Shipboard Wi-Fi

The Navy's next generation shipboard network -- Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) -- which the Pentagon green-lighted for engineering and manufacturing development on Monday, will feature secure Wi-Fi access, Mike Twyman, C3I veep for Northrop Grumman, told me. Northrop is in a competition with Lockheed Martin to develop CANES.

Twyman did not provide details on how many access points the Navy would need to install on a ship, bit since ships consist of a lot of steel which defeats propagation, I bet if Northrop wins the deal, then it will need to install an access point in practically every compartment.

Twyman declined to provide me with specifics on the Northrop CANES architecture, except to say the company planned to use commercial components housed in rugged racks.

The Navy plans to install CANES on 275 ships at a cost of $1.5 billion.