Singaporeans love their mobile phones. So it is no
surprise that one of the most common questions asked of signallers
is 'Why do we bother with signal equipment when we can use our
mobile phones to get communications?'
Chief Signal Officer, COL David Koh explained:
"The military environment is unique. Besides wanting to be
connected, the SAF also has specific requirements like
survivability and encryption.
This may preclude the use of commercially available equipment for
our operational purposes.
Furthermore, the civilian network infrastructure is not secure.
With the correct equipment, anyone can listen in on the information
passing through the network. This is not desirable.
Also, in an emergency, it is highly possible that the network will
not meet the SAF's requirements. For example, during the power
blackout at Choa Chu Kang a couple of months ago, the quality of
service in that area for mobile phones dropped.
This was because some connections and base stations might not have
been operating at full capacity. And more people were calling to
check up on friends and families.
So traffic increased and this placed more demands on the network,
which might not have been able to support all these
requirements.
This is something we cannot allow to happen in our security and
emergency services. So we need to have our own military systems to
rely on in times of crisis."
