Brenda Marie Rivers
A new study from Viasat and the Government Business Council has found that agencies see limited funding, cultural complacency and lack of interoperability with legacy infrastructure as among the contributors to deficiencies in defense communications.
The second annual State of Military Communications study, conducted by Viasat and Government Executive Media Group's research arm, states that 97 percent of respondents experienced connectivity disruptions during military operations, Viasat said Thursday.
The majority of respondents believe that increased engagement with industry including nontraditional contractors could help expedite developments in the military communications portfolio.
Most also cited 5G, analytics and satellite communications as top technologies that need more focus to support defense applications. However, only 36 percent said their agencies actively pushed for cloud efforts over the past year.
According to the report, the government has become complacent in choosing companies from the traditional rather than the new defense industrial base.
Ken Peterman, president for government systems at Viasat, said the report highlighted needs to “bridge the multi-domain battlefield and support our warfighters.â€
More than half of survey respondents said they believe that U.S. communications are “behind or only on par†with adversaries while 39 percent reported moderate confidence in their agencies’ preparedness in cyber response.
Sixty-seven percent said the military is yet to improve communications technology implementation.
