On this episode of the Six Five Webcast: The 5G Factor, hosts Ron Westfall and Tom Hollingsworth delve into the significant 5G ecosystem developments that have marked the onset of 2025. They highlight Cisco’s recent update on its strategic relationship with Boost Mobile, demonstrating how Cisco’s Test Automation Framework and SDN controller, the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller, were crucial in testing new services and activating cell sites. This ensured Boost Mobile met its 5G deployment targets, while also evaluating the future prospects for Boost’s parent company, Echostar/DISH Wireless, through 2025 and beyond.
Their discussion covers:
- The impact of Cisco’s Test Automation Framework and Cisco Crosswork Network Controller in facilitating Boost Mobile’s 5G service deployment and site activation.
- An analysis of Echostar/DISH Wireless’s future in the 5G space following the latest developments with Boost Mobile.
- Nokia’s collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence to enhance 5G security, highlighting Nokia’s commitment to address security and privacy challenges in mobile networks.
- The U.S. Department of Defense’s selection of Federated Wireless, subcontracting JMA Wireless for RAN infrastructure and HPE for core network software, to deploy its first commercial private 5G network. This move spotlights the growing business case for P5G across military installations.
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Transcript:
Ron Westfall: Hello and welcome everyone to The 5G Factor. I’m Ron Westfall, Research Director here at The Futurum Group, and I’m joined here today by my noted colleague, certainly known throughout the mobile ecosystem, Tom Hollingsworth, who is the Networking Nerd and the event lead at Tech Field Day here at The Futurum Group. And in fact, I believe that I mentioned it on our last episode that we are basically looking at an incredible lineup for Tech Field Day throughout the first half of ’25 and beyond, actually. Today, naturally, we’ll be focusing on what’s going on in the 5G ecosystem specifically. But before we dive into it, I want to note that we have I think some pretty good ideas for Mobility Field Day, which is going to happen in May, May 7th and 8th of 2025 specifically. And I’ll hold there and say, hey Tom, how are things coming along and what else can you say about the upcoming Tech Field Day events?
Tom Hollingsworth: Well, I can tell you that Mobility Field Day is going to be super exciting because I’ve already heard a lot of companies that are going to be interested in that, but I know that a lot of our listeners out here, they have other interests. So maybe you’re more into something like cloud or AI. If that’s the case, you definitely want to go over to TechFieldDay.com and check out the schedule because we do have some events coming up very soon that deal with those subjects and I think that you might be interested in some of the presenters there.
Ron Westfall: Right on. And I’d be remiss not to note that we’re slated for Networking Field Day 37. It goes to show just how much pedigree is behind this, and that’s going to be in March 19th and 20th. So please pay attention to that one as well as Tom and I will be partaking in that particular event. And so with that, what is really going on in the 5G ecosystem that jumped out at us and warrants conversation today? Well, first of all, I would like to start with a recent blog that I saw and that is related to Cisco and Boost Mobile spotlighting how their multi-year collaboration is, well, making progress. And so I think what’s going to be important here is provide a little background and framing, and that is Boost Mobile has Nextel DNA at its roots. That is from over 20 years ago, but today it is owned by Dish Wireless, which is in turn a subsidiary of Echo Star. And that’s after undergoing several ownership changes over the years. Now today, Boost is the fourth-largest wireless carrier here in the United States and it’s serving approximately 7 million subscribers as of at least toward the end of ’24 and operates a five-G network that’s covering over 73% of the U.S. population. So I think that speaks to its credentials and why this is important to look at.
Now in terms of network and services, Boost is providing both prepaid and postpaid mobile services. And also on the coopetition side, Boost is using its own 5G network and also provides services through T-Mobile at least until 2027, as well as AT&T at least through 2031. In the meantime though, it’s positioning itself as a fourth major alternative to the big three of again, T-Mobile, AT&T, as well as Verizon. So there’s some subtle positioning and marketing going on here, but I think what was a key takeaway from the refresh that Cisco and Boost provided is the key role that automation has played in terms of making Boost Mobile’s 5G network a reasonable success. To begin the test automation framework or TAF from Cisco proved pivotal in testing new services and activating the cell sites. In fact, TFA’s capabilities we’re able to generate test cases and execute them across thousands of devices within minutes. And so this is something that can’t be underestimated. Again, this is something that could not have been accomplished with pre-automation manual approaches. And so this is showing that automation, I believe, is making progress in how mobile networks are designed, built and tested and so forth. So this is good news really for not just the cause of automation, but in terms of hey, getting more 5G network out there for the U.S. populace as well as beyond.
Plus, another key factor was the SDN controller that Cisco provided called the Cisco Crosswork Network Controller. And that basically provided that what can be dubbed zero-touch provisioning to automate the deployment and activation of all these cell sites. Now these are the positive aspects of the relationship. However, as analysts we have to look at the full picture and need to keep a close eye on that EchoStar-Dish mothership dimension that I mentioned. And so at that, Tom, from your perspective, I guess there are a couple of things going on here looking at this specifically, what is Boost Mobile’s prospects and being a part of EchoStar-Dish and also what is going on with automation, at least in terms of mobile networks?
Tom Hollingsworth: So I like this partnership that Boost Mobile has worked out with Cisco. And here’s the reason why. If you go out on the internet and you look for Boost Mobile, you’ll learn that originally they were an MVNO, and if you’re not familiar, an MVNO is basically I ride on somebody else’s network. If you’ve seen a Mint Mobile commercial, you kind of know that they don’t build out their own stuff, they’re riding on somebody else’s network. However, after the acquisition by Dish Network, Boost really started building their own network out. And so I think it’s exciting to see the fourth-largest carrier in the market starting to get on their own network. And it’s a non-traditional one because it’s being mostly built out by Dish Network. So I think that they’re going to need expertise, right? Because you’ve got AT&T, you’ve got Verizon, you’ve got T-Mobile, they have network expertise, they’ve been doing this for years. When you’re coming up, you don’t have that capability. You don’t have a large dedicated group of people that are built out to do these kinds of things. Well, how can I get there? Well, thankfully you have access to companies that have software and hardware that can make that happen, and that’s really what Boost is looking for here.
And of course Cisco wants to kind of get this 5G technology out as much as possible to get into new market spaces because this isn’t a place that they’ve played historically. They do not have an industry-leading private 5G or even really any kind of telecom backbone on that side of the house. Now I’m sure somebody’s typing the comment right now, but Cisco’s in every ISP. You’re right, they are, but that’s because they are a network layer. When you look at the way that telecom worked up until 5G, there really wasn’t a lot of room for the Ciscos of the world. Sure, you had the Ericsons, you had the Nokias of the world that had dedicated hardware, but now that we’re working with these virtualized layers that use more off-the-shelf hardware, Cisco has an opportunity to play in that market. And I think that this is them jumping in saying, “Well, if we can’t be first or second or third in the market, we can very well partner with four during their build out so that we can use them as a reference case and prove that we have what it takes to make that happen.”
Ron Westfall: Right on. And I think to the point about, okay, Boost Mobile is looking like has momentum here, and certainly the Cisco relationship is proving a factor. And I mentioned the EchoStar, the fact that it’s really the owner of Boost through the Dish wireless assets. And I think it’s important to note that the FCC did agree to allow them to extend their build out goals that is EchoStar-Dish, in terms of going from mid ’25 to late ’26 in terms of that overall 5G network build. And so that also includes, I think, notably moving final construction goals from ’26 to 2028. And as a part of it, this is also including deploying 24,000 towers by June of this year, as well as ensuring its network is 3GPP Release 17 compliant also by June of ’25. So there’s a fair amount of homework that’s going on in the background, at least in terms of the obligations of EchoStar.
Now, there has been concern that’s been shared by the financial community or at least a part of it that EchoStar could face some serious financial challenges including potential bankruptcy by early ’26 without securing more funding or funding arrangements. However, as we just saw or saw very recently, EchoStar successfully completed what really is a debt swap deal back in November of ’24 defying really the more dour expectations of the detractors out there. And so the FCC also is backing up EchoStar’s efforts to really come out with what, again, it can be dubbed the fourth pillar or a fourth major competitor within the U.S. mobile competitive landscape, certainly on the 5G side. And again, that is using new technologies basically from its inception, cloud native capabilities and so forth to really make it a differentiated and I think exciting network as it becomes more firmly built out and EchoStar as well as Boost continue meeting deadlines and so forth. So that I think is really the net takeaway from here. Yes, there were some rough seas, it wasn’t unique to EchoStar-Dish, but I think things are clearing up more, in fact ’25 is seeing indicators that there will be more spending by the telcos overall, at least in the U.S. And that’s due to factors such as new interests in AI, but also what we touched on right here, automation capabilities, just taking advantage of new technology that makes the deployment and the operation of these networks more efficient and so forth.
And so with that, now let’s turn to I think another important factor here that’s always been important, but certainly ’25 will be no exception, and that’s the role of 5G in cybersecurity. And specifically what I’m looking at is that Nokia recently touted that it’s collaborating with the National Institute of Standards and Technology or NIST on its National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. I’m not even going to bother trying to pronounce that acronym, but the main takeaway here is that it underscores Nokia’s commitment to addressing security and privacy challenges across the mobile networks. Well, that seems like, “Okay, that’s table six. Of course they have to do that.” But what is distinct here that’s coming out of shining a spotlight on this collaboration? Well, with 5G, new standards require regular reallocation or refreshing of temporary identifiers. What that means is that temporary IDs are constantly automatically reassigned, making it significantly harder for unauthorized parties to use tracking mechanisms to compromise user locations or identities. And that sometimes has caused headline news.
So what is different here, it’s a clear advance over 4G capabilities. That is 5G is definitely built to not only minimize it but potentially eliminate it. And so with that, using defined intervals for refreshing temporary IDs, 5G is a better position to protect the privacy of user information. Also, 5G networks are built to enable wider range of capabilities, especially for sectors at defense and public safety that rely on, again, rapid decision-making and really data protection and so forth. And with 5G autonomous operations, which we touched on with the Boost-Cisco collaboration, these operations can better support things such as unmanned drones and robots and automatic surveillance that are really critical for mission-capable assignments as well as just increasing the reliability all around. And so with that, Tom, what are you taking away from, okay, what’s going on with 5G and improving security capabilities as well as Nokia putting a spotlight on it here?
Tom Hollingsworth: I think it’s important for Nokia to lead the charge on this. And the reason why is I was having this conversation with a friend of mine the other day. If you have any kind of identification for a mobile device, you can effectively own someone without ever knowing who they are. Think about some of the platforms that we’ve seen that leverage wireless technology where they can track you through a store and they know how long you were standing in front of a specific section of shelving and what you were looking for to the point where if you have the store’s app downloaded, they can push coupons to you like, “Hey, go back and take a look at that TV. We’ll give you 10% off.” It’s scary, right? And that’s when wireless. Imagine if they could do that on your handset no matter where you are. And that’s what we’re talking about here. Apple already put this in place with their Wi-Fi radios by being able to randomize the MAC address. We can’t do that on a mobile phone because we have an IMEI that can’t be changed without a whole lot of problem.
And so Nokia is basically saying, “This needs to be randomized. Nobody outside of us and whoever your provider is, needs to know it.” And I like this idea. You are effectively anonymous in certain points, and it’s absolutely necessary in a security world because our lives, our phones are who we are. In the U.S., we’re actually lagging a lot behind a lot of other places in the world. When you think about a place like China, you literally live in WeChat. Your subway pass is there, all of your paychecks are delivered there. If they want to cut you off from the world, they just disable your access to WeChat for a day or a week, and that fixes the problem. But even now, all of my loyalty cards, all of my bank cards are in my iPhone, pretty soon my driver’s license will be there. And then what do I need to carry a wallet for again? Cash? Oh, how 1900s of you. But I think it’s important that we have to start putting more protections in place because we can’t rely on the device manufacturers to do that for us. We have to have the carriers also looking out for us and trying to keep us more secure as opposed to, I don’t know, hoping that we’ll eventually fix the problem.
Ron Westfall: And I think those are all salient and very outstanding points. And what I think is also important here is also I think underlining why 5G? And that is when you talk about say, 5G connectivity or say a 5G laptop, 5G can provide that extra layer of built-in security that might not be present in some implementations of Y5, for example. And that certainly is something that has plagued small businesses and consumers. But when you’re talking about the federal government or any government entity out there, including the military, then yes, you definitely want to have, I would say that built-in 5G security mechanisms. And that I think is part of the reason when we touched on it last week, is that now the U.S. Defense Department is mandating that their military bases use private 5G as their primary way of wireless communication. And so with that, I think we can now turn to, okay, how’s this being implemented?
Well, we just saw that again, the U.S. Department of Defense has appointed Federated Wireless, subcontract JMA Wireless for RAN infrastructure and HPE for core network software to deploy its first commercial private 5G network. And at least it’s being characterized that way. Certainly, Federated Wireless is keen on being at the forefront here. And what this $6 million deal is doing is it’s part of a 42-month sustainment contract, and it’s to make good on a large scale private 5G network at the Marine Corps Logistics command base at its Albany hub in Georgia. And so I think this is again showing, okay, why not just 5G, but why private 5G? Well, certainly the military is putting its money in this direction. And so Tom, from your perspective in terms of, okay, why 5G security or 5G’s role in overall security, how about what’s going on with private 5G and why is the military so keen on it?
Tom Hollingsworth: I am actually excited for this for a couple of reasons. First of all, I have to say this, if you ever hear the term military grade encryption, that’s how I know you don’t know what you’re talking about. Because it turns out that most of the radio comms that the military uses are purpose-built and very, very specific. Usually they lag behind technology quite a bit because military builds for reliability, not cutting edge, but they also have this other problem. They have a lot of contractors. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say more than 50% of the people who work on a military base are not actually military personnel. They’re military contractors. The number may not be 50%, but it’s really close. And you’ve got a lot of moving parts there. You’ve got a lot of things that you need to keep in mind. And now think about the fact that a lot of the communications infrastructure that we’ve been using as of late has moved away from purpose-built networks to using cellular capabilities.
If you want an example of that, walk up to anyone that works in a department store like a Walmart and ask them to look up an item. It used to be that they had a specialized wireless scanning tool to do that. Now they pull out a phone, probably their own personal device, and they look up through an app to see if that item’s in stock, right? Well, that works in a department store, but not on a military base. So imagine if you walk onto a military base and they give you a device and it’s, “Okay, this is how you’re going to,” I don’t know, “scan equipment in.” Or, “This is how you are going to do inventory reports.” Or, “Here’s the tablet that you’re going to use,” for whatever reason. Do you want that information writing over a public network up to a tower to come back down into a DOD safe data center?Well, I can tell you what the DOD answer is going to be. “Oh, no, we do not want that.”
So what we do now, we hand out these devices, we use private 5G to connect them directly into the databases and into the servers that are located on base or within DOD facilities. And that never goes out on the public internet, which makes everybody a lot happier. But it means that we’re finally starting to transform the technology away from these purpose-built networks into something a little bit more, I don’t know, useful. Because when you think about it, you’ve got people who are joining these military forces who are in their late teens and early twenties, by and large. These are the folks who are doing the legwork. Do you think that they know how to use some of this old school technology or do you think that you can just hand them a tablet and they can figure it out? This is meeting the new recruits where they’re at while also still being able to provide the same types of communications and technology that the contractors need to keep those forces meshed together.
Ron Westfall: Yeah, I think those are very important insights. Why is the military keen on this? And a couple other, I think notes about this particular deal, the first commercial private 5G network on a military base is that it’s covering 1 million square feet. So this is something that if you were relying, say heavily on Wi-Fi, it would require quite simply more investment, more equipment to cover that amount of area. Also, I think it’s interesting that HPE providing the core software, this provides more warrant as to why they acquired Athenet. And so this clearly, I think was a smart bet on HPE’s part to play a more integral role. And private 5G alongside its certainly well-proven Aruba Wi-Fi assets. And getting to the details, I think the deal spotlighted, okay, why is the military keen on it again? Well, it includes 98% accuracy and inventory reordering as well as a 65% increase in goods velocity and a 55% reduction in labor costs. And so while we could quibble, okay, maybe it won’t necessarily be across the board for all the implementations or they might come up short as the real-world implementation kicks in, but these numbers I think speak for themselves. Clearly, the military kicked the tires on this, and it’s not just about, okay, more secure communication is always important, but also improved efficiencies in terms of inventory and the speed of things getting delivered and so forth. And so we’ll definitely be talking more about this as we get closer to Mobile World Congress, which is again, the first week of March as well as during the course of 25. And so with that note, I want to say again, thank you, Tom for coming on and joining the 5G Factor, always most welcomed.
Tom Hollingsworth: And it is a pleasure to join you again, Ron, and have these great conversations about where the 5G technology landscape is headed.
Ron Westfall: Right on. And with that, don’t forget to bookmark us. That is The Futurum Group, that includes Naturally Tech Field Day, as well as The 5G Factor. And again, we appreciate everyone joining us and listening to our thoughts and insights on what’s going on in The 5G ecosystem. And with that, everyone, please have a good private 5G and secure 5G day. Thank you again.
Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
