The race to bring super-fast 5G wireless services to market is heating up with the first commercial deployments of the much-anticipated technology expected at the end of the year.

Talk about 5G's potential to pave the way to a world of self-driving cars, lightening-fast video downloads and smart cities have dominated the Mobile World Congress for years.

But at the event in Barcelona this year, companies were full of concrete announcements of early versions of 5G uses.

The first commercial 5G roll-outs begin this year and next in the United States, Korea and Japan, and the wireless industry is counting on the new technology to trigger a wave of growth in equipment sales and mobile services.

China's Huawei unveiled in Barcelona what it said is the world's first commercial chipset that meet the standards of 5G wireless networks, which are better suited for virtual reality and high definition video.

KT Corp, South Korea's largest telecoms firm which exhibited several 5G services at the Pyeongchang Winter Games, displayed at the congress what it said was the world's first 5G tablet.

The telecoms industry only agreed to the first common 5G standards in December and analysts cautioned that the development of the network still has a long way to go.

Much of what is being billed as 5G in fact "resembles more LTE++", or an improved version of the existing 4G network in use in most developed nations, said Carole Manero, director of studies at IDATE, a French think tank on the digital economy.

"There is a lot of marketing use of 5G," she added.

- Huge investments -

The next common 5G standards will only be announced later this year so "what is being proposed now is just a first version, many evolutions will follow, as was the case with 4G," said BMI Research analyst Dexter Thillien.

Tech firms are spending heavily to develop products that take advantage of the network's possibilities.

"We are investing heavily in 5G, nearly 600 million dollars per year in research and development," said Huawei executive director and president of products and solutions Ryan Ding.

Telecoms operators are also investing heavily to develop 5G networks for fear of falling behind their competitors.

5G will account for 14 percent of global wireless connections by 2025, according to GSMA, the global mobile operators association.

Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Hoettges has estimated the cost of providing 5G networks in Europe alone will be EUR300-500 billion ($370-615 billion).

The telecoms industry will invest $275 billion in the United States to develop 5G networks there, Sprint chief executive Marcelo Claure said Monday at the mobile congress in Barcelona.

- Europe lagging -

While the European Union wants European companies to start offering 5G in 2020, spending to develop the network has been lower than in Asia or the United States.

"The timescales vary widely on a country by country basis but the USA and China are the most likely winners to be the first" in 5G deployment, Nokia chief executive Rajeev Suri said on Sunday.

He said he still believed some European operators would start to move up to 5G next year.

In Europe telecoms firms are focusing their 5G efforts on business uses instead of by the general public as in other regions.

European telecom operators are more cautious because the move to 4G by consumers was lower in Europe than elsewhere, said Thillien of BMI Research.

"European operators know that demand will be low by the public. The y were burned by 4G and see that European consumers are more sceptical," he added.

5G, the cornerstone of the digital revolution
Barcelona (AFP) Feb 27, 2018 - Blazing fast 5G wireless networks promise to unlock the potential of internet connected devices, or the Internet of Things -- making driverless cars and talking fridges a reality.

With most European operators targeting 2020 for its rollout, 5G is the term on everyone's lips at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

How does 5G work?

Like the 4G networks currently widely available, 5G is based on radio frequencies, the same used for television broadcasts, walkie-talkies, wi-fi signals or a garage door remote control.

It will use a higher radio frequency which are not in use and can move data at a much faster speed.

But since higher radio frequencies don't travel as far as lower frequencies, it will rely on denser arrays of small antennas and artificial intelligence to offer data speeds up to 50 or 100 times faster than current 4G networks.

What can it do?

5G will allow people to send texts, make calls, and browse the web as always -- but will dramatically increase the speed at which data is transferred across the network.

This will make it easier to download and upload Ultra HD and 3D video and allow smartphones to run more complex mobile internet apps.

5G will also make room for the thousands of internet-connected devices entering our everyday world.

The combination of speed and quicker response times could unlock the full capabilities of other hot trends in technology, offering a boost to self-driving cars, drones, virtual reality and the wider Internet of Things.

Beyond speed, the biggest benefit of 5G is its low latency, or the short lag time between a device pinging the network and getting a response.

A 5G network virtually eliminates it, meaning a surgeon may not need to be in the same room as a patient in the future for example.

Why is 5G seen as essential?

The tech industry is counting on 5G to trigger a wave of growth in equipment sales and mobile services.

For years telecom operators and device makers have debated common standards, which will make it possible to have a similar network everywhere and develop products that could be targeted to it.

What are the obstacles to its adoption?

The industry is still fighting over the nitty-gritty details of the technology itself and a lack of common standards could slow its adoption.

5G compatible phones are still not on the market and in many countries 4G deployment is not yet complete. In a number of African countries it is only just starting.

Telecoms operators must make a massive investment to deploy 5G.

Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Hoettges has estimated the cost of providing 5G networks in Europe alone at EUR300 billion to EUR500 billion ($370 billion to $615 billion).

5G also faces competition from other technologies that may be better suited for the connected devices, such as French firm Sigfox's non-cellular IoT network or LoRa, a rival non-standardised low power wide area (LPWA) offering backed by France-based Orange amongst others.

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