KANADAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- There was an increased number of communication outages throughout the months of September and October.
What was causing all of these outages? These service interruptions were a painful, but necessary, part of the comprehensive Air Force communications restructure that is replacing old contingency systems with new, state-of-the-art, enduring systems to provide more reliable and stable communications.
In the past three months, the 451st Expeditionary Communications Squadron has accomplished a complete overhaul of all major communications systems, leading the way to a comprehensive transition from tactical to permanent communications.
Some major upgrades include moving the Network Control Center into a permanent facility, activating two new Satellite dishes, installing an underground fiber-optic network backbone, and the on-going installation of a new commercial-quality DSN phone switch.
All of this was done while operating, expanding, and maintaining the incredibly complex environment of communications systems used every day here at Kandahar Airfield.
Next, phone services were moved off of the tactical network and onto a new $2 million commercial phone switch.
The previous tactical hub-and-switch network was at maximum capacity, but the new phone system will eventually support five times as many customers with home-station functions like redial, call transfer, call hold, call forward, conference calls, and many more.
During the transition, there were drops in phone service for up to one hour for each user as each line was physically disconnected and reconnected onto the new system.
Immediately following the migration, each phone's prefix changed from "463" to "420."
Voice Over Secure Internet Protocol service was not affected.
The 451st ECS has been working hard to provide reliable, robust communications and responsive customer service to all customers.
The unit thanks everyone for their support and understanding during the transition from tactical to permanent communications.