The imaginary “race” to 5G has been foisted on us by telecom giants which want something new to sell at high prices, instead of competing to improve service
No one seems to have a good answer to this question — I have a dumb question that no one seems capable of answering directly: Why is 5G a race? Tweets: @robertwrighter , @imhassan , @jaspervdj , @smgalante , @mattyglesias , @shiraovide , @freeutopia , @renick , @backlon , @stopthecap , and @ryanlcooper Tweets: Robert Wright / @robertwrighter : Glad to see my suspicion corroborated by @reckless, who knows more about this stuff than I do: the endless talk about the importance of the coming 5G wireless revolution is largely a product of corporate propaganda and mindless nationalism: https://www.theverge.com/... Imran Hussain / @imhassan : The media is equally to be blamed. When someone like Apple doesn't race to put 5G on their phones, the media say that they are left behind. This makes 5G seem like an advantage that companies obviously try to benefit from, despite weak battery life and no actual 5G. https://twitter.com/... Jasper Van der Jeugt / @jaspervdj : 5G is a huge open problem for engineering since somehow we're going to have to add several hundreds of megabytes to every web page. We have an impeccable track record though so I'm sure someone will figure it out Steven Galante / @smgalante : My calls still drop out at least once per day. This was an issue in 2002. https://twitter.com/... Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias : I'm not going to pretend to be a telecom expert but this kind of rhetoric just reeks of bullshit and really makes me think @reckless has this right. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/... Shira Ovide / @shiraovide : Thank you for articulating the screams inside my head. https://twitter.com/... Free Utopia / @freeutopia : The false sense of urgency about 5G is about one thing and one thing only: making sure the incumbents can justify public handouts. https://www.theverge.com/... Renick Bell / @renick : repeating @bruces “This race is imaginary bullshit... foisted on us by huge telecom companies that know internet access is fundamentally a commodity and want something new to sell at high prices instead of competing to improve service and lower prices on the networks they have.” https://twitter.com/... Dieter Bohn / @backlon : Good countries come in second. https://twitter.com/... @stopthecap : Because a race means there is no time to carefully separate BS hype from reality. Instead, we have to shovel spectrum and plow under local zoning/pole attachment policies NOW or else America will fall behind a country where the government owns the network, spectrum, and polls. https://twitter.com/... Ryan Cooper / @ryanlcooper : I was just wondering this — 4G is already so fast that I can burn through my entire monthly data allowance in a couple hours if I forget to turn on my wifi. what's the point? https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
When The Verge published this piece in May 2019, the 5G 'race' framing was at its peak: media outlets portrayed Apple as 'left behind' for skipping 5G handsets, and carriers leaned on urgency claims to push regulators on spectrum and zoning. The argument was that the race was a sales device, not a technical necessity.
Four years of subsequent coverage largely bore the thesis out. Carriers spent $118.4B on 5G airwaves and upgrades versus $61.8B on 4G with little revenue to show, Verizon support was caught advising users to turn 5G off to save battery, and by late 2023 the carriers had backed themselves into a debt-heavy corner. The US bet on high-band spectrum as the rollout core also left it exposed on mid-band coverage.
First-order effects
- Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are carrying roughly double their 4G-era capital commitments with no matching revenue stream, making the 'race' a balance-sheet problem rather than a competitive advantage.
- Consumers got marketing-tiered 5G plans instead of the improved baseline service the piece argued incumbents should have competed on — evidenced by Verizon's own support channel steering users back to LTE.
Second-order effects
- The urgency narrative carriers cultivated became the justification for pressing regulators on expedited spectrum allocation, weakened zoning, and public subsidies — policy concessions extracted on the premise of a race the spending data now undermines.
- With returns lagging, the equipment and handset side shifted: competitors gained ground on Huawei and Apple in 5G gear and devices while US per-capita subscriptions caught up to China, meaning the 'race' was won in market-share terms even as carrier economics deteriorated.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the next network generation will face the same credibility test: carriers will struggle to sell an upgrade cycle on speed claims alone after 5G's gap between spend and subscriber value, pushing the industry toward monetizing existing capacity rather than new airwaves.
- Structurally, debt-laden incumbents with thin 5G returns invite consolidation pressure and harder regulatory scrutiny of spectrum-subsidy requests, since the 'national competitiveness' rationale has been publicly discredited by the carriers' own results.
The trend: Carrier network-upgrade cycles are increasingly driven by manufactured urgency narratives rather than demonstrated consumer demand, leaving operators with capex they cannot monetize.