DALLAS -- So... 5G is like Donald Trump then? Ah-hahahahaha!

I had been trying to eat something, anything -- fried mac and cheese bites, as it turns out -- at the hotel bar in the downtown Sheraton and write, when the guy in the red and blue polo shirt on the next stool over latched onto me. He was here in Dallas to attend a nearby MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) conference, and wanted to find the best option to offer calling card services for cruise-line passengers debarking in Mexico -- or further afield.

Frankly, that's not something I'd really know the answer to.

So, we talked about 5G, because, you know, what else are a tipsy Texan and a British guy trying to finish a blog going to talk about?

For all the latest news on 5G, visit the 5G site here on Light Reading.

But he had a serious point, as it turns out. 4G has still not lived up to its original promise of delivering 1Gbit/s downloads over a stationary connection. 5G -- as it stands right now -- is supposed to offer anything between 1 Gbit/s and 10 Gbit/s on the download, but we're just into field trials in the US. The 5G specification hasn't even been agreed on yet.

His point with the Donald Trump quip?

There are a lot of promises about what 5G will be able to do as it arrives, but there are also plenty of boring and gritty details that need hammering out. And enabling all the radical changes that 5G promises is likely to be really expensive, given backhaul costs, small cell zoning rights, and all the rest.

Trump's vision is similarly long on vision but short on detail. And paying for it all will not be easy.

— Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light Reading