No signal: Sailors want better mobile connections at sea

By

Michael Hardy

130117-N-VA840-007 ATLANTIC OCEAN (Jan. 17, 2013) Information Systems Technician 3rd Class John Erskine, Chief Information Systems Technician Jennifer Williams, Cryptologic Technician (Networks) 2nd Class Tyrone Fuller, and Information Systems Technician 2nd Class Amanda Kisner work together to assess the security of the computer networks aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77). George H.W. Bush is conducting training and carrier qualifications in the Atlantic Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Leonard Adams Jr./Released)

The Navy is relaunching its Reducing Administrative Distractions campaign, a crowdsourcing platform seeking ideas from sailors to improve life in the service.

According to Navy Times, the program — created in 2013 — has been restyled as “New Issues 2015,” and combined with a larger Task Force Innovation initiative, dubbed The Hatch.

The first two rounds of RAD generated more than 2,000 ideas, many of them designed to improve mobility, according to Rear Adm. Linda Wakerman, who oversees the effort. Sailors who have mobile phones and tablets still have to log in to a wired desktop computer to get their work done in many cases, according to a report in USNI News.

“Ships only have so many seats where you can sit at a computer and get work done,” she said, as quoted in the report. A Mobility Integrated Product Team that the Navy assembled to address those concerns has conducted tests of Wi-Fi access points aboard the destroyer USS Laboon.

“We really need to get into this age where technology is working for us, and optimized, working for us effectively and efficiently,” Wackerman said in USNI News.