[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 6 (Monday, January 11, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 1949-1951]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-00202]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Telecommunications and Information Administration

[Docket No. 210105-0001]
RIN 0660-XC049


5G Challenge Notice of Inquiry

AGENCY: National Telecommunications and Information Administration, 
U.S. Department of Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of Inquiry.

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SUMMARY: Through this Notice of Inquiry, the National 
Telecommunications and Information Administration, under sponsorship of 
and in collaboration with the Department of Defense 5G Initiative, is 
seeking comments and recommendations from all interested stakeholders 
to explore the creation of a 5G Challenge that would accelerate the 
development of the open 5G stack ecosystem in support of Department of 
Defense missions.

DATES: Comments are due on or before 5 p.m. Eastern Time on February 
10, 2021.

ADDRESSES: Written comments may be submitted by email to 
[email protected]. Comments submitted by email should be machine-
readable and should not be copy-protected. Written comments also may be 
submitted by mail to the National Telecommunications and Information 
Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 325 Broadway, Attn: 
Rebecca Dorch, Boulder, CO 80305. For more detailed instructions about 
submitting comments, see the ``Instructions for Commenters'' section in 
the Supplementary Information.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Rebecca Dorch, National 
Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of 
Commerce, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305; telephone (720) 215-6145; 
email [email protected]. Please direct media inquiries to NTIA's Office 
of Public Affairs: (202) 482-7002, or at [email protected].

[[Page 1950]]


SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Recognizing the vital importance of fifth-
generation (5G) wireless communications to U.S. economic and security 
interests, the National Telecommunications and Information 
Administration (NTIA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce has made it a 
top priority to engage in 5G across a broad spectrum of topics. 
Commensurably, the Department of Defense (DoD) in 2019 established its 
5G Initiative as a key modernization priority with the goal to advance 
U.S. and partner capabilities to fully leverage 5G technologies for 
military networking needs. A key innovation in 5G that is becoming more 
pervasive in the larger 5G ecosystem is the trend toward ``open 5G'' 
architectures that emphasize open interfaces in the network stack. 
NTIA, under sponsorship of and in collaboration with the DoD 5G 
Initiative, is seeking comments and recommendations from all interested 
stakeholders to explore the creation of a 5G Challenge that would 
accelerate the development of the open 5G stack ecosystem in support of 
DoD missions.
    Background: NTIA is the Executive Branch agency responsible for 
advising the President on telecommunications and information policy.\1\ 
NTIA was established in 1978 in response to the growing national 
consensus that ``telecommunications and information are vital to the 
public welfare, national security, and competitiveness of the United 
States,'' and that, ``rapid technological advances being made in the 
telecommunications and information fields make it imperative that the 
United States maintain effective national and international policies 
and programs capable of taking advantage of continued advancements.'' 
\2\ In the more than 40 years since its inception, NTIA has made growth 
and innovation in communications technologies--most recently 5G and 
beyond wireless communications--a cornerstone of its mission. The 
Administration's 2020 5G Strategy reaffirmed that ``the United States 
Government will work with the private sector, academia, and 
international government partners to adopt policies, standards, 
guidelines, and procurement strategies that reinforce 5G vendor 
diversity to foster market competition.'' \3\
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    \1\ 47 U.S.C. 902(b)(2)(D).
    \2\ 47 U.S.C. 901(b)(1)-(6).
    \3\ Executive Office of the President, National Strategy to 
Secure 5G of the United States of America (Mar. 2020), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/National-Strategy-5G-Final.pdf.
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    NTIA's Institute for Telecommunication Sciences: The Institute for 
Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) is NTIA's spectrum and communications 
laboratory. It plays a central role in informing the formulation of the 
U.S. Government's information and communications technology policies 
and additionally works on behalf of other U.S. Government departments 
and agencies in need of telecommunications engineering expertise. ITS 
works across a diverse telecommunications ecosystem with a primary 
focus on 5G communications.
    Technical Motivation for Challenge: Many innovations are being 
explored in the greater 5G economy. One movement that appears to be 
gaining traction across the ecosystem is the use of open-source 
implementations for various components of a 5G system. Among those 
components is the 5G protocol stack. The open 5G stack community is 
diverse, with a wide variety of organizations in academia, government, 
and private industry. Additionally, different open 5G stack 
organizations are focused on different portions of the stack, with no 
clear division among the multiple implementations currently available. 
And the various implementations are often created with the intention to 
be used with code sourced from a single organization, where 
interoperability among the community's implementations is not 
guaranteed.
    Request for Comments:
    Through this Notice, NTIA is soliciting comments and 
recommendations from stakeholders on how a Challenge to accelerate the 
development of the open 5G stack ecosystem in order to support DoD 
missions could be constructed. These comments will help NTIA and the 
U.S. Government identify and mitigate the challenges in creating and 
executing a competition. They will also help NTIA leverage its 
engineering expertise to construct a Challenge that maximizes the 
benefit to both the open 5G stack market and the DoD on an accelerated 
schedule.
    For the purposes of this Notice, NTIA has organized these questions 
into three broad categories: (1) Challenge structure and goals; (2) 
incentives and scope; and (3) timeframe and infrastructure support. 
NTIA seeks public input on any and/or all of these three categories.
    Instructions for Commenters: NTIA invites comments on the full 
range of questions presented by this Notice, including issues that are 
not specifically raised. Commenters are encouraged to address any or 
all of the following questions. Comments that contain references to 
specific studies and/or research should include copies of the 
referenced materials with the submitted comments. Comments submitted by 
email should be machine-readable and should not be copy-protected. 
Commenters should include the name of the person or organization filing 
the comment, which will facilitate agency follow up for clarifications 
as necessary, as well as a page number on each page of their 
submissions. All comments received are a part of the public record and 
will generally be posted on the NTIA website, http://www.ntia.gov, 
without change. All personal identifying information (for example, 
name, address) voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly 
accessible. Do not submit confidential business information or 
otherwise sensitive or protected information.

I. Challenge Structure & Goals

A. How could a Challenge be structured such that it would take 
advantage of DOD's role as an early U.S. Government adopter of 5G 
technology to mature the open 5G stack ecosystem faster, encourage more 
participation in open 5G stack development including encouraging new 
participants, and identify any roadblocks to broader participation?

B. How could a Challenge be structured to focus on the greatest 
impediments to the maturation of end-to-end open 5G stack development?

C. What should be the goals of a Challenge focusing on maturation of 
the open 5G stack ecosystem? How could such a Challenge be structured 
to allow for the greatest levels of innovation? What metrics should be 
used in the assessment of proposals to ensure the best proposals are 
selected?

D. How will the open 5G stack market benefit from such a Challenge? How 
could a Challenge be structured to provide dual benefit to both the 
Government and the open 5G stack market?

II. Incentives and Scope

A. What are the incentives in open 5G stack ecosystem development that 
would maximize cooperation and collaboration, promote interoperability 
amongst varied open 5G stack components developed by different 
participants, and mature desired featured sets faster with greater 
stability?

B. Could a Challenge be designed that addresses the issues raised in 
previous questions and also includes test and evaluation of the 
security of the components?


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C. Could a Challenge be designed that would require participants to 
leverage software bill of materials design principles in the 
development of components for an open 5G stack?

D. Many open 5G stack organizations have developed partial 
implementations for different aspects of an open 5G stack. What 
portions of the open 5G stack has your organization successfully 
developed with working code? What portions of the open 5G stack does 
your organization believe can be developed quickly (6 months or less)? 
What development support would best enable test and evaluation of the 
different elements of an open 5G stack?

E. What 5G enabling features should be highlighted in the Challenge, 
such as software defined networking, network slicing, network function 
virtualization, radio access network intelligent controller, radio 
access network virtualization?

III. Timeframe & Infrastructure

A. What software and hardware infrastructure will be needed to 
successfully execute this Challenge?

B. What is a reasonable timeframe to structure such a Challenge? Should 
there be different phases for such a Challenge? If so, what are 
appropriate timelines for each suggested phase?

    Dated: January 5, 2021.
Kathy D. Smith,
Chief Counsel, National Telecommunications and Information 
Administration.
[FR Doc. 2021-00202 Filed 1-8-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-60-P