5G roll-out failures addressed by innovation policies in the EU

Abstract

The 5G ecosystem in the EU is highly complex and multi-faceted with a range of competing interests and stakeholders and hence, makes the assessment of policy measures quite difficult. This paper attempts to clarify and make more accessible as well as tangible, which innovation ‘failures’ are applicable to the case of the roll-out of 5G in the EU and what innovation policy measures have been implemented to tackle them in the EU. Hence, we present an overview of the policy issues related to 5G roll-out found in the literature. This provides context to our research questions. Then, we outline the ‘failures’ that are relevant to the case of 5G roll-out. Adapting the innovation policy instruments taxonomy provided by Edler and Fagerberg (2017), subsequently, we give an overview of the in the EU implemented innovation policy measures and then ultimately outline how they relate to the failures. ‘Market failures’ were the least addressed by innovation policies of the EU, where the most important failures were the ‘System failures’ and the ‘Transformational Systems failures’. This paper hence attempts to provide a strong foundation in the analysis of 5G policies in the EU as well as providing insights as to which areas might require further policy action.