I can probably take that, because the bulk of my troops were deployed forward, outside of the main airfield for almost the entire duration of our time there. There is a significant amount of infrastructure in place. I think you would be pleasantly surprised. Certainly the policy was in place when my tour was out. We had satellite phones, one down per section of soldiers, which was equivalent to a ratio of about one phone for ten. The soldiers were allowed to use that phone anytime. It wasn't required for operational reasons. They could call home, I would suggest, a few times a week if they wished to.
Although initially fairly austere when we first went in and seized that ground, the forward-operating bases were developed. Certainly in my time there satellite-based Internet was brought in. Again, when soldiers weren't out on a combat patrol or otherwise, they were able to go back and use the Internet and use it as a means to send e-mails back and forth to home.
It's a pretty stark difference from what I remember in Bosnia in 1992, where you went eight weeks, if you were lucky, waiting for a five-minute phone call, with a card, to call back home. I think that's gone a long way to keeping families connected. That's on top of the other services, like the hotline numbers and the services that are available on bases now so that spouses have access to getting things forwarded to theatre as well.