The projects funded under this call are expected to accelerate the deployment of 5G SA across the Union, thus directly contributing to the achievement of the Digital Decade connectivity goals and the other Digital Decade targets. The benefits and impact of these actions will equally depend on the level of innovation present in the use cases addressed.

By closing deployment gaps and removing capacity bottlenecks and technical barriers, the deployment of 5G Corridors along the TEN-T networks will contribute to strengthening the social, economic, and territorial cohesion in the EU.

5G Corridor projects would deliver uninterrupted coverage, where service continuity will meet relevant quality-of-service requirements over the entire range of the corridor section. In turn, this will enable the developmment of a broad range of 5G-enabled CAM services, including road, rail, inland waterways and coastal maritime, and if appropriate in combination with multimodal transport, as well as complementary safety-related services where appropriate. The latter could be based on direct short range communication technologies, such as V2X and ITS-G5, and supporting complementarities between existing and future infrastructure deployment actions.

In the future, deployed infrastructure may contribute to the improved safety of road/rail/waterway/coastal operations (e.g. Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), Future Rail Mobile Communication System (FRMCS), River Information Services (RIS)) and enable 5G services for multiple application domains.

Key parameters to measure impact for the 5G Corridor topic, will be:

• Aggregate length of the corridor sections covered by 5G
• Spectrum bands enabled along the sections
• Inter-antenna distance, or in the case of deployment limited to passive netwok infrastructure only, inter-pylone/mast/towers
• Availability of various service features along transport routes, and
• Target network performance such as data rate and latency for each vehicle.

Projects may also contribute to the objectives of the Commission’s strategy on the mobility of the future in terms of road safety, optimised road traffic and reduced CO2 emissions and traffic congestion, as well as the competitiveness of the European telecom and automotive industries.

5G smart communities use cases are expected to accelerate the take-up of 5G SA connectivity for the provision of innovative services and contribute to a wider deployment at the same time. Such services can help reboot the overall economy, as well as support the transition towards the provision of smart services in line with the objectives of the European Green Deal. 5G SA innovative use cases include:

• IoT infrastructure and community services that require a flexible, low-latency, reliable, high-user-density connectivity infrastructure, e.g. through a combination of fibre and wireless connectivity (5G, small cells, and Wi-Fi) that is IPv6-enabled.
• 5G- and edge cloud- based use cases that leverage new 5G characteristics, e.g.: higher bandwidth and ubiquitous coverage (eMBB), ultra-low latency (URLLC), massive machine-type (mMTC).
• Process and data innovations that require connectivity infrastructures with advanced service features, e.g. quality-of-service guarantees enabled by edge computing facilities and support by network slicing.
• Projects that rely, where relevant, on open, disaggregated, and interoperable technology solutions and contributing to the emergence of a European 3C network ecosystem of suppliers.
• Leveraged impact on investment in 5G and edge cloud for vertical sectors by all types of public and private investors.
• Positive spillover effect to Digital Decade indicators not only for “digital infrastructure” but also to other use cases in Digital Skills, Digital Transformation of Businesses and Digital public Services.

In addition to the support for local innovation, the EU added value is also based on the dissemination and the early adoption of concrete 5G SA use cases that will contribute to gaining insights and increasing maturity for 5G applications in different sectors. It is expected that this will generate spillover effects across the 3C Network value chain, in particular by nurturing consumer-supplier synergies between actors working on converged, cloud-enabled connectivity and computing infrastructures. In all 5G Large Scale Pilots proposals, the beneficiaries should demonstrate that they have access to use case resources and capacities, including relevant radio spectrum (in case of passive infrastructure deployment, either directly or contractually with 5G spectrum band owners). They should provide reassurances as to the operation of the service beyond the specific areas (e.g. 5G corridor section) supported by CEF, and beyond the time horizon of the CEF-funded project, in view of the long-term development of the infrastructures (e.g. more extensive pan-European corridor network, replication of a smart community use case, etc.).

All proposals should include a solid implementation plan, including access to services and applications with social, economic, and environmental benefits extending beyond the co-fundeded Member States, the beneficiaries or telecoms sector, as well as a commitment to maintain the infrastructure beyond the lifetime of the project. Proposals should also include a plan to enable uninterrupted service beyond the 5G cross-border sections (for 5G Corridors proposals) and, if applicable, beyond the scope of the funded 5G SA network at the SED location (for 5G smart communities proposals). Such a plan should include the same security conditions that apply to the CEF-funded project.

Each proposal must be supported by the relevant competent authorities involved in the deployment of 5G SA network infrastructure in the area where the deployment is foreseen to take place, e.g. along a transport path on the two sides of the border, at national and/or regional and/or local levels for the 5G Smart Communities.

All the proposals should define post-project ownership and describe the mechanism(s) set in place for long term cooperation and sustainability. The functional and operational relationship(s) between the different participants in the value chain for the provision of digital services should be clearly defined.

Beneficiaries will be asked during project implementation to share their knowledge, achievements and lessons learnt, including in the context of relevant Support Actions, in order to demonstrate the benefits of 5G SA by providing concrete examples of 5G based use cases for SEDs. Sharing of project information will be essential for project replication (e.g. requirements elicitation, scoping and templates for financial sizing, facilitating identification of complementary funding sources) across the Union, thus facilitating the spillover effect of CEF Digital investments.

During project implementation beneficiaries will be also asked to cooperate with the ongoing CSA projects (or follow up actions) that support and enhance 5G edge and distributed cloud integration for European 5G corridors and 5G smart communities and foresee specific budget for these activities.

The Broadband Competence Offices (BCO) Network will also play an important role in helping applicants and beneficiaries to overcome the challenges related to the envisaged deployment and take-up of 5G SA, e.g. by conveying knowledge and good practices.

Proposals funded under this call may include synergetic (ancillary) elements relating to another sector of the CEF programme, i.e. energy and transport, if these synergetic elements allow to significantly improve the socio-economic, climate or environmental benefits of the action. CEF co-funding may be provided as long as the cost of these synergetic elements does not exceed 20% of the total eligible costs of the action. Art. 10 of CEF Regulation.

Synergies between CEF projects and with other relevant EU programmes is encouraged. Maximising the value, impact, efficiency of EU funding and supporting delivering on EU priorities is an EU added value which will be positively considered under the “Priority and Urgency” criterion.

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Large-scale pilots for advancing the 3C Network will demonstrate the benefits gained from the evolution of the current network infrastructures towards virtualised and cloud-native ones. This will include the deployment of 5G SA networks and their integration with edge cloud infrastructures enabling innovative applications in European vertical sectors, social innovations, new operation models for public services, as well as new business models opening new opportunities to Europe’s key industries working across the 3C Network value chain.

Projects will need to demonstrate the soundness of the financing for the remaining parts of the project (infrastructure or otherwise) enabling the intended 5G SA use cases (e.g. end-user devices, sensors, connectivity subscriptions), which are not eligible for support under the CEF Regulation and may therefore be supported by other programmes or the consortium’s own contribution. Projects will also need to demonstrate that the infrastructure will be operated in a future-proof way based on state-of-the art protocols and standards, such as IPv6, and that they are located in areas where no 5G SA network is providing services addressing evolving end-users' needs.

The beneficiaries will be operators that will deploy 5G SA networks and provide access to 5G SA services to socio-economic drivers (SEDs). The SEDs should apply together with the above-mentioned operators and therefore endorse the planned 5G innovative use case(s). Eligible cost items may include 5G radio equipment and – where necessary for installation of additional base stations for densification – the passive infrastructure. Priority will be given to projects that can demonstrate multiple 5G-based use cases relying on the same 5G SA network.

In line with the CEF Regulation (see recital 40), internet services and software services that make use of the digital infrastructure are not in scope of CEF financing.

The innovative aspects of 5G to support the use case will be assessed during evaluation.

The maximum CEF co-financing rate will be 75% of the CEF-eligible costs as a general rule. The financed 5G infrastructure may only be used to provide 5G services to the SEDs that will benefit from the innovative use cases.

In general, the requested co-funding and the number of SEDs that will benefit from the 5G service will be considered as part of the assessment of the catalytic effect of EU assistance and the economic impact award criteria.

Specific use-cases demonstrably addressing green policy objectives, in particular in terms of reducing the carbon footprint, are encouraged and will be taken into account when evaluating the proposals under the “Impact” criterion.

Proposals of greater scale in terms of scope, size of the coverage area, number of use-cases/end-users/countries involved, are encouraged and will be taken into account under the Priority & Urgency criteria.

In case of co-funding from national or shared management funds (including Cohesion Policy funds), State aid rules within the meaning of Article 107(1) TFEU apply (see section 10 for details). However, if the projects concern the provision of dedicated 5G SA connectivity to enable highly demanding use cases by socio-economic drivers that are public administrations or public or private entities using it for the operation of SGIs (services of general interest) or of SGEIs (services of general economic interest) and that such connectivity is necessary for discharging those services, such co-funding will either not constitute State Aid (when no economic activities are supported) or can be considered compatible with the TFEU without the need of its notification and approval by the Commission, if compliant with the SGEI Decision.

The CEF Digital grant does not constitute state aid; however, it must be consistent with the state aid framework from the outset. In particular, the grant should be used to address market failures or sub-optimal investment situations of a given use case, in a proportionate manner, without duplicating or crowding out private financing, in particular where actions are not commercially viable but where they have a clear Union added value.

Market failures exist when the private sector fails to address demonstrated end-users' needs. This may also occur when connectivity is provided at an insufficient level of quality or at excessive prices possibly due to insufficient competition. Market failures are often linked to the geographical areas concerned (e.g., cross-border sections of a transport corridor, rural vs. urban, etc.). State intervention should be used where it is impossible to address such market failure through less distortive policy and measures.

Proposals concerning smart communities should identify the owner(s) of the infrastructure supported by the project and describe the conditions of access to it, as well as the operational relationship(s) between the different participants in the value chain for providing services. Therefore, the proposal should describe the methodology that the operator of the supported infrastructure uses to calculate the tariffs charged for access to it for the providers of the 5G innovative use case; and it will be taken into account in the evaluation of the “impact” criterion. In any case, the price charged by the entity operating the 5G funded infrastructure to the public authority or provider of the SEDs for the 5G access service should not exceed the price charged under market conditions, such as those prevailing in other competitive markets and should take into account the public funding received. The price charged should contribute to encourage to the maximum extent possible the use of the deployed capacity by its end-users.

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