Japan will be hosting the Olympic Games in 2020 and the country plans to use the event as a showcase for new technologies such as 5G. As a result, both its government and its operators are very active in testing the technology. Read more...

China's government and its three mobile network operators (MNOs) are actively preparing for 5G. The MNOs expect to launch commercial services by 2020. Read more...

The Brazilian regulator is one of many worldwide to have launched a consultation on using the 3.5 GHz band for 5G. However, it intends to focus on LTE-A in the band first. The regulator has also said that 5G auctions will be held after 2020, once global terms on bandwidth… Read more...

After what seemed to many like a long delay, Canada is now preparing to follow the US in auctioning spectrum in the 600 MHz band. Its government also launched a consultation this year on using spectrum in some higher bands for 5G. Read more...

US-only carrier Verizon's "spectrum evolution" involves redeployment of refarmed spectrum, adding unlicensed and shared mid-band spectrum, and enabling mmWave by 2020. It says its spectrum portfolio has more than enough capacity to take it through 4G into 5G. Read more...

The French telecoms carrier is focused on 5G, with its immediate priorities to ensure effective, coordinated rollout of 700 MHz and 3.6 GHz spectrum. For its expanding 4G networks, Orange is lobbying on refarming and license renewal issues. Read more...

Japan's SoftBank and its US segment Sprint "see tremendous opportunity in mobile 5G, massive machine type communications, and ultra-reliable and low latency communications." Sprint is aiming for commercial 5G rollout in late 2019, SoftBank in 2020. Read more...

Deutsche Telekom's new strategy is to become Europe's leading telecoms provider. Its spectrum priorities remain focused on, among other things, spectrum for 5G, longer licence terms in Europe and more flexibility in spectrum use. Its US subsidiary, T-Mobile, won 45 per cent of the 600 MHz spectrum sold in the… Read more...

Japan assigns spectrum by beauty contests rather than auctions and has recently released 3.5 GHz. It is heavily invested in 5G and has been working on the technology since 2010. Read more...

(2016 entry) China Mobile is the world's largest 4G operator in number of subscribers, operating in mainland China and Hong Kong. It is focused on 4G deployment. For 5G, it prefers spectrum below 6 GHz for 5G services, with the C band a priority. Read more...