For the past couple of years in the USA, we wireless watchers have had the fun and fascination of the ‘5G race’ with China, and the biggest spectrum auction of all time. But now it’s time for us, and the operators, to come back down to earth, stop thinking of grand visions and promises, and understand how the telcos are going to turn all that frantic network build-out and spectrum bidding into profitable business. The USA’s 5G build-out may not, whatever the politicians say, have the scale of China’s, but its operators and ecosystem are highly influential over the whole global industry. In many ways, US operators are atypical – in the spectrum they own; the high ARPUs and capex…