Intercepts

The NT ceiling. My WesPac mobile unit reports that the Navy DMS Tactical Pilot on the USS Blue Ridge command ship of the 7th Fleet has run into a Windows NT reality that could crimp the style of IT-21 power users. NT servers currently can't handle anything above 16G of stored files - a real problem for the ship's computer users who routinely send and receive e-mail files with attachments in the 250M range. Besides the usual promised fix in the next release Patrick Arnold the Microsoft rep on the Blue Ridge suggested users limit their to files to 80M. Maybe they could just keep installing servers a solution the hardware guys would love.[

]* Go green. That's the heart of the message that Army Brig. Gen. Robert Nabors commander of the 5th Signal Command delivered at last week's AFCEA TechNet '97 conference for deployed forces looking to quickly install comms in austere environments. The 5th Signal installed and still oversees operation of the comms in Bosnia now handled mostly by Sprint through a commercial contract.[

]But while the 5th Signal has managed to get tactical Army comms using big green boxes and dishes up and running in real-world deployments in as little as four hours Nabors said Sprint took 150 days - about double the estimated time - to install its commercial network in Hungary and Bosnia. This sounds like a lesson learned that the outsourcing fanatics should take a close look at.[

] * Phone home sailor. From almost anywhere thanks to a sweetheart of a deal that Navy Exchange boss Rear Adm. Paul Soderberg struck with AT&T to extend pay-phone service to all deployed ships. The new deal cuts the cost of an at-sea phone call from $6 a minute to about $1 a minute although at these rates AT&T Government honcho Dick Lombardi probably will not be sending those famed AT&T $100 checks to any deployed sailors.[

] The USS Nimitz Battle Group and the USS Peleliu Amphibious Readiness Group will be the first to receive the less expensive phone service. Plans call for all Navy ships to have phone service within the next five years.[

]* AFCEA TechNet notes. Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski as usual wins the award for the most cerebral presentation: an 8 a.m. mind-testing presentation that was long on philosophy and intellectual insights and reminded The Interceptor of a Fordham University class on Thomistic philosophy that convened thrice weekly at a similar uncivilized hour of the day.[

]Honeywell/Racal had the best come-on: a raffle for a 1994 bottle of Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon with a ticket proffered to anyone willing to listen to a pitch for airborne satcom.[

]The new crisply designed MCI booth does not win for its design (that goes to the NIMA booth) but rather in an even more exalted category: thickest carpet at the show. Does this mean Jerry Edgerton and the troops over at MCI Government have started going soft?