Oettinger expects that 5G will drive the topic of IoT and support digitization. And, according to Oettinger, this is the biggest change since the industrial revolution, with 50 to 90 percent of the innovations being digital in the automotive sector, for example. From the point of view of Oettinger, an important point of the action plan is therefore to combine research with an investment strategy and to take the major European companies on board.
Learn from the mistakes made at 4G
"We have to learn from the mistakes made at 4G," the digital commissioner told the attending MWC trade audience. So it is very important to get a transformation on the mass market, it is not enough to replace only one platform with another.
The plan is expected to be finalized by the end of this year, he said, adding that the plan not only reflects the interests of the telecoms sector, but also those of other industries that benefited from the improved interconnectedness of 5G and the Internet of Things, such as Automotive, health, manufacturing, energy, media and the public sector.
According to Oettinger, the action plan will not cover more than five or six areas in which a joint initiative can be made on the basis of a large-scale initiative. "This should include an agreed timetable for the commercial deployment of 5G and the planning of the necessary intermediate steps; to involve the vertical industries together with the telecommunications sector, including the identification of synergies, a standardization process and joint investments in infrastructure.
In addition, there may well be incentives to invest in expanding the fiber infrastructure needed for the 5G backhaul. "We need 5G not only in the air, but also on the ground," said the EU Digital Commissioner. Specific proposals for spectrum management adjustments and measures to adapt the next EU regulatory round to the 5G requirements are also expected.
"The industry is on schedule"
While Oettinger is already talking about a catch-up, the telecom equipment suppliers are on course. "The industry is on schedule," said Ericsson CTO Ulf Ewaldsson. His company cooperates with 20 different partners at 5G in industries such as mining, healthcare or robotics, and has 20 testbeds with carrier partners in operation. At the same time, Ewaldsson emphasized that 5G is the biggest opportunity industry has ever faced - even compared to the mobile Internet: high data rates, large capacity, low latency and connection reliability - 5G is a technology that meets all these needs could fulfill. At the same time, the technology offers the telcos, under pressure from cloud providers, the opportunity for new business models.
The Ericsson CTO received support from its counterpart at Nokia, Hossein Moiin: Even if the standards are not yet established, it is 5G-ready, he said. Nokia and its competitors have good ideas about what is possible. While we do not know which applications are being used, "said Moiin, they learned from 2007 onwards and programmed as flexibly as possible.
Nokia's CTO referred to network slicing, a software-defined networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) -based technology that can be used to assemble specific features from different frequency ranges as required. With regard to net neutrality, the topic is far from unproblematic, but according to Oettinger, it can be assumed that the EU Commission will roll these stones out of the way.
