Last week saw China’s three main mobile operators activating their 5G services, resulting in the world’s largest 5G network overnight and expansion plans that take the technology to a whole new scale. But despite all the bragging rights – the jaw-dropping number of base stations, the complex architectures – the Chinese trio have the same challenges as their counterparts elsewhere, in terms of making 5G pay for itself. Their recent financial results have been lackluster and it is not clear how much additional revenue China’s data-hungry consumers will deliver. As the 5G roll-outs mount up round the world, the operators are starting to assess their monetization strategies more publicly. And while the first wave of commercial 5G networks and services…