Operator Verizon was awarded $11.5 million by the US Department of Defense to build a private 5G network inside an aircraft maintenance hangar at a military base in Hawaii as part of the federal government’s project to test use cases across military installations.

The hanger is located on Joint Base Pearl Harbour Hickam (JBPHH), which supports both US Air Force and US Navy missions.

As part of the pilot network design on JBHHH, which includes a hangar and other nearby areas, aircraft maintenance personnel will look at new ways to implement Foreign Object Detection (FOD), other airplane maintenance applications and several different user equipment (UE) devices to see how they perform on the private network.

The testing will also help the Department of Defense decide if it could apply the same design and outcomes at other bases.

Ericsson will serve as a partner to Verizon on the project with its private 5G portfolio that includes core and RAN network equipment to the test site.

The private 5G network follows Verizon’s announcement earlier this year of a commercial 5G UW mmwave tower on JBPHH.

Rival US operator AT&T announced in June the US Navy was using its private 5G network for demonstrations at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego to explore the use of smart warehouse services.