SNAP provides reach-back service to a regional hub regardless of geographical location to give soldiers a self-reliant, completely mobile data/Internet service, while the tropo systems provide redundant means of communication to fill pre-existing gaps in the communications infrastructure of the only permanently forward-stationed Patriot unit in the U.S. Army.
The tropo systems currently deployed are Comtech Systems Inc. MTTS Terminals, which are capable of interoperability with legacy military tropo systems (an updated configuration redesigned to reduce per/case weight was recently field-tested for Patriot data links during the Bold Quest 15 exercise in September).
"We are basically modernizing bandwidth capabilities of network infrastructure," said MAJ Jackie Kelley, signal officer of 35th ADA Brigade, in the Army report. "The current SNAP/TROPO and future equipment fielding will enable the ADA community to exercise seamless digital communications while preparing for their wartime mission."
