The U.S. military attaches great importance to the 5G private network will soon land on the U.S. Navy base

The U.S. military attaches great importance to the 5G private network will soon land on the U.S. Navy base In the context of widespread global deployment and the initial effect on the industry's digital upgrade, the main technologies, scenarios, and modes of 5G applications in the military sector deserve our attention. Recently, Hughes Network Systems (Hughes) announced that it was awarded an $18 million contract by the U.S. Department of Defense to deploy a standalone 5G private network at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington. This is another important landing for the U.S. military in the 5G space and is a typical practice for 5G private networks in the military. Against the backdrop of widespread global deployment and incipient effects on industry digital upgrades, the key technologies, scenarios, and models for 5G applications in the military sector deserve our attention. What are the characteristics of a dedicated 5G network for naval bases? According to public information, in this $18 million DoD contract for a dedicated 5G network, Hughes is acting as a "turnkey" contractor, working with multiple parties to promote the construction of a dedicated 5G network for Naval Air Station to support the base's operations, maintenance, and aircraft flight management. The contract was signed under an Other TransactionAgreement (OTA), a congressionally mandated contracting agreement that streamlines project procedures, reduces intermediate steps, and allows the contractor greater autonomy and freedom in the use of funds and program development, thereby accelerating project progress. The OTA contract is awarded through the U.S. Congress. The OTA contract was issued through the U.S. Information Warfare Research Program (IWRP) Consortium, an organization designed to engage industry and academia in the development and maturation of technology in the field of information warfare to improve the mission effectiveness of the Navy and Marine Corps. This 5G network serving Naval Air Stations has the following features. (1) Integrated air-space-space services with satellite communications Hughes executives noted that the three-year contract will see Hughes provide the U.S. Department of Defense with 5G infrastructure, including core network, radio access network, edge cloud, security and network management solutions to provide resilient network support for base operations and enable process/system automation and continuous optimization of 5G-based networks. The private network uses low earth orbit (LEO) and geostationary orbit (GEO) satellite connections to enable seamless network connectivity to any region of the globe. A check of Hughes Network Systems' history shows that the company has more than 50 years of experience with satellites and multiple transmission technologies and networks, providing broadband equipment, services and network operations to its customers. Hughes is also a professional satellite operator and is a leader in the global satellite terminal market. For example, Hughes' JUPITER system provides Internet access to tens of millions of users worldwide, and Hughes is a major investor in OneWeb, a London-based satellite communications provider. With this background, this DoD 5G private network project will enable integrated air-space-space services in addition to terrestrial network infrastructure, which is in line with the communications needs of the Naval Air Station. (2) Use of Operator Dish Wireless' Spectrum Resources From the press release information, this project does not use the military's radio spectrum, but rather uses the spectrum resources provided by Dish Wireless. In Hughes' view, Dish is the only operator that can provide a combination of low-band, mid-band and millimeter wave spectrum. Dish is the fourth largest operator in the U.S. and the first to build a 5G network entirely using the virtualized Open Ran model. To date, Dish has spent heavily to acquire wireless spectrum licenses in multiple bands through auctions, such as the company's 50 MHz Citizens' Radio (CBRS) Priority Access Licenses (PALs) license in 2020 for more than $900 million and the recent $7.3 billion acquisition of 31 MHz resources in the 3.45 GHz band. The high cost of spectrum resources has caused some problems for Dish's network construction and operation. However, Dish has said that wireless private networks are attractive in leveraging the potential value of its spectrum resources, and the company has also partnered with several system integrators and cloud service vendors to promote 5G private network solutions, such as Amazon's AWS Private 5G solution launched in partnership with Dish. In order to give full play to the value of spectrum resources, Dish cooperated with Hughes to provide spectrum support for the Navy base 5G private network this time, which can be said to be a landing of its private network business direction. (3) Adoption of Open Ran standard Another typical feature is that this private network is built using the Open Ran standard. The related supporting facilities deployment has been launched first in September 2021, and the system adopts a zero-trust architecture and meets the requirements of the U.S. National Security Agency's classified commercial solution, so the open source radio access network is used in the infrastructure selection. Hughes, as the integrator of this dedicated 5G network, has partners including Boingo Wireless, Cisco, Dell, Dish Wireless, JMA Wireless and Intel Corporation. As you can see, the partners are all U.S. based companies, and all are dedicated followers and practitioners of OpenRan. The goal of these companies is to drive combat troops to more efficient data transmission and applications through 5G networks with Open Ran architecture, and subsequently, Hughes will achieve continuous enhancement and optimization of network support effectiveness based on technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. U.S. Military Places High Priority on 5G in Military Applications In addition to the $18 million contract Hughes received for a dedicated 5G network, which is part of the 5G experiment being implemented by the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Defense 5G program is already underway on multiple fronts. In 2020, the U.S. Pentagon issued contracts worth about $600 million to 15 vendors to build networks at five military bases. By 2021, the Pentagon issued bids for an additional seven bases, bringing the total number of trials to 12. In its fiscal year 2022 budget request, the Pentagon seeks a total of $393 million for 5G research, with $375 million for base experiments and another $23 million for a "post-5G" program looking at future generations of wireless capabilities, being implemented in partnership with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Science Foundation. With these funds, the U.S. Department of Defense continues to conduct 5G experiments in various areas, such as smart warehousing, advanced radar, augmented reality and virtual reality. For example, in September 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded two research contracts to Guardian for the Information Warfare Research Program, which will evaluate the use of 5G networks in the battlefield over three years and explore how 5G technology can enhance warfighting capabilities, focusing on two areas. First, improving command and control applications and services, using 5G technology to integrate software such as C4ISR, networking and cybersecurity into tactical networks to improve battlefield visibility, and also exploring the use of 5G to support ISR mapping. The second is the deployment of 5G networks for "agile combat deployment" operations in an adversarial environment, seeking to achieve rapid configuration and deployment of secure 5G nodes that can help combat in unknown theaters. As the trial proceeds, the U.S. Department of Defense is further increasing its focus on 5G. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that it has established a 5G and Future G cross-functional team (CFT) to accelerate the adoption of transformative 5G and future-generation wireless network technologies. The move was authorized by Congress in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 to establish the CFT to enrich collaboration and integration between the DoD and private sector to accelerate the delivery of new capabilities to the warfighter. The acting chief director of 5G and Future G at DoD cited that today's warfighting requires accelerated development of 5G technologies and large-scale prototyping and experimentation, and that the 5G and Next Generation cross-functional team will play a key role in driving the development of 5G and Next Generation capabilities for the U.S. Defense Department. This cross-functional team will be responsible for policy, guidance, research, development and acquisition of 5G and next-generation wireless technologies within the U.S. Department of Defense, and will also strengthen the U.S. Department of Defense's external relationships by coordinating with industry, cross-sector and international partners to ensure interoperability. The Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering will chair the team, which will include senior officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the military services and the combatant commands. The U.S. military's focus on 5G, in addition to enhancing military capabilities through 5G, also has system security as a key concern, which often involves a view of China's 5G development as a challenge to the United States. As early as 2019, the Defense Innovation Board of the U.S. Department of Defense released the report 5G Ecosystem: risks and opportunities for the Department of Defense, which directly pointed out that if China were to take the lead in 5G development, it would not only pose security risks to the U.S. defense system, but more importantly, would directly threaten the U.S. leadership in 5G, which in turn would adversely affect its economic and national interests. Therefore, the core view of this DoD report is the desire to avoid China taking the lead and to make every effort to enhance U.S. control in the 5G supply chain to ensure the security of its defense systems worldwide and to preserve its leadership position and economic and social interests. Currently, 5G applications in industry are in full swing, and certainly, military applications will not stop there. However, the application of 5G in the military carries further responsibilities, so it is worth paying attention and analyzing in depth behind the deployment characteristics of various projects.