It's early, with minuscule deployments except in Korea, China, and the U.S. (next month.) Nothing's proven, but these conclusions look likely.

Works well: Government orders (China,) Gov "guides" (Korea,) Competition moves (Korea, U.S.)

Probably doesn't: Moderate changes in external costs (Small cells made easier, duct access.) Reductions in spectrum fees. (Most to shareholders, not investment,) Minimally useful spectrum (24 GHz.) Details:

Orders. With the approval of the Politburo, Minister Miao Wei directed the three telcos to build 5G at a ferocious rate. 100,000-200,000 cells in 2019; millions soon after. 25 ms Edge Network to 90%. Political power like that has an obvious downside. 

In a few months, China will have more 5G sites than the entire western world.  "Michael Gao Wenhao of ZTE told China Daily that by Oct 1, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom will each deploy 30,000 to 50,000 base stations in some 40 cities." Alex Cheng of China Mobile confirmed the story.

From other sources, I know that China will very rapidly go first to 1,000,000 bases and after that to 2,000,000. 90%+ of the country will soon be covered. The Politburo has decided that a great Internet will help the economy. Minister Miao Wei told the companies to do it.

No one should be surprised by the size of the rollout. In January, I reported the Nomura estimate that China will have 172,000 sites in 2019.

BT told reporters they yanked the Huawei Mate 20 from the announcement because of the U.S. war. It forgot to take Huawei out of the press release. I discovered what you see at left when I pasted in for this article. (type made larger)I'm sure someone in the Chinese embassy is already talking to the government - if they can figure out who's running the British government as May considers how to resign.

The deployment is almost surely small. I draw that conclusion from the failure of BT to release availability maps or the number of homes passed/radios installed. The only interesting news is that the pr says BT will start URLLC in 2023.

1.096 gigabits. 1.098 gigabits. 999 megabits. 941 megabits. ((Line of sight, < 200 meters) These are actual tests on Verizon 5G with a Samsung Galaxy 10 in Chicago. These are real people on real phones, three of them independent journalists.

10,000's have already ordered the Galaxy 10 5G, even knowing it will be rare to connect to 5G. Consumers want 5G; 400,000 Koreans have bought 5G phones in six weeks.

These results are about twice tests from a month ago and three or four times December tests. Almost everyone doubted high-frequency 5G would make sense. Neville Ray, CTO of T-Mobile, blogged the mmWave would only be a small niche. Craig Moffett, one of the best on Wall Street, wrote that the economics were extremely dubious. 

mmWave still faces major obstacles.

Tom Bartlett is CFO of American Tower. The company's 170,000 towers mean it is intimately involved with every major carrier in the U.S., India, and Brazil. His comments reflect the consensus views of the companies:

• 5G "relatively flat for a few years"
• Yearly "30% to 40% demand on the network" 
• Massive MIMO and multiple antennas will be used on many/most sites to increase capacity.

Bartlett doesn't see much profit for American Tower in small cells and is directing investment to other products. Despite all the lobbying and self-congratulatory politicians, I haven't seen much of an increase in small cell building or more than modest interest outside the U.S.

May 1, 2019. Korea has pulled far ahead in 5G, by almost every measure. Half the country is covered with 5G, with 90% expected by the end of 2019. Korea Telecom has 100,000 subscribers and the country 260,000. The hope is for 10% of users will be on 5G by the end of 2019, four to five million. SKT projects 6-7M subscribers by the end of 2020. That would suggest the three carriers will have 8-10M subscribers in a year. It will be difficult to impossible for any other country to catch up until 2021 or later. 

Takeaways: The government "suggested" the companies move quickly, effective industrial planning. KT CFO Kyung-Keun Yoon on its financial call said, "The investment into 5G is actually inevitable for us." I believe this pattern will be common: one company moves fast on 5G and the others feel they must match. Ericsson data is:

More than half in China, one-third in South Korea and one in four in the US and Australia will change either immediately or within six months should this be the case. 

Ericsson wants to sell radios and is not an objective source, but all indications are that if 5G is offered at the same price as 4G, consumers will buy. I expect this will especially be true later this year when numerous 5G phones hit the market at about US$600. 

Milo Medin, one of the most respected communications engineers, co-authored what should become the basis for all discussion of spectrum allocations. Most thoughtful engineers realized a few years ago that shared spectrum usually delivers far more capacity because more users will usually mean more radios. While today's phones are not "software-defined" or completely "frequency agile," many support dozens of bands and the networks can almost always find less congested bands.

The most important recommendation is

"DoD should recommend that the NTIA, FCC and Department of State should advocate the reallocation of the C-band satellite spectrum to IMT-2000 5G use at the World Radio Conference later this year (WRC-19), and take measures to adopt sharing in all 500 MHz of the band in the United States on an accelerated basis for fixed operations." 

Almost all independent engineers conclude sharing is now the way to go. Columbia Professor & former FCC Chief Technologist Henning Schulzrinne in 2017 projected "All New Spectrum Likely To Be Shared." OFCOM and some EU experts have said the same thing to me. More sharing is implied in the important White House PCAST report.

Neville Ray, T-Mobile CTO, thinks Verizon 5G is heading for disaster if they build mmWave to the planned 30 million homes. He wishes them "Lots of Luck" in the illustrations at left and below, illustrated with skulls. Top Wall Street analyst Craig Moffett has looked in detail at Verizon's mmWave and infers it is currently limited to under 200 metres.

Ray's blog (excerpt below) begins "5G is at the height of the hype curve right now and there’s also a lot of misinformation." On the blog, Neville has a striking very short video of how mmWave performance can be destroyed simply by closing a door. 

On the other hand, Swisscom/Fastweb on May 2 committed three billion euro to bring 26 GHz mmWave to 8 million Italian homes. They are sure they will deliver a gigabit 500 metres. Ted Rappaport of NYU, the leading researcher, emails me, "5G small cell operating on mmWave spectrum should reach 100 to 200 metres in a dense urban environment, up to 900 metres in suburban areas."  

Whether mmWave reaches 200 metres or 800 metres is the biggest unknown in planning for 5G.