In the years before digitisation, contingency communications were often improvised and unreliable. In the absence of mobile phones, fallback options were limited - sometimes to public phone boxes, which were useless in remote or hostile environments. Emergency comms were virtually non-existent and there was no real-time visibility of friendly forces. Risk levels were significantly higher and workarounds were part of daily life.
In the early 1990s, I deployed to Bosnia on a complex mission that spanning hundreds of miles. One of our key tasks was to extend secure radio coverage across a fractured, mountainous battlespace. What followed was a hard lesson in the realities of implementing Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency (PACE) communications - and how fragile those plans can be when infrastructure doesn’t yet exist.
This is not a hypothetical. This is what happens when theory meets terrain and when military operations begin without the fallback systems they urgently require.
Before digitisation, we had fewer tools - but more control
During the analogue era, communications equipment was simpler, but arguably more resilient. Radio operators relied on their own skills, not automated systems. When VHF or HF links failed, we could switch to Morse code - slow but effective. Today’s digital systems are binary: they work, or they don’t. And while data throughput has increased, fallback options have narrowed.
In that environment, we had no mobile phones and no illusions. Everyone knew that voice traffic - and the operator’s interpretation of the plan - the lifeline. Contingency plans were weak, Emergency options almost non-existent. But we adapted.
Bosnia, 1990s: extending the range at high risk
Based in Sarajevo, our task was to establish VHF coverage across a wide area. Three rebroadcast stations were needed - ideally located at altitude and secured by friendly forces. Sarajevo is surrounded by high mountains, many of them already held by friendly troops, which offered both physical security and access to power. But reaching those sites required complex permissions and hazardous journeys. Just getting to them involved a four-hour drive, including a trip through ‘Sniper Alley’, multiple hostile checkpoints and mountain ascents with no communications cover. If anything went wrong, we had no way to call for help.
After reaching the first site, we navigated the Alley - a road notorious for pot-shots from hidden gunmen - dodging crater-sized holes as we went. Then came the checkpoints. Twenty or more, each controlled by a different faction, each more volatile than the last. Guards rifled through our gear, confiscating what they pleased. Some only allowed us through after dragging anti-tank mines off the road. Tension was high.
At the foot of the mountain, we began the climb to a former Olympic ski site. We were on our own - out of communications range of HQ within minutes. The only safeguard was a check-in system: if we didn’t arrive in two hours, someone might come looking. But that delay meant if we were injured en route, it could be three hours before help arrived - well beyond the ‘golden hour’ window that can mean the difference between life and death.
The road up was more like a dry riverbed - loose gravel, big boulders and sheer drops. What could possibly go wrong? We reached the summit unscathed, though feeling a few years older and met the local troops holding the site. After installing the rebroadcast kit and confirming a comms link to HQ, I spoke to their detachment commander. He told me they regularly came under sniper fire - and had no real way to call for help. He had just returned from sick leave after his vehicle left the track and rolled into a minefield. Two of his men were injured, one badly. It was hours before help arrived. Luckily, they survived. But the incident exposed just how fragile our comms plan really was. That incident alone exposed the fragility of our communications plan - and how easily a routine deployment could become a crisis without a reliable fallback.
Those early weeks in theatre were disorienting. one fully understood the layout, the factions or the cultural rules of engagement. It took time to tune in - to learn what routes were safe, who was friendly and where not to linger. But even that required information flow. To plan, to assess risk, to coordinate with allies or local authorities - we needed communications in place. And yet, to build that network, we had to deploy teams into unknown terrain, often without comms of their own. If anything went wrong - a mechanical failure, a wrong turn, a hostile encounter - there was no way to raise the alarm. Our check-in system relied solely on someone noticing that we hadn’t arrived on time — hardly an emergency protocol.
Terrain and fragility undermined our PACE plan
We were proud to have achieved a link back to HQ - more than 60 miles away - and set off for the next location with cautious optimism. As we joined the main road, comms held steady. But as soon as we entered the next valley, everything dropped. This pattern repeated - valley after valley - until we reached Sarajevo, where coverage was only marginally better.
Bosnia is a strikingly beautiful country, carved by deep valleys and towering mountains. But that same terrain made VHF line-of-sight systems inherently unreliable. Even when rebroadcast stations functioned perfectly, their coverage was narrow and fragile. Movement between valleys - or even a modest shift in altitude - was enough to sever comms entirely.
Two days later, a technical fault at the first site forced us to make the journey all over again - another long, hazardous drive over terrain that was never safe. This wasn’t a one-off. These high-risk tasks were routine, sometimes two or three times a week. And every one of them could have been avoided with a reliable alternate system. Instead, the Primary became a single point of failure - and the price was risk.
At the time, there was no solution available that could bypass geography entirely. But if we’d had access to a compact, reliable satcom-based alternative - something that required no local infrastructure and provided position reporting and emergency alert - many of those journeys would have been totally unnecessary.
These weren’t rare failures - they were routine. A reminder that even well-planned communications architectures can collapse under hostile conditions, fragile infrastructure and unforgiving terrain.
Digital progress but still no real contingency
Since then, military communications systems have evolved - but not enough. Most Combat Net Radio (CNR) systems were designed for large formations moving in battle - brigades on the move, centrally coordinated. But modern operations are typically smaller, more agile and often conducted in environments with no fixed infrastructure. The equipment hasn’t kept pace.
Mobile phones have become the dominant fallback - especially during exercises. But this creates a dangerous illusion of capability. These devices rely entirely on fixed infrastructure that is often unavailable or unreliable on operations. They are not secure, not robust, and not designed for contested environments. And yet, they continue to mask the absence of reliable Contingency and Emergency options.
This is not a theoretical risk. Communications failures in deployed settings have cost lives. It is precisely because mobile phones are so familiar - and so heavily used in peacetime training - that they obscure the urgent need for hardened, assured communications systems.
Despite the boom in digital capability over the past two decades, most troops still deploy with suboptimal equipment - and without a dedicated Emergency layer. The result is a communications architecture that looks modern but remains fragile when it matters most.
Bracer™: what we didn’t have then - and what exists now
If we’d had access to Bracer™, QinetiQ’s encrypted push-to-talk satcom system, those Bosnia missions would have been radically safer. With global reach, low latency and no need for rebroadcast infrastructure, it delivers what our comms architecture lacked back then: a resilient, assured fallback.
Compact, rugged and designed for the realities of dispersed operations, Bracer provides voice, position reporting and emergency alert without relying on terrain, towers or goodwill. It enables reliable communications for the first ones out the door through to the last to return.
It doesn’t replace PACE - it completes it.
