The involved parties, including companies like TNO, Ericsson, KPN and Huawei, will sign the start document next week, RTV Noord reports.

The Economic Board of Groningen nominated the area as testing ground in one of its first efforts to strengthen the earthquake zone’s economy.

5G is hundreds of times faster than 4G an also has a much larger bandwidth, which means that many more devices will be able to use the network simultaneously.

For the time being Loppersum residents will not have access to the 5G network. The test is primarily designed to attract businesses to the region.

“Companies from all over the world can develop new products in Loppersum using 5G”, Marco Smit, director of the Economic Board, said to RTV Noord. “But the Lopsters will have the first turn as soon as 5G is rolled out on a large scale.” This will likely only be after 2020.