Research & Innovation

With mobile traffic expected to grow by a factor of 1 000 by 2020, and the number of connected users to multiply 10 to 100-fold, the world clearly needs new communications infrastructure the like of which we have never seen before.

But 5G is more than just fast Internet for everyone — it will be the very backbone of the new digital economy. It will mean more and better jobs and will contribute to sustainable economic growth for decades to come. The transformative power of 5G in modernising cities, and industries such as transport, health and the utilities, make it crucial to our future development as a society. 5G is unique from its generational predecessors in that it will be truly user-centric. This will lead to the introduction of disruptive technologies redefining networks as we know them. New swathes of bandwidth have to be found to meet the massive demand that will be created by the new system. It will need a new approach to power-saving if we are to respect our commitment to the sustainability of the planet.

All this is why the EU has already committed to investing EUR 700 million in a 5G Public-Private Partnership for research, development and innovation in this field. It has already launched over 10 projects developing the technologies to place European industry ahead for the deployment of the future generation of optical and wireless communications by Horizon 2020. And we will be doing much more towards 5G in the years to come, as these pages illustrate.