Army readies for GIG-BE

The Army will spend $2.1 billion on the Installation Information Infrastructure Modernization Program to let its installations tie into DISA's Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Expansion program, Army CIO Lt. Gen. Steven Boutelle said this month at the Government Computer News 2004 Enterprise Architecture Conference in Washington.

The Defense Information Systems Agency is footing the bill to drop a Synchronous Optical Network with throughput of 10 Gbps on the doorstep of the military services, but it's up to each military branch to make sure their networks plug in.

Boutelle said I3MP, part of the Digital Switched Systems Modernization Program, already has upgraded some Army bases.