Photo by Chramain Z. Brackett Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, Army chief information officer, speaks during Fort Gordon’s Industry Day Sept. 23. The Army is streamlining its communications’ tools, and it needs industry’s support, said a senior leader at the Armed Forces Communications Electronics Association’s Industry Days on Sept. 23.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, chief information officer, with the Department of the Army, described some of the information technology challenges the Army and its sister services were encountering in the war on terrorism and at home, and what the Army was doing to fix its portion.

What works in Iraq doesn’t necessarily work in Afghanistan.

“In Afghanistan, we do not have significant bandwidth to deliver that capability,” he said.

IT operations such as biometrics and streaming video have become vital in Iraq, but because of limited bandwidth, these functions are not as available in Afghanistan.

Another challenge is the interoperability issue.

Technology and equipment which has met the Army’s standards has sometimes not passed the tests of the Air Force or Navy, he said.

“We have to make sure it is interoperable,” he said. Stateside, there are other network issues. “The challenge in CONUS – this is Gen. Napper’s dream or nightmare maybe is to bring everything into a single network,” said Sorenson of Brig. Gen. Jennifer Napper, who is the commander of the 7th Signal Command (Theater).

Many installations have numerous networks at their single location. Fort Belvoir, for example, has 150 servers and five different email services. Calling someone to find out that person’s email address is a problem Sorenson said he shouldn’t have. By collapsing everything into one central network, many time consuming problems will be eliminated, and that is Napper’s mission, he said.

One major goal is to consolidate networks into five regional hubs in a three-year process. Europe is Phase 1. Phase 2 will include Southwest Asia and the Continental United States. Phase 2 is slated for FY 2010, and Phase 3, scheduled for FY 2011, includes the Pacific.