[philprx]

Part true, but to be precise:

Public, notably 4G infrastructures, have been used as underlying networks for day to day military and security activity. The overlay network itself is still encrypted and resilient by using other networks if public network is not available.

With 5G, it even accelerates. Therefore it justifies part of the ban of Huawei and the security needed for 5G networks.

So this program does not look so astonishing.

[austincheney]

I am an Army signal officer with 5 deployments. The military considers cell phones inherently insecure and not a mission asset, regardless of what you may read.

[Jtsummers]

The DoD, or at least the USAF, has decided that 5G is going to be a critical part of their infrastructure.

https://potomacofficersclub.com/will-roper-announces-larger-...

[hatmatrix]

Don't a lot of other devices use the 4G network for data tranfer (with encryption)?

[TeMPOraL]

Is that because military-purpose communications is insecure over 4G, or because modern smartphones, full of adtech malware, make it all to easy to leak your location by accident?

[Jtsummers]

It's a variety of factors. Information leaking is one, but a big one is the lack of control. DoD does not control any significant part of the present cellular network, so it might be useful but it oughtn't be part of your critical systems.