In addition to the IEEE 5G++ Summit, there was another highlight to report: the first 5G-OPERA project meeting in Dresden at the same venue as the Summit.
At the project meeting, work packages and activities were discussed that will be processed in the project in the future. Topics like the ecosystem development, the overall architecture and the improvement of current Open RAN equipment were discussed.
The political objective is to achieve the basis for the sovereignty in mobile communication technology for Europe and particularly France and Germany, especially in the field of private 5G networks and Open RAN technologies. The aim is to install a European ecosystem that harmonizes the digitization process across national borders. This objective will have a massive economic and thus social relevance. The deployment of private 5G networks via Open RAN technology will decrease the price of the overall private 5G network solutions, furthermore allowing for specific adaptation to the users’ needs, that will differ for most private 5G network use cases. A decreased price will improve acceptance and lead to wider distribution of private 5G networks. This will create jobs in the area of software development, network deployment and operation as well as application development and integration in the European economy.
These ambitious goals can only be achieved with fruitful collaboration. This first project meeting was able to lay the foundation for this.