The French armaments directorate (DGA) has selected EADS Defence & Security (DS) to carry out preparatory work for the development of an operational system consisting of army networks for latest-generation telecommunications, entitled Système Opérationnel Composé des Réseaux des Armées pour les TElécommunications Nouvelle Génération (SOCRATE NG).
Within the scope of this €2 M contract for its Defence and Communications Systems (DCS) Business Unit, DS is the prime contractor of a consortium that brings together T-Systems France, TDF, Bull, CS, Silicom and EADS Apsys.
The aim is to define the future infrastructure of a mainland telecommunications system for the French Ministry of Defence (MoD) as well as the associated administration/management support organization.
Being the first stage of a structuring programme within the MoD, the study is tasked with defining the technical, financial, legal and contractual conditions that will enable an optimized service to be offered that perfectly meets the MoD’s strategic and operational goals.
The study will end with the submission of a technical and financial proposal relating to the design, realization, deployment and support of such a telecommunications system in early 2008.
This new telecommunications setup, for which the first entries into service are planned for 2010 at the latest, aims at serving the three branches of the armed forces as a minimum stage and ensuring their transition to a combined and lasting system offering a reliable and powerful high speed end-to-end secure service.
It will also promote the exchange of information by allowing connection to interlinked networks (inter-ministerial or multinational).