5G – THE megatrend at the MWC 2018
Brussels, March 8th, 2018 – 5G THE megatrend at the MWC 2018.
MWC 2018 saw the 5G Infrastructure Association (5G-IA) and 5G PPP under the spotlight, with important announcements from the telco industry and policy makers.
5G was the headlining topic at the MWC 2018, shining the spotlight on smart cities, IoT, AR, VR, connected cars and more. Operators, vendors, manufacturers and networks from all over the globe showcased and presented field trials, demonstrated technologies and applications, and gave visitors a taste of the future!
Both the 5G-IA and 5G PPP projects received a lot of interest, with media, policy-makers and attendees visiting the booth and demonstrations. Jean-Pierre Bienaimé, 5G-IA Secretary General & 5G PPP Steering Board Chair, and Colin Willcock, 5G-IA Board chairman were both interviewed by international press including TelecomTV, TVE National Spanish TV and Les Echos.
“We had a strong presence at the MWC and had a large number of interesting discussions about the future of 5G and 5G investments,” said Colin Willcock. “The collaboration between the telco industry and verticals is a critical success factor for European industry as a whole. The numbers show that if we do not succeed in creating a dynamic 5g eco-system in Europe that can address these vertical industries, European industry will be harshly penalized in the global competition.”
“The Projects are the engine of 5G PPP! They are directly linked to our Pan-European Trials Roadmap, being supported by the European Commission and creating opportunities for 5G partnerships to lead the way to commercial deployment,” said Jean-Pierre Bienaimé. “Some of these projects – 5G-Xhaul, 5GCAR, 5G-MoNArch, ONE5G and 5GCity – presented their demos, including Cost-effective and reconfigurable novel transport network, Lane merge and Vulnerable road user protection, Industrial sea-port environment, Vertical-IoT applications, Flexible network slicing allocation in cities via neutral host, while all the others had great visibility at the 5G-IA/5G PPP booth. The visitors’ engagement in the demos exceeded our best expectations, and we were pleased to have had Commissioner Mariya Gabriel and Pearse O’Donohue, Director Future Networks at the European Commission, DG CONNECT, visiting us to experience our projects’ progress firsthand.”
Building on this, this year the Commission will launch large 5G pre-commercial trial projects in the framework of the 5G PPP, with a total amount of EUR 200 million to foster new 5G cross-industry partnerships. Many of them will build on the so-called “5G corridors”, cross-borders sections of highways, which can be used for testing Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility services.
Commissioner Mariya Gabriel also announced at the MWC two further initiatives: the European 5G Observatory, – a call for tenders for a service contract of a maximum value of EUR 140,000. The purpose of this call for tenders is to provide accurate and up-to-date market information that is relevant for EU policy makers to work within the rapidly changing political and technological environment of today’s global economy.
The Commission also plans to launch the European 5G Pioneer Award initiative with GSMA, aiming to single out the front runners in Europe adopting 5G, whether they are key partnerships with vertical sectors or innovative 5G cities or regions. The giving of the first award is planned for next year’s edition of the MWC.
Throughout MWC, it was made clear that 5G will enable many inspiring technological – and social – improvements in the near future.
Quotes from some of our projects:
5GCAR shared project learnings with mobile network operators, automotive original equipment manufacturers, and other stakeholders during the largest gathering of the year for the mobile industry. The MWC is a great event to meet and interact with a large variety of industries.
Mikael Fallgren, 5GCAR
Vangelis Kosmatos (WINGS ICT Solutions) and I presented One5G and discussed the following key points: on the need for efficient, end-to-end aware, radio resource management for serving the diverse applications and heterogeneous environments (megacities and rural/underserved areas) envisaged in 5G; on the opportunity of having 5G as the platform that will enable, encompass, enhance, and, therefore, maximize the benefits from IoT and Artificial Intelligence.
Panagiotis Demestichas, ONE5G
5G-MoNArch has been one of the 5G PPP projects selected to present at the booth of MobileWorldCapital Barcelona, the local organizer of the MWC. With quite a number of interesting talks to visitors from both research and industry, and presenting the project’s scope, approach and goals in the MWCapital to the public, the presence can clearly be seen as a full success, even at that early stage of the project. The approach of 5G-MoNArch to bring the new 5G mobile network architecture to practice through two real-world testbeds, being at the forefront of applying network slicing to industrial and media & entertainment use cases, was very much appreciated. We are looking forward to MWC 19, where the results of the testbed implementations will be ready to be shown!
Christoph Schmelz, 5G-MoNArch
Our participation in MWC 18 gave us the opportunity to disseminate the work of 5G-XHaul to both 5G PPP community as well as to key industrial players working in 5G around the globe. We have gathered valuable feedback and very good assessment of our work given the final demonstration activities which will be held in the city of Bristol in June 2018.
Paris Flegkas, 5G-XHaul
Press Contact: Alessandro Bedeschi
Mail to: alessandro.bedeschi(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)5g-ppp.eu
Twitter: @5GPPP
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About the 5G Public-Private Partnership & the 5G Infrastructure Association
The 5G Public Private Partnership (5G PPP) is the 5G collaborative research program that is organized as part of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program – The European Union Program for Research and Innovation. It is aimed at fostering industry-driven research, monitored by business-related, technological performance and societal KPIs. The 5G PPP will deliver solutions, architectures, technologies and standards for ubiquitous next-generation communication infrastructure over the coming decade. In the 5G PPP, the 5G Infrastructure Association (5G-IA) represents the private side and the European Commission the public side. The 5G-IA is committed to the advancement of 5G in Europe and to building global consensus on 5G. To this aim, the Association brings together a global industry community of telecoms & digital actors, such as operators, manufacturers, research institutes, universities, verticals and SMEs. The 5G-IA carries out a wide range of activities in strategic areas including standardization, frequency spectrum, R&D projects, technology skills, collaboration with key vertical industry sectors, notably for the development of trials, and international cooperation. More information is available at: https://5g-ppp.eu/5g-ia-and-5g-ppp-at-the-mobile-world-congress-2018/
