Military units supporting relief operations in Japan face bandwidth shortages

Military units operating in Japan face bandwidth shortages and network limitations that inhibit communications and command and control, Defense sources told Nextgov. Misawa Air Base, located on the northeast tip of Honshu, warned its personnel on a blog post Friday that the Defense Switched Network, which handles voice calls, was in backup mode and had only limited capacity. The blog post added, "We have a number of connectivity issues. Internet has been up and down due to our connections through other places in Japan. For example, Yokota [Air Base] and several other locations are having issues because we all have power and connectivity issues right now." The Pentagon also took the extraordinary step of blocking access to a range of commercial websites to ensure that its networks have enough bandwidth to support mission-essential communications, Nextgov learned. This move, a military source told Nextgov, possibly indicates one or more undersea cables used by military networks were damaged by the earthquake.