The signal officer, rather than running these machines, instead may find the role to be assisting personnel who have not been trained on other machines. A significant role for the Signal Corps may lie in software control. In communications security, for example, control will remain in the signal world to avoid user confusion. A major challenge facing all military communications experts is frequency availability. Just as the services are developing bigger bandwidth requirements, needed frequencies are being removed from military use and assigned or auctioned for commercial purposes.
Planners requiring more advanced and higher bandwidth have fewer usable frequencies.
Military users who work within frequencies that historically have been designated for their use now are facing severe limitations. That is a law of physics, and we really are being squeezed there. This problem is not limited to the United States. Other nations have their own frequency allocations, and U.S. forces passing through or operating in another country potentially face frequency conflicts. Digital technology is helping to relieve the problem to a degree by allowing engineers to slice frequencies to a more finite level than previously attainable.