CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

The article reports that as the Pentagon prepared for a November meeting to decide how to proceed with a $32-billion program to deploy its next generation or secure, software-defined radios, many troops in Iraq have their own solution: commercial handheld radios that cost less than $100 a set. On April 25, 2005 the U.S. Defense Department sent Boeing Co. a showcause letter, indicating it was considering canceling Boeing's $856-million contract for the first Joint Tactical Radio System phase, or cluster, designed to provide new radios for Army ground and aerial vehicles.