(a) Establishment
The Secretary of Defense, acting through the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, shall establish and carry out a pilot program to provide integrated connectivity service to a covered population—
stationed at five covered military installations in the Middle East, as determined by the Secretary; and
at no cost to such covered population.
(b) Program requirements
(1) Service provisioning and ensuring
The Assistant Secretary shall enter into a contract with an American contracted entity to act as telecommunications operator for the covered military installation—
to provision the integrated connectivity service with a private network management system or a hybrid-capable network management system;
to ensure the integrated connectivity service can support multiple tenant commands, or activity present on such covered military installations with individualized commitments, such as separate network slices and security policies that can be tailored to the tenant command requirements; and
to provision and ensure operation of the integrated connectivity service.
(2) Integrated connectivity service requirement
The integrated connectivity service provided under the pilot program established pursuant to subsection (a) shall—
provide broadband internet access service as the baseline service and meet or exceed any speed benchmarks established by the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission for broadband internet access services, including—
a minimum download speed of 100-Mbps; and
a minimum upload speed of 20-Mbps; and
support the integration of P5G data services with broadband internet access service over a common integrated connectivity service, where such mobile services are identified as required by the covered military installation tenant command.
(3) Goods procured under contract
Any goods procured under the contract described under paragraph (1) shall be the property of the Department of Defense.
(4) Standard
Infrastructure setup and operation of the integrated connectivity service—
shall be based on National Institute of Standards and Technology standards specified in NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3, or successor standards, including any future revisions, updates, or successor publications to ensure the availability and security of such integrated connectivity service; and
shall exclude hybrid-capable network management systems with availability and security risks, such as pure public cloud only network management systems.
(5) Cost
In carrying out the pilot program, the Assistant Secretary shall account for the full life cycle costs of such pilot program, including—
the initial build and setup;
a refresh, every five years during the period the authority to carry out the pilot program is effective, of the integrated connectivity service, including a refresh of the underlying infrastructure of the entire integrated connectivity service, to ensure long-term—
availability;
security; and
usability; and
monthly recurring costs, including services provided by—
the host nation carrier for bandwidth; and
the telecommunications operator.
(6) Methodology
When carrying out the pilot program, the Assistant Secretary shall use industry standard life cycle methodologies and broadly adopted practices, including the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, NIST SP 800-53, Information Technology infrastructure library and the Plan, Prepare, Design, Implement, Operate, Optimize methodology to deliver a cost-effective, secure, sustainable, right-sized network infrastructure.
(7) Equipment procurement
Any articles, materials, or supplies procured by the American contracted entity for the purpose of providing integrated connectivity service, as described under paragraph (1), shall be made in the United States.
(c) Report
Not later than five years after the date of the enactment of this section, and annually thereafter, the Assistant Secretary shall submit to Congress a report on the pilot program carried out under this section, including—
an analysis of the cost; and
a determination of which additional military installations located outside the contiguous United States should be provided with integrated connectivity service.
(d) Definitions
In this section:
The term 5G means fifth generation mobile network technology, including higher-speed and lower latency device connectivity over mobile radio networks.
The term Assistant Secretary means the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment.
The term American contracted entity means an entity—
organized in the United States and with its principal place of business located within the United States;
majority-owned and controlled by a United States citizen, a lawful permanent resident, or publicly traded on a United States stock exchange and subject to United States laws and jurisdiction;
that employs primarily personnel based in the United States to perform management, engineering, operations, and customer support functions, including staffing key operational and decision-making roles within the United States;
that procures equipment and technology through a supply chain compliant with sections 889 and 1260H of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 ( Public Law 116–283 ), including the avoidance of prohibited or restricted telecommunications and video surveillance equipment and services; and
that complies with section 8302 of title 41, United States Code, whenever practicable, prioritizing United States manufactured products, United States sourced components, and United States based subcontractors and suppliers wherever and whenever possible, consistent with project requirements, availability and cost reasonableness.
The term broadband internet access service has the meaning given such term in section 8.1(b), title 47, Code of Federal Regulations, or any successor regulation.
The term cloud only deployment model means a deployment model in which the network management system is delivered solely as a vendor-managed software-as-a-service offering, with no option for self-hosted, on-premises, or private cloud deployment.
The term covered military installation means a military installation as defined in section 2801 of title 10, United States Code, under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Air Force, or the Secretary of the Navy and located in the Middle East.
The term covered population means active duty members of the Armed Forces, as defined in section 101(d)(1) of title 10, United States Code, but may be expanded to include employees of a Defense Agency as defined in section 101(a)(11) of title 10, United States Code, by the tenant command of a covered military installation through the telecommunications officer of the covered military installation.
The term host nation carrier means a telecommunications provider that is—
licensed or authorized to operate in the foreign nation in which the covered military installation is located; and
provides broadband internet access, data, or mobile communication services within the foreign nation.
The term hybrid-capable network management system means a common architectural framework that supports both broadband internet access service and private or hybrid public and P5G mobile connectivity services, as required and is not limited to a public only deployment model or a cloud only deployment model.
The term integrated connectivity service means a fixed, high-speed broadband internet access service, and may include private or hybrid mobile connectivity, including P5G, as required by the Secretary to meet operational requirements.
The term Mbps means one million bits per second.
The term P5G means a private mobile network service using 5G mobile network technology and available only to members of the Armed Forces stationed on covered military installations participating in the pilot program established in subsection (a).
The term private network management system means a network management system that is compliant with the requirements for a cyber security maturity model certification and which is not cloud-based.
The term public only deployment model means a deployment model in which the network management system is hosted exclusively in a third-party public cloud environment, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud and cannot be deployed or operated on customer-owned or on-premises infrastructure.
the term pure public cloud only network management system means a network management platform hosted and operated exclusively within a third-party public cloud environment and delivered solely as a cloud-based service, with no capability for deployment, operation, or control within on-premises or private cloud infrastructure.
The term telecommunications operator means an American contracted entity responsible for the design, installation, and ongoing operations and maintenance of the broadband internet access service and P5G mobile network access to be provided on a covered military installation.