January 19, 2008: The U.S. Army is dropping conventional phone lines (based on copper cables), and moving to an all-Internet (packet switched data) network. This VOIP (Voice Over IP) approach simplifies things, and produces a more robust communications system. That's because the Internet was originally designed to survive a nuclear war. Fault tolerance is built in. Once Internet systems take over all administrative communications, all combat systems will do the same. The newly developed battlefield systems, introduced in bits and pieces over the last decades, are also based on Internet technology.

Other nations are doing the same, but often out of necessity. The Internet uses more efficient, and cheaper, communications technologies than the century old analog telephone networks. Many less developed nations never fully implemented the old analog networks, so it's cheaper to go with the new tech. That's why many poor nations are finally getting decent telephone systems, courtesy of cell phones (which, like the Internet, use digital technology, rather than the older analog stuff.)