The European Commission presented earlier today at the European Conference on Networks and Communications (EUCNC) 2015 the nineteen projects selected for the first phase of the 5G public private partnership (5G-PPP). These projects benefit from an EU funding of 128 million euros. Top-class academic and industry researchers and more than 100 companies are involved. The selected 5G projects address a large diversity of key technological challenges ranging from new radio air interfaces and architectures to core network flexibility based on network virtualisation techniques.
These projects will work together, as an integrated programme under the 5G-PPP, and will collaborate to deliver the critical 5G technology building blocks. They will also assist Europe in shaping its position for the upcoming 5G milestones. In particular, these projects will harness the necessary knowledge to support the European position in the future global standardisation and spectrum debates, positioning EU clearly in the lead of the 5G technology race.
The projects are also in line with the "EU vision for 5G", which was released by the 5G-PPP at the Mobile World Congress 2015.
Background
The Commission has pledged a total of 700 million euros of public funding, to be leveraged 5 times by the private sector, in order to deliver the next generation of communication networks, 5G. The 5G-PPP is organised in three phases: first research (current stage), then system optimisation (2016-2017) then large scale trials (2019-2020). It aims to deploy 5G as from 2020, which will require before 2020 to develop a series of ground-breaking technologies, global standards and above all to agree on relevant spectrum bands.