US DoD announced seven more 5G testing locations 

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has announced seven additional locations to test 5G communications capability.

The new locations are part of the department’s second tranche of test-beds for the capability.

The test-beds are expected to be up and operational by the end of this year.

The additional US locations are Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, Joint Base San Antonio in Texas and the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in California, and Fort Hood in Texas.

Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California, Joint Base San Antonio and Tinker Air Force Base (AFB) in Oklahoma are the remaining sites.

US DoD 5G technical director Joseph Evans said: “DoD recognises that industry is driving 5G technology with massive investments in the many hundreds of billions of dollars.

“Because of that, DoD is working closely with industry partners to leverage those investments for military applications.

“In the coming weeks, the department will issue requests for proposals from industry from those industry partners to prototype and experiment at these Tranche II bases.”

Currently, experimentation of the 5G technology is ongoing at five installations across the US.

The five locations under the first tranche are Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington and its associated Yakima Training Center, Naval Base San Diego, California; Hill AFB in Utah and Nellis AFB in Nevada.

Evans added: “5G technology is vital to maintaining America’s military and economic advantages. 5G will be the advent of ubiquitous connectivity, that is the conductivity of everything and everyone, everywhere, through wireless communications.

“It is a transformational technology. With this latest tranche of bases and experiments, DoD is ensuring that our military can make use of 5G capabilities based on the innovations from US industries.”