NATO CCDCOE in cooperation with NATO HQ SACT held a NATO military 5G and Next Generation Networks (NGN) workshop that successfully elaborated the concrete actions, including interoperability and security aspects, for NATO to exploit 5G/NGN opportunities with an aim to sharpen NATO’s technological edge as foreseen in NATO 2030 agenda.
One of the two workshop moderators, Warren Low said that 5G technology has the potential to provide more than just faster speeds than available today on mobile devices supporting a wide range of commercial and military applications such as smart bases, smart logistics, and immersive experiences (Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality) to name a few.
“5G and NGN has real potential to support a future digital battlefield and that a movement to action to integrate the 5G/NGN with other military capabilities is needed,” said Low. He added that NATO and partner countries’ armed forces are examining and prototyping the use of 5G technologies as potential capabilities to a coming military digital transformation.
The other workshop moderator Piret Pernik, also a Strategy Researcher at the CCDCOE, said that this was the second joint workshop of CCDCOE and HQ SACT which brought together experts from defence sector, industry and academia.
“The information, experiences, and lessons learned exchanged during the workshop demonstrated the criticality of a sustaining and engaging a technologically oriented NATO subject matter expert community in the effort to integrate 5G/NGN into NATO operational use,” noted Pernik.
The workshop held on 16-17 February 2022 gathered almost 100 participants and speakers from NATO and partner countries in Tallinn and virtually.