It wouldn’t be the last working day of the year without the good old predictions piece so here are a bunch we got together from assorted telecoms industry luminaries, including Fibre Stimulation, Consumers Apathy to 5G, The Rise of Private Network, NFV to Cloud Native and Speed-Based Pricing for Mobile. It should be noted that 2020 is also the year in which all predictions pieces will have to find a new metaphor/play-on-words for being able to see into the future, which will be tough for everyone.

A trio of telecoms trailblazers managed to break the 2 Gbps barrier with 5G over 26 GHz, which is apparently a European record.

TIM, Ericsson and Qualcomm have a rich history of collaborating in the name of self-promotion over 5G and there’s nothing like a speed record for a bit of corporate chest-beating. TIM has a whopping 400MHz of spectrum in this millimetre wave band, which is the main reason it’s able to set records such as this. Meanwhile, as ever, Ericsson provided the radio and Qualcomm the modem.

As it stands, 5G is not a democratised technology, but that could change as a swarm of affordable devices promising to hit the market in 2020.

This week sees tens of thousands of shade-dwellers hit the Nevada desert for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and in-between the quirky, faddy and ridiculous product promotions, there might be a few announcements worth keeping an eye on.