Personal Communications Services: Improving Theater Deployable Communications for the 21st Century

Personal Communications Services PCS may be the key ingredient for vastly improved military communications capabilities at the turn of the century. The Federal Communications Commission FCC defines PCS as a family of mobile or portable radio communications services which could provide services to individuals and businesses and be integrated with a variety of competing networks ... the primary focus of PCS will be to meet communications requirements of people on the move. Todays generation of Theater Deployable Communications, which provides joint tactical communications to deployed forces, is the Tri-Service Tactical Communications TRI-TAC system. A description of TRITACs family of equipment, network topology, typical employment, and critical limitations is presented in this thesis. Five commercial Mobile Satellite Services MSS are described as viable candidates for augmenting existing communications systems. Cellular design principles such as frequency reuse, cell splitting, channel access methods, and propagation factors are also addressed. Finally, a framework for comparison of the candidate MSS systems is proposed as a baseline for further studies into the most beneficial implementation of PCS into theater deployable communications systems for the future. TRI-TAC communications, Theater deployable communications, Cellular technology, Mobile satellite services.