The military has been fielding Internet cafes to support the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) needs for the troops in Afghanistan since 2007. From a modest beginning of less than a dozen cafes back then, the project has now grown to over 360 active sites in Jan 2011. The Internet cafes employ an iDirect satellite modem, a Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), and the associated network devices. The cafes come in three sizes (Large, Medium, and Outpost) with 5-20 computers, 3-10 VoIP phones, and 1-3 webcams per cafe.
Unfortunately, there is a significant shortage of space capacity available for MWR purposes over Afghanistan. In response, the project team had to look for other ways to make better use of the bandwidth available. Riverbed Steelhead 250M and 250H devices were selected for the remote cafes, with two 2050 devices at each Teleport. Deployment of the Steelheads began in January 2010 and today over 75% of the Afghanistan Internet cafes include a Steelhead. Total traffic reduction has increased from 232 GB/month in Jan 2011 to over 13.5 TB/month today. Overall, the addition of Steelheads to the Afghanistan Internet cafe architecture has reduced the amount of traffic going over the satellite links by over 66 TB! Wow!
These bandwidth savings result in a much improved user experience for our deployed troops, who rely on the MWR Internet cafes to keep in touch with family and friends. The project team has since replaced the two 2050 devices at the Teleports with a single 6050 to handle the increasing number of TCP sessions, and those appliances, like their 2050 predecessors, have not missed a beat. Steelhead has been a great success story for the MWR Internet cafes in Afghanistan.
Dean Barsaleau
OEF Internet Cafe Program Manager
P.S.. I have attached the Bandwidth Optimization Report from our Fucino Teleport for January 2011, as well as a homemade graph I maintain to track Total Traffic Reduction.
