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(Updated: April 4, 2017) On January 20, businessman Donald J. Trump became the 45th president of the United States. In the Oval Office he found telephone sets for both secure and non-secure calls, which were installed under his predecessor Barack Obama. Trump called them "beautiful phones", but nonetheless some small changes were made, apparently to better fit the image that he wants to present of himself. As Trump continued twittering there's speculation whether he still uses his very unsecure old Samsung Galaxy S III or a new phone that has been properly secured. At the moment this isn't clear, also because there are no photos yet showing Trump using a smartphone as president. This issue will be discussed when more information becomes available. President Trump signing an executive order, with the modified Cisco 8841 IP Phone and the older Cisco 7975 IP Phone with expansion module. January 24, 2017. The wooden box with presidential seal is an emergency call d...

(Updated: January 31, 2017) Over the past five years, a range of articles on this weblog covered the secure and non-secure phones used by president Barack Obama , whether in the White House, at his Summer residence or aboard Air Force One. With Donald Trump taking over the US presidency in a few days, it's a good moment to look back and provide a comprehensive overview of the communications equipment during Obama's time in office. Additional context for this was provided by a background story from the New York Times from April last year, as well as by several other sources, which show an almost complete overhaul of the communication systems of the Obama White House. Preparations under George W. Bush For the communications systems used by the president of the United States it was more important to be reliable, than to be up-to-date, and so the equipment often served decades, almost until the moment that there are few officials left who know how to maintain it. Modernization s...

(Updated: January 16, 2017) From a recent photo from the Oval Office, we learn that, probably last May, new telephones for non-secure calls have been installed in the White House. They replace older ones, that were used there since 1996. The new devices are IP phones , which means they run over an internal packet-switched IP network, instead of a traditional circuit-switched telephone network. The new Avaya 9608 The new device is a dark gray office phone, model 9608 , made by Avaya , which is a leading American manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. Avaya was previously part of Lucent Technologies, which was a spin-off of AT&T. This model is relatively simple, it's one that is commonly used in offices all over the world. It just has an average monochrome display - not a fancy color touch screen, like other high-end executive models from Avaya's 9600-series . Although that may look nice, for the president such features would not be of much use, as most of his calls ...

(Updated: July 24, 2014) The location that best represents Top Level Telecommunications in every sense of the word is probably Air Force One , the aircraft that carries the president of the United States. As unbelievable as it sounds, the telephone sets used aboard this plane dated back to the 1980s and so they were finally replaced by new ones in August 2012. Here we will take a look at this new telephone equipment, which is now used by president Obama when he travels by air. The new phones In a range of pictures showing president Barack Obama using a telephone aboard Air Force One, we can see that the new phones consist of a handset in a customized cradle. In the conference room they have a rubber foot so they can be placed on the table without sliding away: President Obama using one of the new phones aboard Air Force One (Photo: AP - October 24, 2012) The phone sets to be used by the president in his office room and the conference room have a brown/goldish color that matches the wo...

(UPDATED: May 17, 2014) On March 24 and 25, the third Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) is held in The Hague, the seat of the government of the Netherlands. As 58 world leaders will be present, including US president Obama, the summit takes place under severe security measures. Here we will take a look at some noticable things on the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Communications Security (COMSEC) front, especially regarding the American president. When some new details or pictures come up, they will be added. US presidential motorcade On the morning of Monday, March 24, president Obama flew in aboard Air Force One , accompanied by all the famous vehicles like the helicopters which become Marine One when he is aboard, and the cars of the presidential motorcade . As can be seen in this video , there are actually 4 identical and heavily armored presidential limousines, so two motorcades with each two identical limousines can be formed - so no one knows which one is carrying the president....