Brussels, 16/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission and South Korea have announced that they have reached an agreement on developing 5G together. This will allow the European Union to continue competing for the next generation of telecommunications. Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes and Mr Mun-Kee Choi, South Korea's Minister of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) signed a Joint Declaration on Strategic Cooperatiion in Information Communications Technology (ICT) and 5G, agreeing to deepen discussions in the area of net futures (network and communications, 5G, cloud computing). Kroes was pleased to announce that “5G will become the new lifeblood of the digital economy and digital society once it is established. Both Europe and South Korea recognise this. This is the first time ever that public authorities have joined together in this way, with the support of private industry, to push forward the process of standardisation. Today's declaration signals our commitment to being global digital leaders”.
5G is expected to take over from 4G around 2020 and will help to improve mobile telecommunication speeds by several gigabytes of data per second. It will also boost cloud computing, the integration and interoperability of different connected areas, such as the automobile sector and driverless vehicles, “smart grids” and other smart networks, 3-D imaging and big data management, etc. This is an enormous challenge for the European Commission, which is determined to remain in the digital race. Last December it set up a 5G public-private partnership bringing together business leaders and sector operators in an effort to define new technology standards. This partnership benefits from public funding of €700 million. €125 million of this funding will be spent this year. As part of the cooperation agreement with South Korea, a joint working group will be set up to examine research and development projects. The two parties also said that they want to develop their cooperation inside international bodies such as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). (IL)