Partnership for 5G mobile technology
The European Union and South Korea have joined forces on the next generation of mobile technology.
The European Union and South Korea have joined forces to develop the next generation of mobile technology (5G), signing an agreement in this regard in June 2014. The first joint research projects are expected to be underway in 2016. “5G is a new network technology and infrastructure that will bring the capacities needed to cope with the massive growth in the use of communication – especially wireless – technologies by humans and by machines. 5G won’t just be faster, it will bring new functionalities and applications with high social and economic value”, states a Memo issued by the Commission.
South Korea is a trailblazer in the field of mobile communications. In October 2014, Samsung announced a breakthrough in developing a 5G network, successfully testing the super-fast technology and witnessing data transmission of more than one gigabyte per second, i.e. about ten times the speed in LTE, the current fastest data transmission network. The EU wants to play a key role in developing the new technology. In December 2013 the Commission launched the public-private partnership on 5G. The EU is investing 700 million euros over the next seven years into the 5G partnership through the Horizon 2020 programme. EU industry with Alcatel-Lucent, Atos, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Nokia, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telenor and Telefónica is set to increase this amount to more than three billion euros. The 5G networks are expected to take over from the LTE network. Experts anticipate that the new standard can be introduced from 2020 and it should then be possible, for example, to transfer an entire feature film onto a smartphone within a few seconds. ▪
