5G is not just the next evolution of 4G technology; it’s a paradigm shift. Not only is 5G evolutionary (providing higher bandwidth and lower latency than current-generation technology), more importantly, 5G is revolutionary—because it is expected to enable fundamentally new applications with much more stringent requirements in latency and bandwidth. 5G should help solve the last-mile problem and provide broadband access to the next billion users globally at much lower cost because of its use of new spectrum and its improvements in spectral efficiency.

Today, several standards organizations and forums, namely IEEE, 3GPP, and ITU, are working on defining the architecture and standardizing various aspects of 5G technologies. However, little has been studied to explore how 5G technologies can be useful to tactical and firstresponder networks. It is important to investigate how tactical and first responder communities can take advantage of 5G technologies to support massive bandwidth, massive sensing, and massive control type applications.

The IEEE Future Networks initiative is offering a free live-stream of this workshop in collaboration with the JHU Applied Physics Lab and IEEE.tv. The workshop's focus is to discuss the applicability of 5G technologies for tactical and first responder networks and related opportunities and challenges. The workshop will bring together 5G experts from industry, academia, and the standards, regulator, and defense communities to discuss various 5G-specific use cases and requirements. The one-day event has invited speakers from DARPA, DHS, FCC, NIST, NSF, Columbia University, NYU, Intel, National Instruments, Nokia, AT&T, CERDEC, IEEE, and 3GPP. This workshop will be a catalyst to develop relevant use cases, drive standards, and investigate deployment suitable for tactical and first responder networks.

For a detailed program agenda, visit https://5g.ieee.org/conferences/workshop-on-tactical-and-first-responder-networks