European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes announces new EU research grants in 2013 to develop '5G' technology, with the aim to put Europe back in the lead of the global mobile industry. Overall, from 2007 to 2013 EU investments amount to more than €700 million for research on future networks.

Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice President, confirmed that €50 million EU research grants in 2013 will be allocated for research to deliver 5G mobile technology by 2020. METIS, 5GNOW, iJOIN, TROPIC, Mobile Cloud Networking, COMBO, MOTO and PHYLAWS are some of the new EU research projects that address the architecture and functionality needs for 5G / beyond 4G networks. In November 2012, the European Commission published a decision to add another 120 MHz to the radio spectrum portfolio for 4G technologies around the 2 GHz band.

From 2007 to 2013, EU investments amount to more than €700 million for research on future networks, half of which is allocated to wireless technologies, contributing to development of 4G and beyond 4G. In particular, the METIS project gains a €16 million fresh EU investment.

According to the Commission, by 2020 worldwide mobile traffic alone will reach a 33 times increase compared to 2010 figures. In this time Internet access will become dominated by wireless devices such as smartphones, tablets, machines and sensors, requiring more efficient and ubiquitous technology to carry the data traffic. Every sector of the economy is going digital. This new wave of research projects promises to bring cutting-edge ultra-high-speed mobile broadband technology to the daily lives of Europeans.