The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering at the Department of Defense (DoD) and the United State Air Force Warfare Center are partnering on a 5G prototype to be deployed for both defense and civilian use at the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada early next year.
The agencies are planning to deploy a private network for team members at mobile operations centers to test out the capabilities while on the move. The 5G infrastructure will be built from relocatable cell towers that can be quickly set up and taken down.
”The Defense Department recognizes 5G technology is vital to maintaining America’s military and economic advantages,” Joseph Evans, DoD technical director for 5G and lead for the 5G development effort, said in a May 28 press release. ”We expect to start construction on the network at Nellis in July and have it fully operational in January of next year.”
The Information Warfare Research Project will seek input from its members on Applications and Services for Survivable Command and Control (C2) and Wireless Network Enhancements prototypes for the project through an Other Transactional Authority process.
The latest test at Nellis is one of five 5G prototypes and experiments DoD is taking on across the country.
