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The Global Broadcast Service (GBS) is a broadcast service rapidly transferring information, which may be classified, for the
U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
(DoD) and its deployed and garrisoned units worldwide. Information may include video and digital data. GBS has become a critical piece of the DoD's
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance ISTAR stands for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance. In its macroscopic sense, ISTAR is a practice that links several battlefield functions together to assist a combat force in employing its sensors and managing t ...
architecture.Satellite Communications: GBS
U.S. Army's Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications-Tactical, last updated 6 March 2017, last accessed 12 November 2017
Global Broadcast Service
U.S. Air Force, dated 22 March 2017, last accessed 12 November 2017
An advancement in
satellite communications A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. C ...
, GBS fills two key
military communications Military communications or military signals involve all aspects of communications, or conveyance of information, by armed forces. Military communications span from pre-history to the present. The earliest military communications were delivered b ...
requirements:Joint Pub 6-02, Joint Doctrine for Employment of Operational-Tactical C4 Systems, 01 OCT 96
Pages IV-4 to IV-5.
* High
data rates In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted. ...
to many users at once * High data rates to very small, low-cost user receive-only terminals


History

Beginning in 1998, GBS began broadcasting via communication payloads on two Ultra High Frequency Follow-On (UFO)
Ka-band The Ka band (pronounced as either "kay-ay band" or "ka band") is a portion of the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum defined as frequencies in the range 26.5–40 gigahertz (GHz), i.e. wavelengths from slightly over one centime ...
augmented satellites and more recently all
Wideband Global SATCOM The Wideband Global SATCOM system (WGS) is a high capacity United States Space Force satellite communications system planned for use in partnership by the United States Department of Defense (DoD), Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) ...
(WGS) satellites (via Ka-band only).
Initial Operational Capability Initial operating capability or initial operational capability (IOC) is the state achieved when a capability is available in its minimum usefully deployable form. The term is often used in government or military procurement. The United States D ...
(IOC) for GBS Phase II, Block II was declared in October 2008. In 2014, the GBS Satellite Broadcast Manager (SBM) architecture transitioned to the
Defense Information Systems Agency The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), known as the Defense Communications Agency (DCA) until 1991, is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) combat support agency composed of military, federal civilians, and contractors. DISA pro ...
's (DISA) Defense Enterprise Computing Center (DECC) via two sites,
Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...
,
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New M ...
and Mechanicsburg,
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Mary ...
and remain in operations there today. At the onset of the GBS program, direct broadcast television was the dominant commercial model for the GBS architecture and the program followed that model using commercial
Asynchronous Transfer Mode Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ITU-T (formerly CCITT) for digital transmission of multiple types of traffic. ATM was developed to meet the needs of ...
equipment with customized government application software. As commercial satellite Internet services moved to
Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. I ...
(IP)-based equipment, GBS upgraded as well using the same commercially available equipment.Air Force Programs, Global Broadcast Service (GBS)
, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of the Directory, Operational Test & Evaluation, U.S. Department of Defense; dated 2002; last accessed 12 November 2017
The GBS acquisition strategy was initially conceived as a three-phase program based on an evolutionary system design supported by commercially available technology. Technical problems with transmit suite software, transportable and fixed receive suite design, and subsequent program delays led to a
Joint Requirements Oversight Council Part of the United States Department of Defense acquisition process, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) reviews programs designated as JROC interest and supports the acquisition review process in accordance with law (). The JROC accomp ...
decision to defer a small subset of capabilities, field the system with non-deferred capabilities, and then incrementally field upgrades until all the operational requirement thresholds were met and IOC declared. In 2016, the GBS program manager developed the GBS Phase-IV capability that included an upgraded Transportable Ground Receive Suite (TGRS), development of Suitcase and Rucksack Portable Receive Suites (SPRS and RPRS), and integration of the new Digital Video Broadcasting – Satellite – Second Generation (DVB-S2) waveform that should provide more efficient use of available bandwidth.FY16 Air Force Programs, Global Broadcast Service (GBS) System
, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of the Directory, Operational Test & Evaluation, U.S. Department of Defense; dated 2016; last accessed 12 November 2017


Operations

GBS consists of a SBM, co-located with DISA's DECC, and a variety of Receive Broadcast Managers (RBMs) owned and operated by the military services and other government agencies. The DECC connects to a variety of national sources through the Defense Information System Network. The SBM, Primary and Theater Injection Points (PIP and TIP), and DoD Teleport Gateways will then generate IP-based broadcasts for transmission over UFO and WGS satellites to be received by units equipped with RBMs, with up to 45  Mbps, that is designed to provide users with a broad range of bandwidth-intensive products without loading traditional command and communication networks. Deployed users can subscribe to large-volume national products --such as
full motion video Full-motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files (rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models) to display action in the game. While many games feature FMVs as a way to present information duri ...
from
unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
s, digital maps, satellite imagery, and much more-- using net-centric prioritized delivery based on unit mission reception priority profiles. The SBM is the primary broadcast content site through which information and products are transmitted once to the satellite via PIPs and teleport gateways and received by multiple RBMs saving valuable bandwidth and time. Through use of the TIP, GBS is capable of injecting information directly from within a
theater of operations In warfare, a theater or theatre is an area in which important military events occur or are in progress. A theater can include the entirety of the airspace, land and sea area that is or that may potentially become involved in war operations. T ...
under the theater commander's control. According to the
U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signa ...
, "GBS provides service to 1000+ GBS receive suites deployed worldwide at
U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...
,
U.S. Marines The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through co ...
,
U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...
, and U.S. Air Force ground sites, shipboard and subsurface platforms and at
U.S. Northern Command United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) is one of eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense. The command is tasked with providing military support for non-military authorities in the U.S., and protect ...
-sponsored homeland defense organizations worldwide." The U.S. Army has stated that GBS "provides critical situational awareness, decreases decision times and increases combat agility."


See also

*
Telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
* Communications protection * Transformational Satellite Communications System *
Defense Satellite Communications System The Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) is a United States Space Force satellite constellation that provides the United States with military communications to support globally distributed military users. Beginning in 2007, DSCS is be ...
* Advanced Extremely High Frequency *
Military Strategic and Tactical Relay Milstar (Military Strategic and Tactical Relay) is a constellation of military communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit, which are operated by the United States Space Force, and provide secure and jam-resistant worldwide communications ...
*
NIPRNet The Non-classified Internet Protocol (IP) Router Network (NIPRNet) is an IP network used to exchange unclassified information, including information subject to controls on distribution, among the private network's users. The NIPRNet also provide ...
*
SIPRNet The Secure Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) is "a system of interconnected computer networks used by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State to transmit classified information (up to and including information ...


References

{{Reflist Military communications of the United States