The military intends to develop a wireless communication protocol which will facilitate a wireless work environment extending across the services, sources said yesterday.
But the military, which does not have enough specialist personnel to complete the plan on its own, will have to work with civilian companies, probably including overseas firms, to realize its vision.
It is expected to spend heavily on the project, since no country of this size has ever tried to develop a wireless communication protocol for the domestic market.
Western countries, especially the US, dominate wireless communication standards such as protocols that eliminate compatibility problems between different products.
These countries are willing to spend big money on setting up wireless communication standards because they have a global market to draw upon.
A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said military leaders might have been inspired by China's efforts in the field.
"China has in recent years successfully developed a communication protocol for wireless products using the code division multiple access (CDMA) technique," the official said.
"The project cost a lot of money," he said.
"China has a domestic market large enough to balance development costs of the CDMA communication protocol. But not so in Taiwan," he said.
"Some people suggested that we use China's protocol. But no one dared to agree to this for fear of compromising national security," he said.
The wireless communication protocol that the military wants to independently develop is aimed at integrating each of the wireless networks being built by its different branches.
The navy, for instance, is spearheading development in the area. It has entered its third year of construction of a wireless computer network that links vessels to central command.
The network is similar to the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) which the state-run Chunghwa Telecom has placed on the market, though it has not enjoyed significant sales in this country.
The navy also aims to achieve remote fault-detection and troubleshooting capabilities using these links.
This would make a great difference in a situation where a destroyer developed critical problems while on assignment away from its base.
Remote trouble-shooting could mitigate the need to send other ships to assist it.
But to reach this level of sophistication, the navy and other armed services would have to supplement the knowledge and operation skills of personnel.
Otherwise, the development of a wireless work environment would become a white elephant, wasting a large amount of money and resources.
The wireless communication protocol that the military plans to develop is likely to adopt the frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) system, which provides better security, and not the direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) system.
FHSS and DSSS are the dominant systems relied upon for wireless communication around the world.
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