Alex Webb, Columnist

Why 5G Will Arrive With a Whimper, Not a Bang

The technology will eventually be big. It just won’t change consumers’ lives at first.

March 1, 2019 at 10:36 AM UTC

Alex Webb is a correspondent for Bloomberg Quicktake. He previously covered the technology, telecoms and media industries in London, San Francisco and Munich.

Foldable phones.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

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Not all 5G is created equal. That’s the takeaway from this year’s Mobile World Congress, the telecommunications industry’s annual confab.

Set aside the furor around Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. for now. I want to talk about how the next generation of mobile connectivity is being rolled out and used. The irony is that early 5G looks more like an extension of 4G than the cataclysm that has been promised. The full potential of the technology won’t be exploited until it finds its way into smart factories and power grids.