LGS and REDCOM to Provide Solution Delivering Secure Wireless Communications for Deployable Communications on the Move

Vienna, Va. and Victor, N.Y. – LGS, a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) dedicated to serving the U.S. government community, and REDCOM Laboratories Inc., a company that designs and manufactures the world’s most reliable digital and IP-enabled telecommunications systems, announced today that they are working together on a solution that will deliver end-to-end secure communications on the move. These new capabilities support major U.S. Government initiatives for deployable, secure communications that leverage the capabilities and interoperability of commercial cellular and Voice over IP (VoIP) technologies.

The combination of technical expertise brought to the table by both LGS and REDCOM provides military customers with rapidly deployable command and control communications systems capable of supporting both voice and data requirements at security levels up to Department of Defense (DoD) Type-1. These solutions sets have already been demonstrated to a number of DoD customers and will be a part of the upcoming Joint Users Interoperability Communications Exercise (JUICE) taking place at Fort Monmouth, N.J., June 1-19.

“Working with REDCOM’s JITC-certified products, LGS is able to leverage its strong experience in providing mobile wireless communications equipment and add to that a level of secure encryption that makes this solution set particularly attractive for tactical and battlefield usage,” said Ron Iverson, CEO, LGS.

The joint, fully interoperable solution combines the LGS Tactical Base Station Router (TacBSRTM) multi-band GSM cellular system and the REDCOM SLICE® 2100™ voice switching system, powered by REDCOM’s TRANSip® technology suite which enables seamless integrated VoIP and TDM interoperability in a single platform. It is ready for deployment to support command and control requirements today.

One key innovation with the joint solution is the implementation of ITU Standard V.150.1 -– the industry- and government-accepted method for implementing modem-over-IP networks. This allows government customers to place Type-1 secure calls on cell phones and PDAs registered with the LGS TacBSR, traverse any commodity IP network and terminate the call on a PSN- or DSN-based secure telephone (STE) via the V.150.1 gateway functionality on the REDCOM SLICE 2100. Another important innovation is the ability to provide priority and preemption features for high-priority users, end-to-end, via LGS and REDCOM’s implementation of a key DoD feature – MLPP – Multi-Level Precedence and Preemption. This ensures that the most important calls get through during crisis situations.

“By combining the LGS TacBSR with REDCOM’s SLICE 2100, we can truly deliver to the soldier a converged communications solution set,” said Klaus Gueldenpfennig, President, REDCOM. “This solution set is reliable and is standards-based. Soldiers can now have secure, end-to-end, wired-to-wireless communications and have secure interoperability with U.S. Joint Forces fielded TDM and VoIP technologies.”

The LGS TacBSR provides a single box GSM cellular solution – encapsulating cellular network functions in the smallest form factor in the industry (as small as 5 lbs). It leverages VoIP (SIP 2.0) for backhaul and to inter-network multiple TacBSRs in a simple, easy to deploy and manage, flat architecture employing commodity IP networks to inter-connect – providing “cellular-over-IP” functionality. The latest release of the TacBSR supports Enhanced MLPP (EMLPP) as well as the V.150.1 Modem over IP standard. When combined with a V.150.1-capable gateway, the TacBSR can provide connectivity to VoIP, PSN, and DSN networks for standard GSM handsets and PDAs as well as for Type-1 encrypted GSM handsets and Smartphones such as those being developed under the National Security Agency’s Secure Mobile Environment Portable Electronic Device (SME PED) program.

SLICE 2100 is a fully integrated VoIP and TDM solution in a slim, compact 1U platform. The SLICE 2100 supports the V.150.1 (“modem over IP” capability) published standard ensuring VoIP to TDM interoperability for encrypted, secure voice communications. REDCOM’s SLICE 2100 (Version 3.0) has been tested and certified by DISA’s Joint Interoperability Testing Command (JITC) and listed on the JITC’s Approved Products List in the Deployable Voice Exchange (DVX) category.