5G has the ability to offer much more than just faster connectivity. It represents a platform for mission agility for both defense and civilian agencies, redefining how the government delivers services, connects warfighters, and protects data. Leaders from the Department of Defense (DoD), the Navy, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and Verizon discussed how their organizations are translating this promise into action at the “Federal Executive Forum 5G Strategies in Government Progress and Best Practices 2025” webinar.
The panel of speakers included:
- Dr. Tom Rondeau, Principal Director for FutureG, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, DoD
- Jason Fox, Director, 5G IPT, DON Office of the CIO, Navy
- Amanda Toman, Director, Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund, NTIA, Commerce Department
- Bryan Schromsky, Director, Solution Architects for Mobility, Verizon
- Mike Loomis, Chief Executive Officer, Nokia Federal Solutions
DoD’s 5G Integration Efforts
Dr. Tom Rondeau explained how the scalable, interoperable, resilient 5G program is helping the DoD and its allies advance 5G. He explained, “We’ve built up this construct with our NATO partners, where we can add 5G secure roaming… own security, own authentication, own sovereign independence… but then, using that construct, actually fuse them together.”
To facilitate seamless shifts between tactical and commercial systems, Rondeau highlighted the integration of tactical radios into 5G interfaces: “It’s a really flexible architecture using the software-defined nature of 5G in order to bridge these systems together.”
Navy’s 5G Priorities
Jason Fox outlined how the Navy is using 5G to modernize and cut costs. Through the consolidation of unused cellular services, the Spiral 4 acquisition contract has delivered “significant amounts of money” in savings.
Multi-operator core network technology, which lets multiple carriers share towers, is another innovation being led by the Navy. “Keeping us from having to deploy multiple towers, speeding up schedules, and reducing the costs for the carriers.”
Fox’s current top priority is scaling successful pilots: “How do we take those individual pilots and experiments… and bring them to Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia… Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego … how do we scale these capabilities and these use cases out across our entire $250 billion a year enterprise?”
NTIA Supporting Open, Interoperable Secure Wireless Networks
Amanda Toman highlighted the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund, which aims to promote the adoption of open, interoperable networks and diversify the ecosystem. According to her, “This is a congressionally mandated initiative to try to drive open and interoperable wireless networks, trying to drive 5G towards open and interoperable wireless networks.”
She described how the program has established test and evaluation laboratories that smaller companies can use to validate their equipment. “These laboratories are set up with our government funding … where companies can go in and test their equipment, verify things like interoperability, performance, efficiency, and security, and be a resource,” she said. After federal funding winds down, these labs are expected to continue operating independently.
Additionally, the fund is seeding U.S. manufacturing capabilities: “There’s not many U.S. manufacturers of radio units right now… so we’re looking, or we have invested in a variety of different companies, to try to drive the commercialization of those open and interoperable radio units.”
5G Network Slicing at Verizon
Bryan Schromsky provided insights into Verizon’s extensive 5G expansion, which includes the use of network slicing for public sector applications and the transition to a standalone 5G core. “As the networks get flatter and more integrated, we’re very excited we launched something called network slicing on our Verizon Frontline public sector roadmap,” he said. “It really ties into the applications and actually gives network attributes or capabilities to specific applications or users. That’s a fundamental shift.”
Schromsky explained that this capability is especially crucial for high-demand use cases like industrial IoT, body-worn cameras, and video transmission. He pointed out that agencies can transition from pilot projects to enterprise-scale deployments as chip costs decline, and 5G becomes embedded into more devices.
Additionally, he noted that there is a high demand, especially at ports and in defense facilities, for private wireless and neutral host networks. “The easiest way to describe [a private wireless network] is how do you deliver the most amount of bandwidth with the least amount of infrastructure?”
Nokia Federal’s Tactical 5G and Innovation Investments
Mike Loomis discussed Nokia Federal’s focus on integrated sensing capabilities, open RAN development, and tactical radios. He mentioned that Nokia is investing Innovation Fund resources into developing U.S.-based radio units and has made its 5G tactical radio, the BXR, generally available. These investments are intended to advance both tactical and enterprise use cases. “We made a great announcement in Mobile World Congress about partnering with Lockheed Martin and Verizon, around the development of 5G.MIL which will encompass technology investments into the tactical space.”
The Transformative Power of 5G
The panelists emphasized that the value of 5G goes beyond faster connectivity. It is becoming the foundation of secure interoperability across federal operations, mission mobility, and supply chain resilience. 5G is reshaping how the government connects people, systems, and missions as shown by the DoD’s tactical radio experiments to the Navy’s enterprise scale role.
To learn more about 5G and its advancements, listen to the full webinar here.