net-centric) connections, the Marine Corps must implement quality of service (QoS) on Teleport site connections immediately rather than wait for the employment of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).