Mobile communications may inherently ignore national borders, but there is still plenty of political competition between the major mobile regions to be seen as 5G leaders. Japan and South Korea, by virtue of their track record, huge R&D investments and handily timed Olympic Games events, hardly have to prove themselves in this respect, but the US and European Union are both eager to be in the front rank of 5G developments. In the US, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler has made many comments on the importance of 5G leadership, and initiated a study of potential new spectrum options at high frequencies. This week he went further in a speech to the Policy Summit held by INCOMPAS (formerly Comptel), the trade association…