Hughes Network Systems recently completed a long-term project to launch a private, standalone (SA) 5G network at a Washington naval air base that took advantage of industry lessons learned in the deployment of cloud-based virtualized networks for enterprises and the vendor’s unique commercial relationships.

The deployment was initially announced in early 2022. The $18 million deal called for Hughes to deploy the 5G SA network at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington.

Hughes served as the primary contractor for the deal, but also worked with partners like Cisco, JMA, Intel and Dell Technologies, and received deployment help from Boingo Wireless and spectrum assets from Dish Network.

Dan Rasmussen, SVP and GM for Hughes’ Enterprise Division, said the company has been constructing a standardized private network deployment model that it can adapt over time depending on an enterprise’s need. This includes security needs based on zero-trust standards.

“I think we're benefiting from ... doing discrete networks inside of an area and we can wrap that infrastructure in with security firewalls and everything else,” Rasmussen said. “Since we're not trying to do it inside of a stadium environment or a public area, we are really putting the infrastructure in for a true private network, and we put that extra wrap or safeguards around the infrastructure as well.”

Rajeev Gopal, VP of advanced systems at Hughes, added that this model was tweaked to deal with the specific Department of Defense (DoD) security needs around the use of different cloud models and workload hosting.

“This is very important for the DoD,” Gopal said. “Everyone knows that security has a cost, and the DoD has a process. It takes calendar time, it requires resources, so everyone wants to strike the right balance. Have enough security so that the basic objectives can be met with respect to confidentiality, integrity, privacy and availability, and at the same time we don't end up gold plating the security because our objective is to provide secure connectivity, not provide security. Secure connectivity so that we have very high level of confidence in our security aspect.”

From a network perspective, Gopal said the company relies heavily on standardized architectures, including 5G specifications from 3GPP. It also taps into newer cloud-based technologies like open radio access network (RAN), multi-access edge compute (MEC) and the ability to operate in different cloud environments depending on need.

The scale at the naval base also required Hughes to extend spectrum support beyond what it might use in the more traditional enterprise space. Rasmussen noted that enterprise deployments are often across a small geographic footprint that meshes well with shared spectrum models used for bands like the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum band.

CBRS spectrum is a swath of around 150 megahertz in the 3.5 GHz band that the federal government has set aside for licensed use. Access to that spectrum is through a multi-tiered access program that includes tier-one incumbents with “protected status,” including the Department of Defense for use by Navy ship radars and registered fixed satellite receiving stations; a tier two for “priority access licenses” (PAL); and tier three for “general authorized” (GAA) channels.

Hughes was able to use protected status CBRS spectrum and tap into a relationship with Dish Network to access low-band spectrum in the 600 MHz range. Gopal explained this allowed the deployment to follow similar cellular network models that meld together high-band spectrum for more capacity and low-band spectrum for more coverage.

This model also dips into open RAN specifications that allow Hughes’ radios to “support both bands at the same time,” Gopal said.

That Dish Network connection is through Charlie Ergen, who is chairman of the board at Hughes’ parent company EchoStar and Dish Network.

Hughes also put efforts toward the management of these network assets, which is a complex task for the most forward-looking IT organizations and even more so for government contracts. This is also an area where Hughes tapped into its enterprise work, including its work with managed SD-WAN deployments.

That management involves “multiple layers and multiple components, and we definitely don’t reinvent the wheel,” Gopal said. The company offers an element layer with management functionality on which Hughes creates a common unifying “manager of managers.”

“At the top there is a single pane of glass and situational awareness of what is happening, how well components are performing the functions, providing the right kind of features. All of that could be done at the highest manager of managers,” Gopal said. “And the same applies to security. This is especially important for the Department of Defense, and I believe this was one of the differentiators that highlighted how Hughes has been serving enterprise customers. Our competition is Verizon and Lockheed Martin of the world, so some very big companies who have done these things, but our differentiation is that we know how to take care of enterprises. And that's what became very clear to the Department of Defense.”

With the network now launched, Gopal said Hughes will now work on expanding coverage, adding new applications and further hardening of the deployment. It’s also looking to use the deployment as a test case to further expand into other DoD environments.

“A lot of people had heard about our unique framework, and now it is deployed, launched, so now they can actually feel it, touch it, and we look forward to many more such deployments in the near future,” Gopal added.