Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Expansion

The Global Information Grid Bandwidth Expansion (GIG BE) Program was a major United States Department of Defense (DOD) net centric transformational initiative executed by DISA. Part of the Global Information Grid project, GIG BE created a ubiquitous "bandwidth available" environment to improve national security intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, information assurance, as well as command and control. Through GIG BE, DISA leveraged DOD's existing end to end information transport capabilities, significantly expanding capacity and reliability to select Joint Staff approved locations worldwide. GIG BE achieved Full Operational Capability (FOC) on December 20, 2005.

This program provided increased bandwidth and diverse physical access to approximately 87 critical sites in the continental United States (CONUS), US Pacific Command (PACOM) and US European Command (EUCOM). These locations are interconnected via an expanded GIG core.

GIG BE provides a secure, robust, optical terrestrial network that delivers very high speed classified and unclassified Internet Protocol (IP) services to key operating locations worldwide. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration's (ASD/NII) vision is a "color to every base," physically diverse network access, optical mesh upgrades for the backbone network, and regional/MAN upgrades, where needed. "A color to every base" implies that every site has an OC 192 (10 gigabits per second) of usable IP dedicated to that site.

After extensive component integration and operational testing, implementation began in the middle of the 2004 fiscal year and extended through calendar year 2005. The initial implementation concentrated on six sites used during the proof of Initial Operational Capability (IOC), achieved on September 30, 2004. The GIG BE Program Office conducted detailed site surveys at all of the approximately 87 Joint Staff approved locations and parallel implementation in CONUS and overseas. The GIG BE Program Office completed the Final Operational Test and Evaluation (FOT&E) at 54 operational sites on October 7, 2005. On December 20, 2005, the GIG BE program achieved the milestone of Full Operational Capability.

Representatives Marty Meehan (D Mass) and Jim Saxton (R NJ) expressed concern in the selection process for a contractor to lead the GIG BE effort. They say it was handled "irresponsibly." The reason for this as expressed by Meehan's spokesperson Kimberly Abbott is the "whole bidding process wasn't as fair and open as it could have been", because a contractor and not the government led the decision process. SAIC won the contract who eventually handed a large subset of the engineering to By Light. Meehan did stress that he is not questioning the competence of the winners. These two congressman delivered a letter to the DoD regarding the contract but the issue was slowly forgotten.