Rob Wolborsky, chief engineer at Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, said the U.S. Navy is exploring commercial technologies such as 5G and proliferated low Earth orbit satellite constellations to help advance shipboard information technology modernization and deliver network connectivity to ships at sea, Federal News Network reported Friday.
“What we’re looking at with 5G and P-LEO is the same level of transformation, but much more profound and a much greater exponential curve,” Wolborsky told FNN on an interview.
“The capability that is in orbit today is multiple orders of magnitude more bandwidth that we can deliver to the fleet and the warfighter today, and it is a catalyst for a significant amount of activity and transformation,” he added.
Wolborsky cited NAVWAR’s efforts to advance 5G adoption.
“We’re doing quite a bit of experimentation and work right now on the ships with 5G as a pier surrogate, and it’s actually demonstrating significant benefit to the fleet,” he said.
The chief engineer noted that the Starlink service has been fielded on some ships and the command has built an open architecture framework to enable the service to easily implement offerings from other satellite providers.
