STOA Workshop: Opportunities and challenges of 5G in the EU

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Hashtag: #STOA5G

Written by Mihalis Kritikos

5G has been described as the most critical building block of our ‘digital society’, as it promises a new wave of technology services – from driverless cars to smart home appliances – and mobile broadband download rates up to 60 times faster than from the current 4G providers. 5G will pave the way for an industrial transformation, connecting millions of devices simultaneously and supporting completely new types of application linking devices and objects. The technical, socio-economic and regulatory challenges associated with the deployment of 5G technologies has recently been debated at EU level. Both the recently piloted EU action plan on 5G and the latest interinstitutional agreement on coordination of the use of the 700 MHz band for mobile services in Europe illustrate the high political and legal importance of this new wave of technologies for the European economy and society.

On 25 April 2017, STOA is organising a workshop to discuss these issues, continuing STOA’s practice of discussing the socio-economic and regulatory dimensions of techno-scientific developments. The workshop will be chaired by Eva Kaili, MEP and STOA chair.

Register for the workshop

What to expect from the event?

The workshop will provide space for a debate on this key enabling technology and the opportunity to analyse the opportunities and challenges associated with the deployment and standardisation of 5G in Europe.

The workshop will begin with an introduction to issues such as the definition of 5G and the technical state of the art in this domain, to be given by a representative of the European Commission. This will be followed by two panel discussions:

The first discussion will focus on the new types of application and business model that will be enabled by the development of 5G, and on the 5G trials roadmap strategy. These issues will be discussed by Yves Bellego (Orange Group and 5G Infrastructure Association), Professor Dimitra Simeonidou (University of Bristol), Dr Joachim Göthel (BMW Group) and Professor Panagiotis Demestichas (University of Piraeus).

The second panel discussion will focus on the regulatory and policy challenges associated with the expansion of 5G technologies, with a special emphasis on coordinated 5G deployment across all EU Member States, the development of 5G standards and the availability of (5G) spectrum. These issues will be discussed by Giovanni Romano (TIM), Laszlo Toth (GSMA), Peter Olson (Ericsson) and Philip Marnick (Ofcom).

What do we know about the opportunities and technical and socio-economic challenges that will arise, and how can we prepare a harmonised and standardised spectrum policy that will deliver a meaningful response to them? Is 5G going to become a disrupter and a game changer? Are there security threats that need to be taken care of and what might 5G actually mean for users, industries, operators and other stakeholders? If you are interested in exploring these and other questions, register for the workshop before 19 April 2017 and take part in the discussion.