MWC 2018 teased a 5G-powered world that's so close to being real

Cut to the first official day of the show, and it was almost impossible to avoid the in-your-face signs attempting to lure you to "5G open innovation" demos. Everywhere we turned, we were confronted with yet another banner. This isn't surprising of course, 5G is very much a mobile communications standard and we were in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, after all. This isn't the first time 5G news has permeated MWC -- in years past, we saw companies show off "the first 5G phone," even before the spec was approved. But at MWC 2018, we were seeing not just a few obvious proofs of concept, but a broad creative range of connected devices.