AT&T and Wheat International bring multimedia to the battlefield.

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--August 20, 1996--AT&T and Wheat International Communications this month will showcase advanced capabilities that connect battlefield troops to their commanders in a live, multimedia environment during a simulated warfighting exercise.

The Theater Deployable Multimedia Communications Service (TDMCS) gives soldiers and commanders improved capabilities through a lightweight, integrated platform that they can use to quickly build a communications infrastructure anywhere. The compact system is so flexible that it can be mounted on the back of a High-Mobility, Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, extending switched multimedia and local area network (LAN) services to the battlefield.

TDMCS allows voice, data and video traffic to move across an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), based on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and VSAT communications technologies. By using ATM and ISDN, the military will get the various transmission bandwidths necessary to support multimedia traffic--all over the same communications circuit. A small 2.4-meter, C-band VSAT will provide the extension back to the appropriate communications gateway to support multiple mediums and frequencies, including C-Band, Ku-Band, X-Band, UHF and wireless technologies.

"As the information age continues at warp speed, timely movement of information will be critical to our soldiers. The military needs new delivery methods that get the right information to the right person at the right time. That's what the TDMCS can do," said Ken Pedersen, assistant vice president in AT&T Government Markets' defense division.

The TDMCS will allow military personnel to do collaborative planning via networked workstations, hold videoconferences, move large intelligence and logistics files, and have access to military and civilian agency networks.

John Craighill, assistant vice president at Wheat International, said, "Something like the TDMCS can provide the types of enhanced communications capabilities necessary to create a virtual network linking the soldier in the battlefield to a commander in the Pentagon."

The Vienna, Va.-based firm offers professional services for telecommunications, network development, project management and market analysis.

Military officials will watch the deployable ATM/ISDN architecture in use during the Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID) from Aug. 26 to 30. The network will connect Fort Gordon, Ga., Ft. Bragg, N.C., and AT&T Laboratories, Holmdel, N.J., for this military exercise.

The JWID exercise is an annual series of technology demonstrations designed to encourage innovative solutions to the challenges faced by U.S. military forces in the information warfare age. A key objective for this year's event is to demonstrate the use of ATM and advanced multiplexing technologies to provide automatic bandwidth allocation and enhanced communications. -0-

Editor's note: Reporters interested in watching U.S. military

forces put the TDMCS to the test on Aug. 23

should contact Joyce E. Van Duzer, AT&T,

[phone].

CONTACT: Joyce E. Van Duzer, AT&T

[phone] (office)

[phone] (home)

![e-mail]

or

Darrell Hayes, Wheat International

[phone]

[e-mail]