DARPA IAMANET developed scalable and secure Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETS) to support an entire battalion

The modern battlespace is an irregular, against a tech-enabled enemy, and within urban environments and/or complex terrain. Traditional communications infrastructure like cell phone towers are centralized therefore vulnerable to single point failures such as physical damage to their central server, or compromised by a cyber-attack. During disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear disasters, infrastructure can be rendered unusable. Therefore a tactical network should be able to be resilient to node failures and operate with little or no backbone infrastructure.