Europe needs to catch up with the countries it sees as the powerhouses of 5G – China and the USA.
So China is a 5G powerhouse?
Why not take a page from China's playbook: Buy one set of 5G kit from China and reverse-engineer the crap out of it.
The European Union reckons 5G R&D needs a boost – so it has slung a loan of €500m in the general direction of Finland. Nokia, recipient of the loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), hasn't identified specific goals for its development effort. However, EIB president …
Government picking winners again? Will they never learn?
In terms of mobile phones, Nokia is the past. In terms of 5G and IoT, it might be the future, but if so that'll be more by chance (if it happens) and employing good people and supporting their ideas (if that happens) than anything government might do.
Meanwhile in the real world, whatever presence Europe may have in 5G and the IoT will come from innovative companies we haven't heard of yet. A €500m pot to provide matching funds to investments from the big telcos in innovative startups could bring some real results.
5G is not 'innovative startup' tech, it is boring, big business, infrastructure tech. Think of it more like water supplies and sewerage then bit coins and block chain. And what ever your personal opinions on Nokia phones, along with Ericsson and Hauwei, Nokia are major contenders in the telecoms infrastructure business.
Government picking winners?
It sure as hell didn't work with Toyota, Honda, Samsung or KIA.
And H&K definitively did poorly on the market, as did Daewoo, Boeing and Rolls Royce, all companies that got loads of government dosh. Not to forget government companies like Statoil/Equinor...
And I remember that the private market gave an internet enabled juice squeezer hundreds of millions of American Euros, so it's not like they get things right all the time either...