5G is not just the next evolution of 4G technology; it's a paradigm shift. It is expected to enable fundamentally new applications — with much more stringent requirements in latency and bandwidth — and provide resiliency and flexibility to the underlying network. Several standards organizations and forums, namely IEEE, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, and the International Telecommunication Union, worked on defining the architecture and were standardizing aspects of 5G technologies. However, few organizations were focusing on how such technologies could be useful to tactical and first responder networks.

IEEE hosted the fourth workshop in this series on 14 December 2021. It was the result of partnership and collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU/APL), and the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for research and Engineering (OUSD R&E) - 5G. This workshop explored the applicability of 5G technologies for tactical and first responder networks, offered solutions, shared use cases, and investigated research opportunities and challenges. The event also provided an opportunity for 5G experts from industry and academia, as well as the standards, regulatory, homeland security, public safety and defense communities, to collaborate.