The introduction of 3G was a huge modernisation. It was a revolution for mobile telecom and gave Europe the lead. Mobile telephony was suddenly a popular phenomenon, creating new opportunities and new accessibility. Today there are more mobile phone subscriptions in the world than human beings. It has created universal connectivity. Europe was in the lead of this development but lost it.
4G is digitalisation. Old services in new structures and new services that we couldn’t foresee. New devices such as tablets and smartphones are a function of these new information technologies and the Internet is becoming a base for most sectors and industries of our societies.
This development is crucial for the competitiveness of our economies. And Europe is lagging behind in the deployment of 4G. Other parts of the world – such as the US, Japan, South Korea – are as much as four times more rapid in developing the use of mobile broadband.
5G will be crucial because it is the full industrialisation. It will be transformational for everything from the transport sector to the car industry as well as health industry, entertainment and media and it will change the structures of production as well as the criteria for productivity and marketing.
In order to take the lead in the digital economy we need to do a lot.
What we today call cyber security must be the security and defence of our economies, production and supply chains as well as for the credibility of banking and trade and for the protection of our private lives.
Data protection and cyber security must go hand in hand with the development of new services and be based upon our own actions.
Regulations and legislation must be technology neutral. The European Union must adapt its legislation regarding IPR, services, copyrights, VAT and sales legislation to the 21st century rather than keeping those of the last. All this is complicated but it must be done.
It will be much easier if we decide to take a decisive step and take the lead in launching and deploying the nets of 5G. Europe should be in the lead, in a harmonised action where the leading Member states must be the template and where the aim must be to make the European Union the leading 5G economy of the world.
It will require much more competition between different actors, European markets and trans-European nets, by coordination, harmonisation or by market development. It will require the combination of economy of scale integrated in competition over the borders.
The release and the coordination of the 700MHz band – now finally proposed by Commission – will be a crucial and formative first step in order to live up to these challenges.
When we will have the lead in 5G and the best capacities, the momentum and magnitude of change will help us with the reforms needed to take the full benefit of the digital industrialisations that we now are up to.
To take the lead on 5G is one of the few single issues where we can take explicit decisions, not only define goals and targets, that will bring back growth, leadership, innovations and competitiveness for the European economy.
The Commission must be tough and forward looking and so must the European Parliament, in order to convince hesitant Member states that Europe means more in the digital era than ever.