Calum Kerr – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Calum Kerr on 2016-07-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if her Department will make it its policy to launch commercial 5G services in at least one city by 2020.

Matt Hancock

We are sponsoring the Future Communications Challenge Group (FCCG) of senior academics, industry experts and funders, chaired by the President of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, which is considering how we should drive forward our commitment to ensure that UK has a leading role in 5G development.

In parallel the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) is conducting a study, launched in Budget 2016, into how UK can achieve early deployment of 5G networks.

Both of these will report by the end of the year and the results will feed into a comprehensive 5G strategy for the UK, to be published in 2017.