5G@EUROPE SUMMIT: Europe can “lead the agenda” for 5G development, but a collaborative approach including welcoming new stakeholders will be crucial, according to the European Commission’s Thibaut Kleiner.

Speaking this morning, he said: “We need to make sure that the 5G PPP association, which is leading the [public-private partnership] effort, remains as open as possible. And let me emphasise this: the Commission will only support an open infrastructure that integrates new stakeholders. We need that, for the success of 5G”.

The EC kicked-off 5G PPP late last year, with an indicative budget of €700 million, and with industry expected to contribute a similar amount.

“Europe can build consensus with many industry players, and we can lead this agenda globally, fostering standardisation and international cooperation like we did for the previous standards, and this includes spectrum planning of course,” Kleiner said.

And this collaborative approach will not be confined to work within the European Union. “We need to have international cooperation if we want 5G successful, and this means including the Asian partners, but also America,” he continued.

While 5G will obviously bring benefits in terms of speed and latency, Kleiner also said that “it’s about more secure networks using less energy, with lower operating costs”.

And there will also be the need to support new applications and services, he continued. “It’s about a new revolution in what networks can do. It’s about machine-to-machine, the internet of things, and we are talking here about a whole new range of possibilities about telecoms networks.”

“Right now we are trying to develop, and we expect from industry, a clear roadmap of projects, that will deliver the necessary building blocks for this technology,” Kleiner noted.