"It's really good, but it is extremely complicated and... it's better than what we had before," Col. James Stultz, who leads the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, said of the nascent Integrated Tactical Network. "I'm not complaining, but it's a waypoint, it's not the end state." This candid appraisal indicates that while improvements in the Integrated Tactical Network (ITN) are acknowledged, there remains a significant gap between current capabilities and what soldiers require for effective operations.
"There's a lot of people that want it that don't have it...so we're in a have/have-not world in terms of ITN," Stultz said. "I'm a big fan, but it's not a field-and-immediately-execute" type of capability. This statement outlines the disparity in access to the ITN among soldiers and emphasizes the ongoing challenges in making the network more user-friendly and immediate.
The Army uses a myriad of means to transmit and receive voice calls and other data in the field: radios, satellite terminals, cell phones, and more. The ITN is an effort to combine the service's existing gear with off-the-shelf products to improve connectivity and mission command. This highlights the complex existing communication ecosystem and the intent behind the ITN to streamline and enhance it.
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