Project 5GBarcelona, converting the city into the first 5G Living Lab 5G in both Europe and the world

• The project aims to convert the Catalan capital into Southern Europe’s technological hub
• 5G will create 2.3 million jobs and economic activity of over 130,000 million euros up to 2025

The Catalan Government,  Barcelona City Council, Mobile World Capital Barcelona, the i2CAT Foundation, the Technological Centre for Telecommunications in Catalonia (CTTC), Atos and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) have signed the 5GBarcelona Project, a partnership agreement that aims to transform the Catalan capital into Southern Europe’s technological hub, leading the way to convert 5GBarcelona into the first 5G Living Lab in Europe and the world.

It should be noted that Barcelona and Catalonia already enjoy R&D prestige in terms of 5G. Since the 5G PPP initiative (which was part of the European Commission’s H2020 programme launched in 2014) research organisations in Catalonia have obtained funding to participate in 22 projects out of the 37 awarded by the scheme. The  5G PPP (5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership) initiative is jointly promoted by the European Commission and the European telecommunications industry.

During this coming year, in the subsequent phases of the 5G-PPP programme, the European Commission will select a small number of projects in order to create 5G environments and validation. 5GBarcelona has its goals set on becoming one of these. The European Commission estimates that 5G technology will have create 2.3 million jobs every year until 2025 and will involve an economic activity amounting to more than 130,000 million euros.

5G technology will permit technological change and the creation of intelligent environments and advanced industries at the service the public and emerging economic sectors. It will also provide access to the so-called ‘Internet of Things’, opening the way to the creation of innovative, disruptive services in areas such as self-driving, connected vehicles, drone-based services, 4.0 Industry and access to remote ehealth services. The deployment of 5G will lead to a technological transformation of services and infrastructures, it will reduce the digital divide and will generate opportunities for new generations.

Currently, Barcelona is already acting as a public test bench of the new 5G paradigm, with the 5GCity project, which involves the participation of Barcelona City Council, ​​i2CAT,  Betevé and CellNex, and aims to develop a focused pilot in the deployment of a neutral 5G network.

[01/23/2018]