Like other technology generations before it, 5G is at an awkward stage. With initial standards specification well under way, the happy days of bluesky thinking and reality-free speculation are over. But until the 5G New Radio is deployed in anger, it is too early to draw very sound conclusions about how it will perform, how it will impact operators’ business models, or how quickly it will be adopted. It is possible, now, to make some forecasts for the early years of 5G. Rethink Technology Research added 5G to its forecast of mobile base station and site deployments in the first quarter of this year. We predict that, assuming there are some pre-standard roll-outs in 2018 and standards-based deployments from later…