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Saturday, October 27, 2007

SOCRATE NG Wireless Military Network in France to Be Developed by Thales

The military sector is the one demanding most expenses and most advanced technologies under its command. After all, they are all used there to give and execute orders.

It has been reported by theengineer.co.uk that the French are willing to have a next generation network for military communication and in order to deploy it by 2010, as it is planned by the French defense procurement agency (DGA, Délégation Générale pour l’Armement), a contract for development of the SOCRATE NG military network has been awarded to Thales.

Thales is one of the leading companies for development in military sector. The company is known for being an expert in data encryption, surveillance equipment and other hi-tech devices for the military sector. Among latest success of Thales could be mentioned the launch of the Chinasat 6B telecommunication satellite in China, the first flight of the Maritime Surveillance Aircraft (MSA) #1 in Ankara, Turkey and other projects.

In 12 months Thales, which is a part of a consortium, including Orange Business Services, Alcatel-Lucent and Cogisys (a consulting firm), is obliged to present the DGA technical and financial information on the SOCRATE NG development.

SOCRATE NG stands for Système Opérationnel Constitué à partir des Réseaux des Armées pour les Télécommunications de Nouvelle Génération (Operational System Built on Armed Forces Networks for Telecommunications, New Generation). The system is to provide most of the France territory, including the Corsica island, with a seamless wireless networking for the military sector.

An interesting fact about the SOCRATE NG wireless network is that earlier this year the French Sagem Défense Sécurité has been awarded the very same contract, under the same conditions, as stated by the Sagem Defence official site. If one would read both press-releases, one could notice that some text in the reports look rather similar.

On the other hand, the Thales official site keeps silence about winning such a valuable development contract.

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