LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS AMERICAS 2018: This afternoon’s (13 September) CTO Session saw the network bosses from all four major US operators outline their hopes and expectations for 5G, with differing opinions on the impact the next-generation technology will have.

Sprint CTO John Saw (pictured) declared 5G as being “the first G where we can disrupt verticals.”

“4G is a generic all-IP data network, but 5G is focused on verticals. For example, I’m excited to see who the next Uber is in the healthcare industry.”

AT&T CTO Andre Fuetsch agreed it will be a revolutionary move: “5G is really an entirely new approach,” he said. “We’re going to see 5G opening us up to new experiences we’ve never seen before.”

He noted that his company sees the technology tying into AT&T’s content strategy: “It’s about content, the creation of it and how it’s distributed.”

For Neville Ray, CTO of T-Mobile US, the move to 5G is unlikely to pave the way to game-changing new services in the short-term: “Are we going to see massive innovation in the first two years? Probably not, but we’ll see augmented reality come alive, and HD video. Remember, the first two years of 4G didn’t bring us much new compared to 3G.”

Fresh from her company’s first-mover advantage in 5G, Verizon’s chief network officer Nicola Palmer (pictured, left) claimed bandwidth will be the big differentiator in 5G: “We think that the use cases that will happen with 5G will be driven by massive bandwidth.”