5G's place in Australia's future

The Bureau of Communications and Arts Research (BCAR) has released its report of the potential effects of 5G technology on Australia’s productivity and growth.

According to BCAR, the working paper, ‘Impacts of 5G on productivity and economic growth’ (PDF, opens in a new window), aims to “inform consideration of any changes to regulatory settings that may be needed to support the rollout and adoption of 5G services”, as well as providing “estimates of the costs and benefits that may stem from 5G and the impacts on businesses and consumers”.

The paper complements an earlier one, ‘5G – Enabling the future economy directions’, which laid out the federal government’s plan to ensure that the national policy and regulatory framework is updated to take advantage of 5G.

The main findings from the BCAR’s analysis are:

• 5G is likely to positively affect productivity growth across the economy, perhaps adding up to $2000 in GDP per capita at the end of the first decade after rollout.
• Telecommunications-intensive sectors such as the IT, media, telecommunications, arts, entertainment, education, and wholesale and retail are well placed to take advantage of 5G.
• There will intangible benefits from improvement in the wellbeing of consumers and households.
• 5G’s economic impact will depend up on whether it improves on previous mobile technology, or if it is a ‘general purpose technology’.
• Australia is well positioned to capitalise on 5G, comparing well with the US, Canada, Germany and South Korea.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/kstudija

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