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DoD Extends Contract for ORAN-based Private 5G Networks through 2025
Contract Extension Awarded for 5G Deployments at bases in Washington and Hawaii to Help DoD Evaluate 5G Applications and LEO/GEO SATCOM Resiliency ENGLEWOOD,
About this update from Echostar Corporation
[{"type":"text","content":"Contract Extension Awarded for 5G Deployments at bases in Washington and Hawaii to Help DoD Evaluate 5G Applications and LEO/GEO SATCOM Resiliency\nENGLEWOOD, Colo., March 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, EchoStar (Nasdaq: SATS) announced the contract period of performance extension by the Department of Defense (DoD) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) FutureG Office, for the continued deployment of standalone 5G networks at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPHH) in Hawaii and at the Naval Air Station Whidbey Island (NASWI) in Washington State. The contract extension builds on the award for NASWI in 2021 and additional expansion in Hawaii in 2022, extending both through 2025 with additional 5G enhancements. EchoStar is a premier supporter of the use of Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) in DoD networks and recently won a $50M NTIA grant to build an ORAN test center. \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \nContract Extension Awarded for 5G Deployments at bases in Washington and Hawaii\"The award extension demonstrates the value of this multi-vendor solution and follows the successful launch of the 5G network at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island – the first 5G ORAN at a U.S. DoD base,\" said Dr. Rajeev Gopal, vice president, Advanced Programs, Hughes. \"Together, the NASWI and Hawaii site configurations demonstrate the power of 5G standalone ORAN networks to support increasingly automated base operations, securely and with the resilience necessary to maintain information assurance in any circumstance – holding tremendous promise for DoD applications.\"\nEchoStar subsidiary Hughes leads the deployments as the prime contractor, integrating standards-based, best-of-breed components, like radio access, edge cloud, and a packet processing core, with Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) and seamless, global satellite connectivity augmented by embedded Network Operations Capabilities (NOC) and Security Operations Capabilities (SOC). The project is using ORAN infrastructure and engineering expertise along with EchoStar's 5G spectrum. There are transport routers, switches, and firewalls from Cisco; computing infrastructure from Dell Technologies; radio access network (RAN) from JMA Wireless; edge cloud stack and Intel® Xeon® processors from Intel; and site survey and network installation services from Boingo Wireless....