5G ENSURE has received funding from the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation H2020 under grant agreement No 671562 | Duration November 2015 / October 2017
Submitted by s.parker on October 3, 2016
The European Commission has just published a long-awaited study funded through the SMART programme into the expected benefits of 5G in the European Union. The study reveals that the total cost of 5G deployment in 28 Member States could reach approximately €56 billion in 2020. The study also suggests that investment in 5G could achieve potential annual benefit to the EU member states of €113.1 billion from 2025, with trickle-down benefits from 5G investment totalling as much as €141 billion. The deployment of 5G is also expected to create 2.3 million jobs in the 28 countries.
The study looked at four main vertical industries: automotive, healthcare, transportation and energy. While 5G benefits and capabilities are broad and varied, the study identified three main capabilities that will bring beneficial changes and development:
- 50Mbit/s everywhere: Truly ubiquitous coverage is expected to help overcome the “digital divide” caused by poor broadband coverage.
- Scalable solutions for sensor networks: Support for large scale M2M/IoT networks is a priority for all verticals and environments, in particular the four key verticals covered by the study.
- Ultra-tactile Internet: This has the potential to unlock new applications and services including real-time “sense-respond-actuation” cycles that enable human-device and device-device interactions.
There are both direct economic benefits attributed to each sector, and secondary socio-economic and environmental benefits arising from four “environments”: Smart Cities, Non-Urban, Smart Homes and Workplace.
The first order economic benefits account for €62.5 billion of the identified total €113.1 billion benefits by 2025 and are distributed as follows:
- Automotive: €13.8 billion
- Transport: €5.1 billion
- Healthcare: €1.1 billion
- Utilities: €775 million
Second order benefits arise from the different environments totalling €50.6 billion. They are broken down as follows:
- Workplace: €30.6 billion
- Non-Urban: €10.6 billion
- Smart City: €8.1 billion
- Smart Home: €1.3 billion
Sources: Digital Single Market - links to the Study Report, TelecomTV
