How the military is unifying communications and collaboration

Although military technologists sometimes talk about the Global Information Grid in the present tense, one element of the GIG vision that is still in the works is the implementation of a global everything-over-IP network that allows phone, videoconferencing and other synchronous communications to ride over the same IP network that e-mail and other data communications use.

The transition to unified communications and collaboration is also playing out in the corporate world, where voice-over-IP (VOIP) phones are appearing more frequently. Richer communications sessions that combine voice, video, chat, Web collaboration and desktop application sharing are also becoming more common. And the same is true in the military — at least, in certain enclaves that have deployed the required network upgrades. But making such services span the full breadth and depth of the military is a much bigger challenge and will take years to achieve.

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