T-Mobile said it planned to build out 5G in 30 cities this year, with New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Las Vegas among the first cities.  No one is saying much about the deal at the moment. Ericsson and Nokia did not want to talk about money.

Major telecom operators are accelerating their timelines for adopting 5G networks, Nokia and Chinese rival Huawei said earlier this week.

T-Mobile may have an edge through its relatively untapped 600MHz network, which promises longer range and better overall coverage even compared to the 700MHz space used for LTE . However before Americans start waving their red caps and saying it is all part of making America grate again, those airwaves will only be usable in some places. It's up to providers to deploy enough cell sites and capacity to ensure that 5G has the coverage and breakneck performance you expect.

When AT&T announced its first 5G cities, it acknowledged that you'd have to wait until 2019 for the coverage and devices you would prefer. Sprint is aiming for 2019 as well. In other words, much of the talk about 2018 is more about shouting "first!" than actually providing services that the great unwashed can use.