Industry Interview: AT&T
GIF 2010 Volume: 8 Issue: 5 (July/August)
Mike Shackelford, AT&T’s director of National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency programs, has more than 20 years experience in the Department of Defense and intelligence community. Before coming to Washington, D.C., he flew ES-3A Shadow reconnaissance jets. He is a commander in the Navy Reserve, former commanding officer of the Navy’s reserve network management capability, and current executive officer of the unit supporting NRO’s Military Support Directorate.
Q: What types of products and services are you offering to military and other government customers?
A: As a leading global provider of the world’s most advanced IP-based business communications services and the nation’s leading wireless, high speed Internet access, and voice services’ provider to the government market, AT&T can fully support the wireless, mobility, network and integrated IT requirements of defense and civilian agencies across all four General Service Administration [GSA] flagship contract vehicles.
For example, through the GSA Networx Universal and Enterprise contracts, we have utilized our IP-based global networks to help agencies globalize information systems and processes, adding sophisticated applications and capabilities, giving an agency greater bandwidth and speed to accommodate a wide variety of applications, including the convergence of voice, video and data.
Additionally, as a leader in wireless solutions, AT&T offers our federal government customers the power of the world’s largest network, the world’s most popular wireless telephones like the Apple iPhone, over 40 data centers, and the world’s best cybersecurity solutions. We help our customers incorporate the latest technologies from AT&T Labs into their operations, and we continue to invest billions into our networks to stay ahead of demand.
Q: What unique benefits does your company provide its customers in comparison with other companies in your field?
A: AT&T is one of the world’s most innovative companies: We’ve invented many of the most important modern technologies, including the transistor, radio astronomy, the laser and information theory.
Our work in the geospatial industry is very well-known. AT&T’s GeoCast is a highly scalable wireless network protocol that addresses ad hoc messages to receivers in a geographic area on a peer-to-peer basis and with no fixed infrastructure.
More recently, scientists at AT&T Labs won the $1 Million Netflix Prize, where teams competed to build an algorithm that outperformed Netflix’ Cinematch tool by 10 percent. AT&T’s Graphviz network visualization software creates high-quality node-link diagrams of data sets with 1 million or more nodes, and does so completely automatically, without manual editing or cleanup.
Q: How are you working to strengthen the security of your solutions?
A: AT&T is an industry leader in network and cybersecurity solutions for defense and civilian agencies.
Recently, AT&T was the first to receive authority to operate from the GSA to implement Managed Trusted IP Services [MTIPS]. MTIPS is an offering under the Networx Universal and Enterprise contracts that allows federal agencies to connect to the Internet via secure IP portals in full compliance with the Office of Management and Budget Trusted Internet Connections initiative.
Beyond compliance, AT&T’s MTIPS offering leverages a portfolio of standard security services to provide greater network security for mission-sensitive information, while reducing the number of agency vulnerabilities by using fewer external Internet connections.
We are excited about this announcement and feel MTIPS can enable federal agencies to augment their network defenses against cyber-attacks and serve as a baseline to support cybersecurity initiatives from the Obama administration.
Q: What are some of the most significant programs your company is currently working on with the military?
A: Currently, we’re working to deploy Secure Mobile Computing, the ability for mobile devices like netbooks and iPhones to securely access any application while roaming anywhere in the world.
If you can connect to the Internet, you can get data and communicate as though you were in the same room. While some might think that sounds easy, it’s not. It requires threat management, device management, VPNs, and secure biometric authentication that refers to an authoritative enterprise authorization database. Most importantly, it has to work for thousands of people at the same time. Getting one device to work is easy compared to having thousands of simultaneous users. But if there’s one thing AT&T excels at, it is solutions that perform at scale.
We already offer mobile devices with certified Type 1 encryption. We want to take that capability to the next level by offering fully integrated secure applications needed by the operator on the move. We’re also developing mobile applications for iPhone and Android operating systems that take advantage of the AT&T backbone to deliver need information to our military customers.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
A: It is a real pleasure and a privilege to have the opportunity to bring the power of AT&T to NGA and its customers. NGA is driving forward and insisting on innovative new approaches to solve difficult problems. That’s the kind of environment I enjoy and where AT&T thrives. This is going to be fun. ♦