Network design and architectural options for survivable multimedia communication networks

A major thrust in modern military communication planning is to integrate all existing and future propagation media resources into a communication system with the objective of providing more robust, reliable, survivable, and enduring communications performance in a stressed environment. The authors discuss the important architectural and network design options for integrating and effectively utilizing heterogeneous media into survivable multimedia communication networks. They give specific recommendations as to maximal benefit choices and quantify various aspects of resulting network performance. Specifically, they address network topology and connectivity, propagation media selection, and usage, and techniques for maximizing performance when providing integrated services over heterogeneous (including radio-based) links and external networks