The crumbling state of the HCS' communications network is well known and a crash programme to restore the network could cost over 12 billion zarks, money the military simply doesn't have. However now a commercial consortium headed by the state broadcaster Clone Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and including the major TV networks Clone TV and Cloneworld Entertainment could step in to fund an update to the tune of 8 billion zarks.
Why? Because commercial communications are dependant on the HCS network as the civil network doesn't exist in most parts of the empire. As the state of the HCS network has declined so bandwidth available to civil networks has become very hard to find, indeed the 3 biggest TV channels now have to timeshare one channel to many places in the empire (though if you had ever seen Clone television you might think this a blessing!)
The Clone government Media Department is also being urged to contribute and may add 750 million to the funding, with the HCS saying they can pay 1.3 billion. Together this money could fund major improvements and restoration to key parts of the HCS communications network but extra money will be needed to complete the job to all areas and start to build the network needed for future capabilities.
