5G Summit Addresses DoD Need for Secure, Mobile Wireless for Strategic Advantage
Military users have implemented many innovative commercial wireless communications technologies and services to meet their constantly expanding information exchange requirements. These advanced capabilities, from satellite communications to terrestrial wireless, have been developed based on significant industry investments and related economies of scale. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Army are each working with Hughes to leverage private 5G networks, including Open RAN, for new capabilities such as rapid decision making supported by a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) and Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) capability. During the recent Potomac Officers Club’s 5G Summit, Hughes joined industry partners and Department of Defense (DoD) leaders to discuss further use of 5G technology that will ensure asymmetric warfighter advantage.
Commercial 5G Networks Improve Operations for the DoD
Hughes, an EchoStar company, has been working with the U.S. Navy since 2022 to test and deploy high-speed, secure private standalone 5G networking, the first opportunity for U.S. government users to employ such a network based on open-standards set by 3GPP and the O-RAN ALLIANCE. Military staff at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and locations in Hawaii have benefitted from this 5G infrastructure including a packet processing core, radio access, edge cloud, security, and network management all powering the resilient networking necessary to transform base operations, while automating and continuously optimizing them. In addition, the standalone, standards-based configuration including flexible Open Radio Access (ORAN) standards will connect seamlessly anywhere on the planet using Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Geostationary Orbit (GEO) satellite connectivity.
These network standards are optimized for performance, security, and local management for specific use cases that require the highest levels of resilience and dependability. The network meets the gold-standard established by ORAN, meaning it works with processors, cloud platforms and commercial off-the-shelf servers, plus it can support any third-party radio.
More specifically, the Hughes purpose-built network supports flight line applications. Prior to using this 5G network, the flight line did not have reliable, high data rate connectivity. The new 5G system helps create an optimized, data-enabled refueling system designed to ensure refueling staff is ready when each aircraft is available for fueling. This boosts base security and readiness for military aircraft operating on base.
In addition to enhancing operational efficiency, the base now has highly reliable and resilient mobile connectivity, something users did not have previously. This reliable connectivity can also continue when users go off base, especially outside of the U.S. Hughes has demonstrated RAN sharing, which supports users taking their mobile devices to other locations and keeping their secure, 5G applications from the home 5G core network.
The Hughes team is also working with the U.S. Army at Fort Bliss to provide 5G services based on flexible ORAN networking components. Hughes and the Army are testing a RIC to collect 5G network performance in order to control and improve network performance in near real time. The RIC technology specifically suits the DoD’s critical, time-sensitive decision making in Disrupted, Degraded, Intermittent, and Low-Bandwidth environments. This advanced RAN technology minimizes errors from manual RAN reconfigurations.
The ISAC capability gives a new 5G/6G feature to help meet the DoD’s Future G goals. ISAC can leverage ORAN flexibility to augment the foundational 5G communications capability with sensing radio frequency (RF), tracking objects and the ability to co-exist with other systems. This feature improves harmonization and sharing of spectrum, a critical resource, across multiple application areas.
Building on Today’s Successes Across More Military Facilities
The Potomac Officers Club’s 5G Summit enabled collaboration between DoD users and decision makers with industry innovators. Everyone agreed that the 5G demonstrations have been successful and need to continue as quickly and as broadly as possible by using industry’s speedy ‘time to market.’ Military users in various bases around the world can benefit from the secure 5G and resilient SATCOM capabilities validated at Whidbey Island.
The DoD issued its Private 5G Deployment Strategy in fall 2024 to address this expanded deployment requirement. The document specified that the DoD needs to deploy 5G, but the Department must not only protect against today's threats but transform the future network so that it is mission-tailored, integrated across the Joint Force, and cyber resilient. Through industry partnerships, like those developed between the U.S. Navy and the Hughes team, the Department will continue to leverage commercial broadband 5G for quality of life and routine mission needs. In addition, DoD will use the massive, low-latency, and high-reliability networking to meet non-commercial use cases, including flight line of the future. These steps will then lead to the development of 5G capabilities to meet demanding expeditionary and tactical missions.
Leveraging the advanced connectivity and networking that commercial 5G provides will enable military users to operate with the speed, precision, and efficiency necessary in future engagements. This strategy ensures the Department leverages the most appropriate commercial wireless investments, standardizes modernization processes, avoids stove-piped solutions, balances mission and costs, prioritizes cybersecurity and supply chain risk management, maximizes interoperability, and strengthens the U.S. industrial base.
The Hughes/EchoStar team looks forward to showing specific DoD users that private 5G and other commercial 5G networking can quickly bring security and flexibility to suit unique installation needs. Industry continues to move forward with 5G and resilient GEO/LEO SATCOM advances that can be implemented rapidly to give mobile networks greater security, operational efficiency, and resilience for future national security pursuits.