I/ITSEC News: Department of Defense needs ‘data diet’ to harness 5G potential
orlando — 5G wireless communications could enable more immersive training simulations, but to take full advantage of the increased bandwidth, the Department of Defense will need to rethink how it uses data. Army officials said there is.
As modernization efforts sweep through the service, greater capabilities come with greater bandwidth requirements, said Young Bunn, principal assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, and director of the National Training and Simulation Association’s Inter-Services This was stated during a panel discussion at the Inter-Industry Training and Simulation. and an education conference on November 29th.
“The potential for 5G is huge,” said Bunn, looking ahead to 10G. He said joint network efforts across the department revolve around connectivity and bandwidth, and more bandwidth means more applications can be supported.
“And we thought, ‘Oh, this is great.’ We can buy these products off the shelf,” and they can be supported by tactical units, he said. Told. “But what happened? All these applications ended up consuming our bandwidth.”
Certain applications were bandwidth-intensive, and even though the brigade had recently enjoyed a newly acquired surge in capacity, they “were quickly running out of space,” he said.
Rather than focusing on increasing bandwidth, Bang suggested a shift in thinking: how to make the most of whatever bandwidth is available and use data more efficiently.
“Let’s look at data from a different perspective. …So it doesn’t consume bandwidth. Even if you get 10G, you’re going to run out of bandwidth at some point, right? Because, what? What should we do? We’re not thinking about data and applications properly, and we’re just giving away all the data whether we need it or not.”
Adopting open architecture is a step towards more efficient data integration, he suggested. Right now, “there’s a handful of companies that are making almost all of his 5G, right?” he said. “If we don’t act smart, there will be an opportunity for them to vertically integrate.”
Open architectures, open application programming interfaces and open standards are opportunities to promote interoperability, he said. “We will actually be able to consume better things without being tied to vendors. That way we can make 5G (our networks and capacity) more ubiquitous and dare to In other words, it can become more commoditized and not necessarily tied to a vendor or carrier.”
This is important for the military. Because this will allow you to take advantage of organic 5G, or organic communications and transportation, anywhere you go in the United States or abroad, which will lead to better and more unified training, he said. Stated.
The concept will be that the military will be able to conduct more realistic training at home stations using open standards and open architecture. However, he noted that the same standards may not exist overseas to allow for the same experience. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed, he added.
He said that in addition to making 5G more open, it also needs to be made more secure. And industry will also help.
“I would actually ask carriers to seriously consider how they are building 5G. “I think there’s a huge opportunity to think about how to secure all of that, whether it’s encryption or quantum key distribution,” he said. “We’re proposing that maybe he’s not just one approach or he’s not just one architecture. So we’re really going to look at proofs of concept in these areas.”
If industry can help re-engineer how data is used in applications and training in ways that require less bandwidth, “the promise of 5G and NextG will actually allow us to do even more. ” he said.
Jennifer Swanson, assistant secretary of the Army for data, engineering and software, said the industry could also help make 5G less detectable.
“One of the biggest deterrents to us bringing 4G and previous technologies into the field at scale is that it is very easily detected,” she said. “And obviously, that’s not going to help us, so we need to keep a low profile and we need to have security built in as well. So that’s what I wanted to make sure to get out there. I think one thing is that we need that kind of support from industry so that we can spread it when we need to spread it. ”
Enabling secure 5G and beyond means “perhaps…you can hide in plain sight,” Bang said. “If we can secure it, we can use our own networks, radios, 5G, enemy networks, transportation. And that’s how we’re thinking about it.”
Ultimately, he said, taking advantage of 5G will require a change in perspective.
“If we don’t resolve this confusion around data, architecture, and limited capacity and bandwidth, even if we increase capacity, we won’t actually be able to achieve the efficiency and speed of our algorithms. Soldiers… Look at your data diet and architecture differently to ensure you have the information to enable a common experience.”
topic: battlefield communications
