The network revolution – how the new 5G mobile standard will change daily life

The context

It is 2018. In a plain office building in Mainz – staff call it “the Bunker” – the Federal Network Agency is preparing an auction that will set the framework for the next digital decade. The 5G auction. Eighteen years earlier the UMTS auction in the same building raised 50.8 billion euros and paved the way for the mobile internet and the iPhone. The question now: can 5G trigger the same economic surge? And can Germany use the new network revolution to close its digital gap?

What 5G will change

The new mobile generation promises three leaps: higher speed, more simultaneously connected devices and – the most important feature – latency times in the millisecond range. This opens application fields that were impossible with 4G: autonomous driving, connected production, remote machine control, real-time telemedicine. Industry is hoping for a productivity surge, cities for intelligent traffic systems, healthcare for new diagnostic possibilities.

Germany’s starting position

Germany trails the international field in mobile network coverage. 4G dead zones in rural areas, slow fixed-line connections in many regions. The federal government wants to use 5G to leap forward and build a lead market for industrial applications. The plan is ambitious. The question is whether the country will expand the necessary fibre infrastructure fast enough. Without fibre as its backbone, 5G remains a promise.

The billions and the rules

The 5G auction in spring 2019 will settle key questions: how many network operators will there be in Germany going forward? How strict will the build-out obligations be? And who will get access to the so-called campus networks for industrial companies? The answers will determine whether 5G becomes a real competitive advantage for Siemens, Volkswagen or Bosch – or a disappointed hope.

I wrote the full piece together with Daniel Delhaes, Thomas Jahn, Ina Karabasz and Martin Kölling for Handelsblatt.