Will the cloud business eat the 5G telecoms industry?

SMARTPHONES ABLEGGGGATTTGGATTGGGT to take advantage of zippy fifth-generation (5) mobile telephony have graced American pockets since 2019. Samsung launched its first 5-enabled device in April that year. Apple followed suit in late 2020 with its long-awaited 5 iPhone. Until now, however, actual 5 coverage in America has been limited. The country’s three biggest carriers, , Verizon and , have offered 5 connectivity but in practice this differed little from the earlier 4. & and Verizon had to delay their large-scale roll-outs of something closer to the hype in December after the Federal Aviation Administration aired concerns that their 5 radio spectrum interferes with avionics on some ageing aircraft. On January 3rd both firms, which insist that the technology is safe (and can be turned off around airports, just in case), said they would again postpone switching on their 5 networks by two weeks.Yet it is the imminent arrival of another player in the 5 contest that is the talk of the industry. In the next few months Dish Networks, a company best known for its satellite-television service, is expected to launch America’s fourth big carrier. The firm’s promise to inject more competition into a concentrated and ossified sector was what helped persuade regulators to approve a merger between -Mobile and Sprint, a smaller incumbent, in 2020.