Germany's Minister for Digital Infrastructure has vowed to make the country an innovation leader in 5G technology - by unveiling its strategic roadmap for the implementation of 5G in Germany. Alexander Dobrindt, launched the nation's 5G strategy, which disclosed plans to rollout a 'high-quality' wide area network by 2025.
Germany's regulator has already earmarked some of the spectrum it intends to use in order to enable the new service - whilst it has been reported further frequencies set to be allocated by the end of 2018. In a statement issued by the Germany Ministry for Digital Infrastructure it claimed that its strategy would make the country a leader in 5G.
In addition to making Germany a 5G superpower, the Ministry also disclosed plans to test a range of smart city use-cases across several urban areas - and it has invited local authorities to submit applications. The concept of 'Smart Cities' is one of the most emerging sectors in ICT, and more and more government entities and city councils are developing initiatives based around the 'smart city' theme.
The German Ministry also states in its statement in relation to Germany's 5G strategy that 'powerful fibre' should be used to connect mobile base stations - whilst a series of federal assets ranging from traffic lights, to street lighting to government buildings will be used to house infrastructure.
The strategic plan for Germany consists of 27-pages, and according to Dobrindt, Germany is the first country to prepare and compile a comprehensive framework for 5G. He said: "5G is the foundation of the gigabit company. With the super-fast mobile phone standard, we give the starting shot for the digital real-time age. We are the first country to present a comprehensive 5G strategy. We want Germany to provide a high-performance 5G network by 2025. We are pushing the grid rollout, providing frequencies and testing 5G in cities and municipalities."