WASHINGTON — Defense Department officials announced yesterday that they have awarded $600 million in contracts to 15 prime contractors to test and evaluate 5G technology at five military installations across the country, the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Technology said.
“5G networks, and the technologies built on them, are an essential component of our national defense strategy,” Adm. Michael Kratsios said in a conference call from the Pentagon. “The Department of Defense is committed to advancing this important emerging technology to improve the lethality and modernization of our force.”
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The five facilities – Hill Air Force Base in Utah, Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, Marine Corps Depot Albany in Georgia, Naval Base San Diego and Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada – will serve as application and evaluation sites for various 5G technologies.
This effort is the first in a larger DoD 5G initiative to accelerate the deployment of 5G technology, enhance the fighting power and lethality of U.S. forces, and foster the development and use of common 5G standards to ensure interoperability with military partners and allies.
Kratsios also said the department’s 5G efforts will benefit participating industry partners, because operating on U.S. military facilities will allow industry to move forward with its own experiments and testing more quickly than usual.
“For a private company outside of the Department of Defense to test 5G communications performance and capabilities, they would have to jump through tedious hoops, negotiating agreements with state and local authorities, obtaining permits for utility poles, and obtaining financing to build antennas,” Kratsios said. “The Department of Defense already has the people, operational capabilities, facilities, scale, and regulatory green light to accomplish this mission.”
At Joint Base Lewis-McChord, four vendors are working together to create a 5G-enabled testbed to enable augmented and virtual reality training, enhancing mission planning and distributed training.
To enhance the Navy’s logistics operations, four industry partners will develop 5G-enabled “smart warehouse” capabilities at Naval Base San Diego. The project will focus on transshipment between shore facilities and Navy units and will involve using 5G to improve the identification, recording, organization, storage, retrieval and transportation of supplies and materials.
At Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, like San Diego, the four vendors will focus on warehousing capabilities, but in Georgia the focus will be on storage and maintenance of Marine Corps vehicles.
Nellis AFB will serve as a test bed for using 5G technology to enhance operational and tactical command and control applications and services, where 5G networks will be used to decouple and displace existing C2 architectures in combat operational scenarios.
Finally, at Hill Air Force Base, six industry partners are working together to develop better ways to allow Air Force radar systems to share frequencies with 5G cellular service.
“We expect to see significant advances coming from these test sites in the months and years to come,” Kratsios said. “Nations that master advanced communications technologies will enjoy long-term economic and military advantages.”
Work on the testbed site will last for about three years, with the site expected to be installed within a year, and full-scale experiments to begin by the second year.
Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Hill Air Force Base, Naval Station San Diego and Marine Corps Depot Albany were designated as Tranche 1 testbeds for 5G capabilities in October 2019. A request for proposals from interested industry partners was issued earlier this year. In May, Nellis Air Force Base was designated an additional Tranche 1 testbed.
The five Tranche 1 test sites were selected because they provide efficient access to site spectrum bands, mature fiber and wireless infrastructure, access to key facilities, support for new or improved infrastructure requirements, and the ability to conduct controlled experimentation through dynamic spectrum sharing.
The ministry in June also announced seven new locations that will serve as Tranche 2 testbeds for additional 5G functionality testing.
Tranche 2 locations include Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, Joint Base San Antonio, the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, Fort Hood, Texas, Marine Corps Base Pendleton, California, and Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
Dr. Joe Evans, lead director for 5G in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, expects the first bids to industry partners for Navy and Marine Corps bases in Tranche 2 will go out this month, with bidding for the associated Army and Air Force bases scheduled to continue through December.
Prime contractors for the Tranche 1 sites include AT&T, Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Ericsson, Federated Wireless, GBL System Corp., General Dynamics Mission Systems, Inc., GE Research, Key Bridge Wireless LLC, KPMG LLP, Nokia, Oceus Networks, Scientific Research Corporation, Shared Spectrum Company and Vectrus Mission Solutions Corporation.
“These sandbox activities on military bases will leverage the Department of Defense’s unique authority to pursue bold innovations in breakthrough technologies,” Kratsios said. “By strengthening collaboration among our military, industry and academic partners and renewing our commitment to fundamental research and development, we will sustain our nation’s technological advantage and the innovative talent that has long been a source of American strength and leadership.”
