Om Malik:

How real is 5G in the US? Is it worth the money?

My simple finding is that, as it stands today, in the US, it is decidedly not magical — though, it does involve a bit of hocus pocus. You might be promised gigabit speeds, but what you get will be much slower, especially in the near term. In order to understand, why, let’s look at what is on offer.

This is a welcome, and very readable explainer on 5G. Om did a lot of homework here, lays it out clearly, with lots of links.

It’s early days for 5G. The hardware infrastructure is still being rolled out. And the branding is terrible. The terms “mmWave” and “sub-6 GHz” are important distinctions, but the names do nothing to indicate their relative role/speed. And as carriers come up with their own tags, the confusion only deepens.