A Revised Calculation on the Value of Networking as Applied to Airborne Platforms

Over the last 10-15 years, much of society has taken for granted the value of having networked capabilities. Society has enjoyed the benefits of networking without considering a return on investment, or if a bigger network is always better. Over the years, various laws have been proposed to approximate the value of a network. These have ranged from Sarnoff's Law for an asymmetrical network, to Metcalfe's Law for one-to-one contacts, to Reed's Law for Group Forming Networks such as Internet Protocol (IP) networks. In reality there are many types of networks—phone, fax, radio, television, IP, satellite, line of sight radio system, etc.—and the current laws for approximating the value of a network fail to take into account key items such as that more connections may not always be better, the cost to join a network, the time to join a network, and negative costs of some connections. The authors will propose that just as trees don't grow to the sky, neither does the value of any network. This paper will present a relationship between the value of a network and the Air Force's current challenge with developing and justifying the cost of an Airborne Network.