So they've never hit one of your vans?

Fielden: No. They've hit near, but never a direct fire.

Is that an issue in Afghanistan as well?

Dedham: Just taking Bagram first, we had five different attacks in the 15 months I was there. One was a suicide bomber at the entry control point, and the other four were random mortar and RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] attacks on the base, none of which ever affected communications.

Outside of Bagram, we did have forward operating bases or combat outposts lose connectivity because of a direct hit - on a satellite dish on two occasions, and on a generator a third time. The command post nodes - little vans with satellite dishes on them and radio equipment associated with the satellite dish - were destroyed because of shrapnel from either RPG, suicide bomber or random mortar attack. We don't think the enemy was aiming for the command post; we think it was just a lucky hit.

How long does it take to get a forward base back up if it's hit?

Dedham: In those three cases, they had to switch over to what we refer to as "single-channel communications" - that's just radio. Tactical satellite radio or high-frequency communications had to wait until their network connectivity was re-established, which took anywhere from 24 to about 96 hours. It required us to airlift new terminals to those sites in a sling underneath a helicopter; sometimes it took more than a day because bad weather prevented us from flying.

A lot of the terminals we use for network connectivity aren't in a van; they're modular cases that can be lifted by Black Hawk helicopter. We refer to them as POPs, point-of-presence terminals. They're very small, but they can provide connectivity to those very small outposts. That's very important in any counterinsurgency fight - having a network that lets us distribute full-motion video and provide access to databases gives us a real advantage.

Bullock: What these guys do is different from most commercial networks, because while most of them just have to provide one consolidated LAN or WAN, we actually have to provide multiple distinct networks. One is SIPRNet, which stands for Secret Internet Protocol - it's a classified network. We also provide NIPRNet, which is the Not Secret Internet Protocol.

And in many cases, we provide a third network, JWICS [Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System], which is a top-secret network. Unclassified, secret, top secret: three different networks that don't touch each other at all, and they're all provided in many cases at very austere, very small locations.

Fielden: For Balad, that's very true. We're providing all three of those networks. At other bases, we're providing SIPRNet and NIPRNet connectivity, and at some of our still-smaller forward operating locations, we're just providing NIPRNet.

Dedham: In Afghanistan, we use virtual LANs to distribute our networks. There are seven different networks we provide: the three they mentioned, plus plain old Internet; and then we have two NATO classified networks, and finally a bigger secure coalition network for countries outside of NATO. So seven different networks that we're running, with the associated information systems: e-mail, databases and so on.