More than a dozen projects have responded to the call of the French government and the regulatory authority ARCEP from January to create experimental 5G platforms. The platforms in the 26 GHz frequency band (so-called “millimetre” frequency band) shall be open to third parties and promote and identify new uses of 5G. The selected projects relate to areas such as logistics, smart city, mobility and coverage of sporting events.
The first eleven projects, presented on 7 October by Agnes Pannier-Runacher, Secretary of State to the Minister of the Economy and Finance, and Sebastien Soriano, President of ARCEP, focus on a particular topic, such as:
- logistics (connected port, transport intermodality management, traceability);
- smart city (connected buildings);
- mobility (station services for trains or the general public) and
- coverage of sports events.
Other projects plan to accommodate more broadly all types of innovative companies.
Beside traditional telecom players, such as mobile network operators and telecom equipment suppliers, several projects are supported by “verticals” or non-telecommunications consortia.
ARCEP analysed the degree of technical maturity of the projects and has issued 3-year licences for the experimental use of the 26 GHz band.
The owners of the selected projects will have to have an experimental 5G operational network by 1 January 2021 at the latest, and make it available to third parties who can carry out 5G experiments. They will also have to publish the conditions of access to the experimental network, and send ARCEP a detailed report on the experiments carried out on the platform, including the name of the third party (s) conducting the experiments.
ARCEP has published the list of the projects with respective contact persons.
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