Federal agencies have unveiled a proposed framework requiring mid-sized U.S. manufacturers to meet open-standards alignment and mandatory operational technology (OT) workforce training requirements as conditions for accessing private 5G grants and subsidies. The proposal, developed jointly by the Department of Commerce and related federal bodies, aims to accelerate secure private 5G deployments on factory floors while ensuring plant teams can manage the complex convergence of OT and information technology (IT) systems these networks demand.
Background
The proposed framework builds on a broader federal push to open 5G infrastructure to competitive, multi-vendor architectures. The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 appropriated $1.5 billion through NTIA's Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund to accelerate the development and deployment of open and interoperable, standards-based radio access networks (RAN), with the O-RAN Alliance and the Telecom Infra Project named as recognized standards bodies. Separately, NIST has awarded more than $3.3 million in 2025 cooperative agreements under its RAMPS program to develop regional cybersecurity and technical workforce pipelines across 25 states - a foundation the new proposal would extend into OT-specific manufacturing contexts.
Manufacturing is the largest vertical in the private 5G market. Private cellular network installations have been credited with productivity and efficiency gains in manufacturing, quality control, and intralogistics of between 20% and 90%, cost savings as high as 60%, and an uplift of up to 80% in worker safety outcomes, according to SNS Telecom & IT research. Despite this, adoption at mid-sized plants has lagged, partly because proprietary, closed-source network architectures increase costs and slow integration with legacy OT systems.
SNS Telecom & IT projects that annual investments in private 5G networks for vertical industries will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 41% between 2025 and 2028, surpassing $5 billion by end of 2028, with manufacturing and process industries driving early-phase growth.
Details
Under the proposed conditions, grant applicants would need to demonstrate alignment with recognized open-standards frameworks - principally O-RAN Alliance specifications and 3GPP interoperability requirements - as well as Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) Band 48 spectrum deployment where applicable. The General Services Administration (GSA) has previously noted that federal agencies anticipate being able to manage private O-RAN 5G networks for secure enterprise use, while also warning that open RAN could introduce a new set of supply-chain vulnerabilities, a tension the proposed compliance metrics aim to address.
The OT training mandate would require recipient manufacturers to document certified workforce hours in OT/IT convergence disciplines, conduct OT security audits aligned with ISA/IEC 62443 standards, and meet interoperability benchmarks before funds are disbursed. The NIST RAMPS program requires non-federal cost share of at least 50% of federal funds provided, a cost-share model expected to carry over into the private 5G grant structure to ensure industry commitment.
Industry analysts say the retrofit focus is significant. Rather than incentivizing greenfield builds, the framework would prioritize brownfield modernization - connecting existing programmable logic controllers (PLCs), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, and manufacturing execution systems (MES) to private 5G backbones. Private 5G enables OT and IT teams to integrate long-siloed systems - including MES, SCADA, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms - while delivering built-in isolation, encryption, and device-level authentication, according to Ericsson. Mandating open standards would extend those benefits across multi-vendor environments, analysts note, creating a clearer path for cross-plant interoperability between facilities operated by the same manufacturer.
The NTIA has been working in consultation with NIST, CISA, the FCC, and the Department of Homeland Security on wireless supply chain grant criteria, as established under the CHIPS and Science Act's statutory framework for the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund.
Outlook
A public comment period on the proposed framework is expected before final criteria are issued, consistent with standard federal grant rulemaking procedure. Industry groups representing mid-tier contract manufacturers have signaled they will push for phased compliance timelines, particularly around OT security audit requirements, which demand specialist skills that remain in short supply. There are currently more than 514,000 cybersecurity job openings in the United States, with approximately 74 workers available to fill every 100 open positions, according to NIST - a gap the mandatory OT training component is partly designed to close. If finalized, the framework would reshape capital allocation decisions for plant operators weighing retrofit investments against new-build strategies heading into 2026 and beyond.
