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Comm squadron provides link home

  • Published
  • By By Tech. Sgt. Drew Nystrom
  • 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan --  Free wireless internet service began yesterday for Air Force-affiliated members here at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.

The initiative, mandated by Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley, is part of the Air Force-wide, "Year of the Air Force Family" program and seeks to provide a means for deployed Airmen to contact their families.

According to Lt. Col. William 'Mack' Bessemer, the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Communication Squadron Commander, Airmen operating in nearly all areas of Bagram Airfield will have access to the Web.

"Right now, all of Camp Cunningham, Camp Yuen, the Joint Operations Center, Camp Warrior, the tower area and most of the areas along the flightline will have access to it," Bessemer said.

According to the colonel, the system will enable 300 to 400 Airmen to log on at once and use medium-rate voice over internet applications.

The capability should be comparable to what commercial internet providers are providing for about $70 a month now.

"Hopefully, it [the capability] will be a little better," Bessemer, a native of Pleasant Beach, N.J., said.

The only Web sites slated to be blocked will be those that are clear violations of U.S. Air Forces Central General Order 1B and sites that could "bog down" the system.
"The only things we're going to block are pornography and torrent sites," the lieutenant colonel said. "Pretty much everything else should be unblocked."

Torrent sites are peer-to-peer file sharing sites used to download media, but use a lot of bandwidth in doing so and could slow down the system substantially, the squadron commander said.

The process for accessing the service is pretty straight-forward, Bessemer said.
Airmen assigned by their respective squadron commanders will gather interested people's media access control addresses. The MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to most network adapters or network interface cards by their manufacturers for identification.

Each Airman or Air Force-affiliated civilian will only be allowed to submit one MAC address. According to Bessemer, the reason for this is to limit potential abuse where validated users might add unauthorized users to the list.

The lieutenant colonel acknowledged some Airmen have more than one wireless-enabled device here, but the "one and done" policy is the only way to curb potential abuse.

"The way it works is, if after accessing the wireless connection, the system recognizes your MAC address it will accomplish a "handshake" with your computer and allow it on the network," Bessemer said.

The list of approved MAC addresses will be updated frequently to allow newly assigned Airmen and those who haven't tried it before to have access.

According to Bessemer, the first 30 days of service will be considered a testing phase where it will be operational, but like any new system bugs will have to be worked out.

After the testing phase, the system will be fully operational and the Communication Squadron will be prepared to help with any issues.

While the wireless access is an important morale tool, Bessemer made sure to note that it is a secondary priority to mission accomplishment here. Communication requirements for defending the base, supplying the fight and winning will always come first.

The new system leverages emerging technology called worldwide interoperability for microwave access which is a wireless digital communications system intended for wireless metropolitan area networks.

It can provide a broadband wireless signal up to 30 miles whereas the typical wireless local area network, known to most as Wi-Fi, is limited in most cases to only 100 to 300 feet.

Most laptops and other devices Airmen have aren't equipped to "read" the new Wi-MAX signal, so Wi-Fi routers will be situated around the base to turn the signal into something useable.

According to Bessemer, the wireless system project has been a labor of love for the Airmen of the Communications Squadron. With the high operations tempo at Bagram, most of the work was done on a voluntary basis after the mission-oriented tasks were taken care of.

"The Moralenet has been something my squadron and I have worked very hard to try and provide," Bessemer said. "We hope it is something that you will enjoy and make your stay at Bagram a little better than before."