5G-building region says future growth depends on regulator views A Finnish city hoping to build on its investment in the future of IT has held a conference on trends which identified 5G wireless networks as likely to prove the next major step in the evolution of new business online.
The Global Forum is hosted this year by the Finnish city of Oulu, a hotspot for developing next generation mobile networks. The world's first 5G test network was opened in Oulu in May 2015 as a joint effort between businesses, the University of Oulu, and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.
ICT policy makers see the 5G revolution as the greatest positive upheaval in the field since the creation of the GSM standard in the early 1990s, it says. Radio frequencies are the most critical natural resource affecting global development, it warns, and these are controlled and administered by regulators. It is vital to reserve sufficient frequency spectrums for future 5G use. By ensuring this, regulators can play a major role in the positive development of mobile networking and improve the lives of virtually every global citizen, it claims.
"Possible business areas and models to benefit from 5G networks can range from health care and security to retail and manufacturing, and everything inbetween. Fast 5G networks can become a powerful enabler for businesses, but only if the regulators allow the frequencies to be used without prohibitively steep licence fees", said Matti Pennanen, Mayor of Oulu.
An operator-independent mode of working is highly important in enabling 5G mobile services especially indoors. The success of future Internet of Things solutions depend on this model: current operator-controlled business models do not offer sufficient support for their development.
"Regulators are soon set to face an unavoidable moment of truth. Will they have enough courage to make radical choices in allocating and licensing radio frequencies to push positive development? The US has already taken the first decisive steps in this direction - will Europe be left behind?" he asked.