The agreement signed in Seoul on 16 June is a milestone in the global race to develop 5G mobile technologies. The EU and South Korea have agreed to work towards a global definition of 5G and to cooperate in 5G research. They also agreed on the need for harmonized radio spectrum to ensure global interoperability and on the preparation of global standards for 5G.
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Both sides signed a Joint Declaration on Strategic Cooperation in Information Communications Technology (ICT) and 5G, agreeing to deepen discussions in the area of Net Futures (network and communications, 5G, cloud computing), an element of on-going relations on ICT topics. Both sides will also work towards a coordinated call for research project proposals, to be launched in 2016. An industry memorandum of understanding will be signed between the EU’s 5G Infrastructure Association (whose members include Alcatel-Lucent, Atos, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Nokia, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telenor and Telefonica) and South Korea’s 5G Forum.
5G is a new network technology and infrastructure that will bring the capacities needed to cope with the massive growth in the use of communication – especially wireless – technologies by humans and by machines. 5G won’t just be faster, it will bring new functionalities and applications with high social and economic value.
The two sides reaffirmed to strengthen the agreement of the November 2013 summit meeting, where both sides agreed on promoting R&D collaboration in the area of ICT. As a follow up, both sides decided to set up a Korea-EU ICT working group to prepare for ICT R&D cooperation as well as relevant policy discussions in the areas of 5G, Cloud and Internet of Things (IoT), and eventually to launch jointly funded R&D programs (‘coordinated call’) in 2016-2017.
Background
In December 2013 the Commission launched a Public-Private Partnership on 5G. The EU is investing EUR 700 million over the next seven years into the 5GPPP through the Horizon 2020 programme. EU industry is set to match this investment by up to 5 times, to more than 3 billion euros. South Korea is investing and coordinating research its efforts through 5G Forum and there are other major public and industry-led initiatives s in China, Japan, Taiwan and the US
In February 2014 at the World Mobile Congress 2014, Neelie Kroes called for bold steps towards global consensus on the scope of 5G: “Let’s find a global consensus on the scope of 5G, its main technological constituents, and the timetable for putting it in place. Let’s work this out together. And let’s work it out soon: by the end of 2015. So all our citizens can get the 5G boost as early as possible.”
