Sec. 2844 — Pilot program to provide integrated connectivity service

Statutory text

(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—(1)stationed at five covered military installations in the Middle East, as determined by the Secretary; and(2)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—(A)to provision the integrated connectivity service with a private network management system or a hybrid-capable network management system;(B)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(C)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—(A)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—(i)a minimum download speed of 100-Mbps; and(ii)a minimum upload speed of 20-Mbps; and (B)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—(A)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 (B)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—(A)the initial build and setup;(B) 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—(i)availability;(ii)security; and(iii)usability; and(C)monthly recurring costs, including services provided by—(i)the host nation carrier for bandwidth; and(ii)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—(1)an analysis of the cost; and(2)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:

(1) The term 5G means fifth generation mobile network technology, including higher-speed and lower latency device connectivity over mobile radio networks.

(2) The term Assistant Secretary means the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment.

(3) The term American contracted entity means an entity—(A)organized in the United States and with its principal place of business located within the United States;(B)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;(C)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;(D)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(E)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.

(4) 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.

(5) The term cloud only deployment model means a deployment model i