I agree with raketenjagdpanzer with regards to long term reasons for wanting such a device for having computers back up, but I still can't see a non-intel player character buying into the significance of that when they are out there trying to survive.
Having a more concrete short term goal for the information and device would offer the players a plot that could unfold for almost any length of time.
Also with regards to communications lines, I know the military had a significant communications backbone in the mid-90's though I am not sure as to the robustness of it so I'm not totally sure how much of it would have survived after 4+ years of war. On another note too, is the time diference between real world mid 90's to what was envisioned when the game was originally written in the early 80's. Cell phones were in fairly wide use in the mid-90's but there is no such thing in the game canon.
Time for me to go back to my books and see if there is more to say on the communications infrastructure that was assumed to be in place at the time of the start of the war.
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