Signal Squadron soldiers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Combat Forces are being trained and equipped to participate in U.S. Africa Command's Africa Endeavor 2011 military-to-military multilateral communications exercise which began July 18, 2011.

This exercise has drawn participants from more than 30 African nations. The intent is to assist partner nations in developing effective communications between diverse organizations with vastly differing communications capabilities and equipment. The end result is a cohesive means of communications to allow participants to communicate effectively using standardized African Union forms, from the epicenter of a natural or man-made incident, to a regional headquarters, ECOWAS, and finally to the African Union.

A popular saying is that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish you have fed him for a lifetime. Africa Endeavor takes this maxim a bit further by providing the new fisherman two new fishing poles, bait and a season fishing license.

In order to meet the communications requirements for this exercise, AFRICOM and its supporting commands are providing both training and baseline equipment to ECOWAS and the African Standby Force. Once complete, this will set conditions for West Africa to better react to natural and man-made incidents.

The equipment being provided is an enhancement to the already existing closed loop ECOWAS Regional Information Exchange System (ERIES) currently being used. Though popular and familiar to the organization, ERIES has some limitations which doesn't allow it to meet this emerging regional need.

In order to provide effective communications over vast distances and ever changing terrain, redundancies must be integrated and incompatibility issues among participants must be overcome.

Though high frequency (HF) radio systems are currently the norm, integrating satellite communications is an excellent backup system and will provide ECOWAS a means to deploy its leadership or others quickly to the epicenter of an event with the capability of almost instantaneous communications back to the headquarters.

The Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) satellite system is a man portable system designed to meet this need. The system includes a small antenna, transceiver and connections to allow for both data and voice transfer. This system facilitates an initial entry package's capability to reach back to the headquarters until HF communications can be established.

"The BGAN system is a backup system to the HF," according to Lorenzo Spencer of AFRICOM's J6 who is serving as the exercise lead at ECOWAS headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria, for exercise Africa Endeavor. Expanding on this, Spencer shared that the BGAN system provides a limited capability for the African Standby Force to push forward with a small footprint and establish communications where HF may not be initially possible. "The focus of this is as a backup system, it is not a primary one," but does provide the initial capability for assessments and reporting on an incident, he said.

ECOWAS is also being given an IsaPhonePRO from Inmarsat, a hand-held satellite phone which is about twice the size of a cell phone. This tool will augment the BGAN system and provide even further reach for voice-only transmissions and global position identification.

In addition to the up-front funding of the BGAN system, there is a requirement for funding of the satellite connection. Through the current agreement, AFRICOM has agreed to provide subscriber identity module, or SIM, cards for one year of satellite connectivity to ECOWAS as an incentive to make use of this new asset. If ECOWAS wants to use the system beyond that year they will be required to fund satellite access time themselves.

CODAN U.S. Inc. is providing the other portion of the communications equipment tools for ECOWAS to reach out to the African Union as well as their peacekeeping forces once HF can be established.

With HF equipment there is an upfront cost, but beyond that, there only exists the normal wear and tear repairs and maintenance that would be required of any system.

John Eschenfelder, program manager for CODAN, works on programs throughout the world from product management to execution of programs.

"The MRX-Interoperability system is a transit-case based system that starts with building blocks," said Eschenfelder. The system is all inclusive from antennas, couplers, wiring and two "building blocks" of CODAN NGT-ASR high frequency radios. One is a 1KW system with the capability of reaching from ECOWAS headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria to AU headquarters in Addis Abba, Ethiopia. The other is a smaller 125W system for local and regional HF communications.

"But it's not just the radio systems," Eschenfelder was quick to add. "It's a communications system with the hooks to talk to existing assets or future assets. It is not just RF [radio] comms, you can have voice over IP [internet protocol] integration, data systems integration. I wouldn't call it an all encompassing solution, but a look toward the future solution; it is exactly the solution ECOWAS needs right now."

In other words, this system will help ECOWAS overcome its current incompatibility problems as they attempt to network with their 15 member states that all have differing communications systems from vendors around the world. It also compensates for future changes in member states equipment and the equipment of external actors who may come to join the network in times of need.

"The user interface is very similar to a mobile phone," Eschenfelder said. "It requires a little bit of radio communications knowledge to set it up the first time, but operation is very simple," he added.

While he feels confident in his ability to initially operate this equipment, ESF Signal Squadron soldier Lance Corporal Adeoye Omidiji commented, "I feel very good with the training; I think it is a very good plan. The ECOWAS in collaboration with the AU I think is a very good plan. As one of the participants, I have really learned a lot; I benefited a lot."

Omidiji continued that this training is good, but more time and more training is still needed, "so we can be more conversant and perfect on these communication gadget. I suggest the ECOWAS, AU and AFRICOM should make provision for more training in time."

That opportunity for more training may occur this fall. According to Brigadier General Hassan Lai, chief of staff to the African Standby Force, an ECOWAS command post exercise is in the works, which will once again allow for training on this new equipment and potentially more cross training between the ECOWAS Standby Force and U.S. AFRICOM.

Once Africa Endeavor 2011 comes to a close July 21, 2011, ECOWAS and the African Standby Force should be able to communicate in times of need, supporting the Western continent and reporting effectively and with ease to the AU and the world.