The European Commission's action plan of September 2016, confirmed by the EU Council in December 2017, aims at commercially deploying 5G in at least one major city in all Member States by the end of 2020 but the Government's strategy Portuguese points to coverage of two cities, one on the coast, with more than 50 thousand inhabitants, and another in the interior, but the locations are not yet chosen.
The Observatory for 5G also estimates that at the end of December there were 147 cities equipped with 5G (138 in the EU 28).
According to the Observatory, only 11 countries had published the national roadmap for 5G at the end of 2019, including strategies for the spectrum: Germany, Austria, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, United Kingdom and Sweden.
5G strategy accelerates worldwide
Not only in Europe is 5G a 'hot' topic, but also in other regions of the globe, since it is a technology that promises to revolutionize the world, not only because of the number of objects that will be connected (Internet of Things – IoT), as well as the speed of data transmission (essential for autonomous vehicles, for example).
For example, in South Korea, all three operators have already launched 5G services, having registered in the end of October three million subscribers of fifth generation mobile, estimated to reach five million by the end of 2019, the report says.
In Australia, the service has been launched and the technology covers 10 cities, including Melbourne and Sydney, and is expected to expand to a further 25 cities this year.
In China, the three operators China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom launched 5G services last November and have already managed, in advance, to secure close to nine million mobile fifth generation subscribers. In the United States, three of the four largest operators have also launched 5G services.
Countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have also announced the availability of 5G, while in India, one of the largest mobile markets in the world, the government is strongly committed to the development of technology, but is still at an early stage reflex, estimating that it will be "launched in 2022".
