Brussels, 08/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - The telecommunications industry, on Thursday 7 July, presented its vision of the future European action plan for the deployment of 5G, announced for September of this year. It says it is ready to step up efforts on condition that European decision-makers relax net neutrality rules.
The manifesto is signed jointly by around 17 telecoms operators, including Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica and Vodaphone. It is also supported by several companies active in the sectors affected (“vertical industry companies”), such as Siemens AG and Thales Alenia Space.
In general terms, the document presents a list of the conditions needed for the development of the fifth generation standards for mobile telephony (5G). It recommends, for example that the European authorities should cooperate more, adopt common standards, free up as many frequencies as possible and facilitate innovation and investment. It also sets out a timetable for the first pan-European trials, making a distinction between the period before 2018 (that is, before the initial results of the 3rd generation partnership project on 5G are available) and the period after 2018 (when the initial results should be available and the spectrum reorganised).
Overall, the telecoms operators say that they will be able to launch 5G in at least one city in each of the 28 EU member states by 2020. For this, however, they call for the guidelines on net neutrality drafted by Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) (EUROPE 11567) to be relaxed. “The EU and Member States must reconcile the need for Open Internet with pragmatic rules that foster innovation. The telecom Industry warns that the current Net Neutrality guidelines, as put forward by BEREC, create significant uncertainties around 5G return on investment”, states the industry manifesto. “Implementation of Net Neutrality Laws should allow for both innovative specialised services required by industrial applications and the Internet Access quality expected by all consumers.” A consultation has been opened on BEREC's draft guidelines, provided for by Regulation 2015/2120 on open internet access. The consultation will run until 18 July. BEREC plans to present a definitive version on 25 August (with the official presentation on 30 August).
In response, the European Commission has said that it would consider the ideas and recommendations in the manifesto and also the other contributions - in particular those from the consultation on “opportunities for a coordinated introduction of 5G networks in Europe” which will be open until 11 July - when it drafts its action plan. This plan will be presented in September 2016.
Link to the public consultation: https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/FiveGIntroductionOpportunities and to the industry manifesto: http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=16579 (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)