There is Collaboration Between Britain and Germany on 5G Next Mobile Network

During the summer of last year, the European Union (EU) invested a lot of Euros towards the development of a fifth generation (5G) network. This is the type of network that will enable a full-length movie to be downloaded on the Internet in one second.

At least this is what the British Prime Minister David Cameron said during yesterday’s speech delivered at this year’s opening ceremony of the 2014 CeBIT technology trade fair. Cameron announced that Britain will work together with Germany in an effort to develop what can be considered the next super-fast mobile network.

According to the Prime Minister, this is just one of three areas that he sees the U.K. and Germany working on together. Cameron would like to see the two countries to collaborate in order to "pool ideas, share data, innovate, and lead on the next big ideas" in what he dubbed "a world on fast forward." As of now, the collaboration is between Germany's Dresden University and Britain's King's College University in London and the University of Surrey.

The 2014 CeBIT trade fair is being held in Hanover, Germany, with the U.K. being the CeBIT's partner country this year. The event will run for five days beginning today. Also present for Sunday’s opening speech was German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The British Prime Minister would like to see a closer collaboration between the two countries to improve Europe’s telecommunications single market and the Internet of Things. Insight as to how he views 5G networking was demonstrated when he said, "This is a prize that researchers all over the world are going for." 

Cameron continued by saying "This has enormous potential to change our lives. We are on the brink of a new industrial revolution and I want us, the U.K. and Germany, to lead it." This sentiment was re-enforced when Chancellor Merkel talked about it being a miracle that Germany and the U.K. were once bitter foes and are now working together and collaborating on the basis of democracy and freedom.

It hasn’t been forgotten that not too long ago there was scandal when the U.S. was accused of listening in on cell phone conversations of the leaders of other countries. This brought to the forefront an issue that I have been writing a lot about lately, the need for security.

Merkel did stress how important it is to move forward and continue making progress on Europe’s common rules for data protection. She mentioned that this also has to be the subject of intensive talks with the U.S.

The fact that we can achieve 5G speeds means that more people will be able to download and upload data at an incredibly fast rate. This also means that there will be more data taking that wireless trip, which definitely means that the need for security and secure platforms becomes even more important and necessary. It is not surprising, therefore, that a key CeBIT theme this year is how to keep data secure.