This week, the state will start auctioning its 5G frequencies.

Its costs are high and the auctions could climb to 3.5 billion or even five billion for operators.

Nicolas Barré takes stock of a current economic issue.

5G is on.

The state will start auctioning frequencies this week, lagging behind our neighbors.

When we look at a 5G world map, we are struck by a virgin land in the middle, it is France.

In Europe, we are one of the few countries with Portugal, Croatia and Greece in which 5G has not yet been deployed.

In the world, 38 countries have already installed 5G networks, 100 million Chinese have already subscribed.

We are also one of the only countries in the world, where there is such a rampage around this technology while no study has ever shown its harmfulness.

On 5G, the French stand out by being those who swallow the most "fake news".

They forgot that the same people who rose up against 5G wanted to ban wifi twenty years ago.

Imagine for a second what France would be without wifi.

5G is coming and it's a big technological leap.

New technology like this, there is one every ten years.

What's the point ?

It will mainly be used to unclog 4G networks in large cities.

Indeed, at the rate things are going, between teleworking and Netflix if we summarize, 4G networks will be saturated in a year or two.

5G makes it possible to pass 10 times more traffic for, ultimately, half the cost.

But there will also and above all be a host of new applications in the industry.

5G is going to change the way we produce, which is why it's important not to be left behind for the wrong reasons.

It is also important to guarantee network security, it is a real subject.

Hence the mistrust of Chinese Huawei, more or less insistent depending on the country, Western operators are invited to prefer Erisson or Nokia to avoid the risk of data spying.

Who says new technology necessarily says more expensive?

Will the price of the packages increase?

At the time of the switch from 3G to 4G, that hadn't really been the case because there was a price war between operators.

It might be different this time.

The costs of 5G are high and the auction on frequencies could climb to 3.5 billion or even five billion for operators.

We can therefore expect more expensive 5G packages, but also with more GB, which may interest those most addicted to smartphones, which will also have to be changed to support 5G.

All of this, yes, will come at a cost.