DoD communications support to telemedicine

The DoD´s job is to design a robust, scalable telecommunications network for the future that can meet all requirements and not have separate stovepipe uninteroperable networks that one has had in the past. So, this technology spans a lot of the functional areas. The author considers telemedicine as one of the leading edges that will help one get there. The Defense Information System, Draft RFP will be out in June 1995. Final RFP in January of 1996. Services to be turned on very shortly thereafter, within 6 or 8 months. It will provide the worldwide communications infrastructure that users are looking for. The DoD will migrate all of the existing initiatives that people have from FTS-2000, whatever they are using, publish switch networks to this new capability. The DoD will do all of the interfaces that users are looking for, and they will provide a capability for facilitating for the future technology as it emerges, with a lot of technology insertion capabilities