I first wrote: 4G 1.2 gigabits. 5G 1.5 gigabits. This is one of the first apples to apples comparison, both running on the same Samsung Galaxy phone. These are plausible figures for sub-6 GHz LTE and NR. The best available projections are that 5G in theory would be 19-51% more capable, so this was plausible.

The question mark is there because it's possible the 4G might actually be a third more efficient than the 5G. Cho Mu-Hyun at ZDNet discovered the LTE was three bands, presumably 60 MHz, with 4x4 MIMO antennas. The most common 5G testing uses 100 MHz. Adjusting for the spectrum difference would result in the 4G being a third more efficient than the 5G.

SK combined the 4G and 5G signals for a total of 2.7 gigabits in their test.  That would be a remarkable advance if ready for market. I don't know anyone else doing similar. Samsung and SK haven't yet answered my questions about how much spectrum and product availability date. 

Far too many companies, from Swisscom to Qualcomm to Verizon, refuse to provide basic information with their releases. Verizon won't give a meaningful answer about actual speed or about how many cells are deployed or the percent of the population covered.

The core, the RAN, the home gateway and just about everything else will be in the cloud when e-commerce powerhouse Rakuten turns on Japan's fourth wireless carrier this fall. The system is working in tests today and the company is rapidly deploying radios.

CTO Tareq Amin played a crucial role at Reliance Jio, the greatest telecom disrupter of the century. He's bringing that spirit to Rakutan's new network, including a rare willingness to take chances on the newest technology.

Only a handful of people each decade have the opportunity to deploy a large greenfield network, Amin is now on his second one. 

The BOM for 5G is only ~$80 over 4G. Xiaomi's new flagship Mi Mix 4G is €499. 5G is €599 =  much less than others hoped to charge. Oppo/Vivo wanted US$200 more. Xiaomi has now forced the market to something more reasonable. Everyone except Apple has a 5G phone to announce at Barcelona MWC. Likely, no one will show a phone actually working, fearful to be the first exposing how low the real speeds are for now.

Samsung was first to announce a foldable tablet, seven inches for US$2,000. Then Huawei came in at eight inches for US$2,600. Huawei claimed a download speed of 20 gigabytes/minute. I don't believe they were able to demonstrate anything close but I'm in NY, skipping Barcelona. 

Almost all the announcements are very early. Don't expect many shipments until summer. 

Deutsche Telekom may be the first carrier in the world to install an Edge Cloud, which they are doing at a remarkably low cost. By going further back in DT's transport network, they reduced the number of boxes required from 10,000's of thousands to hundreds.

A cloud like this - highly reliable but not quite as fast - would be a very small percentage of a carrier’s capex budget. (A carrier has the fiber and other equipment in place.) It would cut the latency on your network by 40% to 70%. Perhaps more important, the latency would be much more predictable.

DT started with an initial dozen sites, which connected to almost all of the country. It is also installing at as many as 900 additional locations in the regions. This is a Level 3 Cloud - on the carrier's network but several hops from the towers.

 If drones stop shutting down airports, the telcos see a major business. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg promised at CES 2019, "Verizon is committed to being the first to connect 1 million drone flights on its 5G network." Saudi Telecom, KT, Vodafone, and KDDI are doing active testing and hope to go into commercial operation in 2019. 

The number of drone flights will likely be limited until practical flight control is demonstrated. 5G (and most 4G) networks can easily handle the modest number of drones in the air if human control is needed.  Military and civilian research into truly autonomous control of drones is active worldwide.

Turkcell is using a Huawei system in 3.5 GHz. Verizon is working with Ericsson in mmWave. 

Now that nearly everyone in the developed world has smartphones, data growth is falling dramatically. The trend has been down for several years. Cisco sees growth in Asia-Pacific falling to 37% and Latin America to 34% by 2022. Folks who make business decisions on the assumption of high growth will be disappointed.

Since the technology is improving at something like 40% per year, that means either excess capacity or capex cuts. Verizon is building the most advanced wireless network in the world and cut capital spending in 2018. Deutsche Telekom, NTT DOCOMO, and Orange/FT have all told investors that capex will be flat to down as they build 5G networks.

The developing world continues remarkable growth, especially in India. Cisco's estimate for Middle East and Africa is 48% for 2022. As smartphones approach saturation, growth will slow. 

"Autonomous cars do not need 5G," respected Professor Gerhard Fettweis told us in the spring. Karl-Heinz Laudan of Deutsche Telecom agrees. "Automotive does not need mmWaves. I can now add an informed source, Don Butler, executive director, Ford Connected Vehicle Platform and Product. "These vehicles will be fully capable of operating without C-V2X." That's of course true. Otherwise, the cars would shut down when out of range of a cell site.

Connected cars - as opposed to autonomous cars - will be a major business. Ford is putting 4G in every car in 2018. AT&T estimates it has 27 million cars on the network today, although few have a second connection. That's mostly for entertainment today, but literally dozens of Waze-like information applications are coming to market. Butler predicts, "Road signs could provide advance warning of recent accidents or provide more context regarding road construction."

Dan Warren, now at Samsung, was the first to explain to me why cars couldn't be completely dependent on phone networks. "Will they freeze when they hit a deadspot? Of course not." 

In 2020, Edge Clouds can reduce latency to about 15-25 ms in 5G, ~10 ms more in LTE.  Today's 4G LTE networks take 30 ms to 70 ms and more. Everything we do today works on  4G, of course. Some apps will benefit substantially from lower latencies, especially gaming. Some new apps will develop when lower latency is available. Multi-player Pokemon looks great.

To write Strategies for 5G, I needed to understand the impact of Edge Clouds. The first half dozen experts provided me with about seven opinions, often conflicting, They couldn't even agree on a definition. After a month of research and two dozen more conversations, I am less clueless. I divided the different Edge proposals into five levels. 

Level 1 will require 1 ms 5G air latency, which is still in the labs. The 5G deploying is about 10 ms.

Level 2 is close to the cell, which adds 5-10 ms to the air latency. The first unit of the type is now installed in Chicago by Vapor IO. They promise nationwide coverage by 2020.  

Level 3 is further back in the carrier network and a little slower. Deutsche Telekom's system, mostly constructed, expects 20-25 ms.  That's the supply side.