The award will see telcos join numerous collaborative projects on 5G, including augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) for missions and soldier training, smart warehouses, boost command and control exercises, among others, in a simmering tech race with Beijing.
DoD 5G: What's the Deal?
$600m has been awarded to private firms to conduct 5G experiments and tests at five military bases, the US Department of Defense (US DoD) announced on Thursday.
The bases – Join Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, Hill Air Force Base in Utah, Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada, Marine Corps Logistics Base in Albany, Georgia and Naval Base in San Diego, California – were selected based on current infrastructure as well as new network requirements, the DoD said.
Partners for the project include GBL System Corp, AT&T, Booz-Allen Hamilton, GE Research, Vectrus Mission Solutions Corporation, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Federated Wireless, KPMG LLP, Scientific Research Corp, Nokia, Ericsson, General Dynamics Mission Systems, Key Bridge Wireless LLC, and Shared Spectrum company.
Samsung will be one of the main suppliers of mid-band 5G spectrum for GBL System Corp, it was revealed.
Firms involved in the project will provide testbeds for 5G mid-band spectrum, protocols for reducing spectrum cross-interference as well as deploy numerous emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, automated smart warehouses, unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs), among many others.
The awards come amid a…
