There is still tremendous uncertainty around 5G rollouts among four of Europe's biggest service providers, according to comments made in advance of next month's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, at which higher-speed mobile network technologies are likely to be a major topic of discussion.

In conversations with Light Reading, the companies revealed plans are still not entirely concrete; nor are they that similar, in terms of timing, spectrum and planned early usage of 5G services.

Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT), the UK's EE (a subsidiary of fixed-line incumbent BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA), in which Deutsche Telekom holds a 12% stake), France's Orange (NYSE: FTE) and the UK's Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD) face some big strategic and network decisions over the next few years as the finishing touches are put to the first 5G standard.

Set to bring about sharp improvements in connection speed, and an important reduction in network latency (the delay that occurs during data downloads), 5G technology could hold attractions for smartphone-wielding consumers as well as enterprises and public sector organizations in a range of industry sectors.

What's more, the software and virtualization technologies that are baked into 5G should -- in theory -- make it easier for telcos to address these different customer groups in an efficient way.

But 5G raises some big questions for operators threatened by an array of competitive, economic and regulatory forces. Does a telco opt for a "big bang" rollout, in an effort to get ahead of rivals, or take a measured approach? Will available spectrum support the applications that are of most interest (and what are those, exactly)?

And is 5G a revenue growth opportunity or a defensive gambit aimed at preventing sales and profits from declining?

That last question will be of particular interest to the investment community. A recognition that 5G will not reinvigorate sales could disappoint some shareholders given all the recent hype about the technology's promise. Yet previous generations of network technology have failed to spur topline growth. (See 5G: Another Next-Generation Disappointment?.)

Figure 1: Mobile Service Revenues ($B, Using Current Exchange Rates) Source: companies. Note: Each operator has a financial year that runs from January to December, except Vodafone, which reports from April to March (so its 2015 financial year ends in March 2015).

EE has justified its heavy spending on 4G by saying that its revenues would have declined at an even sharper rate otherwise. It also says the introduction of new technologies reduces the value of older ones. (See EE: New Tech Is Mobile Revenue Savior.)

The implication is that 5G will follow the same pattern.

Next page: It's all in the timing

It's all in the timing
Unsurprisingly, Europe's operators are somewhat cagey about the timeline over which 5G services will be introduced. Vodafone declined to provide a date, saying the industry will have to avoid the "investment error" of 3G, when networks were deployed at scale before there was much discernible demand for 3G services.

Like some other international operators, Orange thinks rollouts could start in 2020, following field trials next year and in 2019. But it says the timeframe is highly contingent on spectrum and device availability, as well as the needs of individual markets.

Deutsche Telekom is more forthcoming. The German operator intends to commence rollouts in 2020, a spokesperson has revealed to Light Reading. But that does not mean immediately blanketing Germany, or any of its other markets, with a 5G network. In the early stages, Deutsche Telekom plans to introduce the technology at hotspots, and what it calls "islands," where there is strong demand for 5G services.

Largely, it says, that is because 5G will initially run over higher-band frequencies than are currently used to support mobile services. And these high bands do not carry signals well over long distances.

Both Deutsche Telekom and Orange reckon the first 5G services will run over spectrum in the 3.4-3.8MHz ranges. Those airwaves have already been "harmonized" for mobile services, they say, and contain plenty of available spectrum. They should also allow operators to reuse existing mobile sites and keep a lid on capital expenditure.

Another option at the opposite end of the scale, says Orange, is the 700MHz range, which governments in both France and Germany have already auctioned off to mobile operators. This band would similarly let companies reuse sites, and could provide excellent wide area coverage.

Where it would obviously fall short is on capacity. And if they are to provide the speediest connections possible, operators ideally need spectrum in the much higher millimeter wave bands, or the ranges just below these frequencies.

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The 28GHz band that is attracting so much attention in the US, Japan and South Korea will not be available in Europe, where it is reserved for satellite communications. But operators could instead use adjacent spectrum in the 24.25-27.5GHz and 31.8-33.4GHz bands, with the former likely to be made available to the mobile communications industry before 2019.

Given the short-term focus of equipment makers on 28GHz spectrum, there is a possibility that 5G gets off to a slower start in Europe than in other advanced economies. But Orange thinks it may be able to use 28GHz equipment in the 24.25-27.5GHz band through the use of a "tuning range mechanism." (See 5G & the Tech Decline of Europe.)

Deutsche Telekom sounds similarly optimistic. "Due to the adjacency of the 24GHz and 28GHz ranges, the results of these early efforts might also be beneficial for 24GHz and so we don't see any major hindrance," says a spokesperson for the German operator.

Vodafone, meanwhile, is unimpressed by all the 28GHz talk. Luke Ibbetson, the operator's director of research and development, says 28GHz is not a "global" option, for one thing, because it is not on the World Radio Conference's list of candidate 5G bands. He also points out that it is largely associated with fixed wireless access (or using 5G as a substitute for last-mile fixed broadband technologies), which he deems to be a "niche opportunity." (See European Telcos Slam '5G' Efforts in Asia, US.)

Next page: Weighing the service options

Weighing the service options
So what are the mainstream opportunities?

In contrasting fixed wireless access with "the massive scale of mobile broadband," Ibbetson picks out the most obvious. Providing high-speed connectivity in densely populated areas could also be the focus of initial rollout efforts at Deutsche Telekom, given the German operator's remarks about "hotspot coverage" and "islands."

Indeed, Deutsche Telekom does not expect features such as "network slicing" -- or capabilities like security, positioning and identity management -- to be available during the first rollouts.

That would initially make it harder for the telco to address enterprise opportunities. Network slicing should allow an operator to provide a range of service types over the same infrastructure and is seen as critical to the success of 5G in effectively serving different vertical markets.

As for Orange, it claims to be looking into various scenarios, including the provision of multi-gigabit-speed services, "massive and mission-critical" Internet of Things (IoT) applications and what it calls "ultra-large" mobile coverage.

If the first and third fall under the banner of mobile broadband, the second could be grouped with the enterprise and vertical-markets category. By taking advantage of the low latency that comes with 5G, organizations could support a number of critical applications -- such as remote-control surgery -- that are currently not feasible.

What's unclear is which of these constitutes the most lucrative opportunity from a telco's perspective. Operators will struggle to boost revenues through sales of higher-speed connectivity. Yet mobile broadband remains a huge market, and if older technologies are being commoditized then sales growth might not be the point -- as EE indicates.

By contrast, IoT presents a "greenfield" market for most operators and one in which 5G could evidently play a key role. In that respect, it seems far likelier to fuel sales growth. The question is: How much? Swedish consulting company Northstream predicts that most operators will in future generate no more than 1% of their revenues from IoT.

The other uncertainty is how other network technologies will influence 5G strategy. New 4G features and services, including NB-IoT and LTE-Advanced Pro, could make operators think differently about their 5G priorities.

Deutsche Telekom, Orange and Vodafone all appear to see LTE-Advanced Pro as a necessary step on the road to 5G. But the technology could also set a "high bar" for 5G, according to Gabriel Brown, a principal analyst at the Heavy Reading market research business, if it can support much faster services than plain old 4G. (See 4.5G Sets High Bar for 5G.)

"It is too early to tell whether the deployment of new features on the LTE networks may impact 5G priorities," says Arnaud Vamparys, the vice president of radio access networks for Orange.

In all likelihood, LTE-Advanced Pro will fall very short of the gigabit-speed marker in commercial settings. But in the absence of mobile services that require gigabit-speed connectivity, it might do enough to make 5G's latency and other capabilities more important than its bandwidth boost.

— Iain Morris, , News Editor, Light Reading