LIVE FROM 5G WORLD 2017, LONDON: Orange director of technical strategy, Yves Bellego (pictured), dismissed suggestions Europe is lagging behind Asia in the race towards 5G, but warned the target of launching the technology in at least one city of every member state by 2020 was “ambitious”.

Bellego said it was “false” to imply Asia was leading Europe because both continents are working towards showcasing 5G in 2020, at the Tokyo Olympic Games and Europe’s Euro 2020 soccer tournament respectively.

In a presentation at 5G World 2017, here, he said anything Asia was planning to launch before 2020 should be considered “pre-5G”.

The Orange executive’s comments follow criticism by industry bodies and vendor Nokia on Europe’s 5G future prospects, with calls for sweeping changes at regulatory level.

While Bellego declined to comment on whether North America had now stolen a march in 5G, he did suggest Europe had wider ambitions for the technology.

“The goal in Europe is to address all use cases for 5G,” he said, adding: “We have seen in the US the focus for 5G is being put on using the network for fixed wireless access and in Asia for enhanced mobile broadband. In Europe, the target is all use cases, from connected car, connected home and so on.”

He said this placed an additional “complexity burden” on planning, and there was now a need to put a plan in place for addressing all the use cases.

Bellego also urged verticals looking to use 5G not to wait for the technology to commercially launch.

“As soon as we get the 5G capabilities they should have their own plans and projects in place and ready to action.”