5G fades in the West, surges in China: China’s number-two telecom infrastructure maker ZTE has double its stock price in the past year while the leading Western competitors, Nokia and Ericsson, are down about 30%. On July 14, the stock price of the two Western firm nosedived by about 20% after Ericsson announced a second-quarter loss and both firms issued gloomy guidance. As a consumer technology, 5G is a bust. The American variety barely downloads data faster than the old 4G LTE and has no native apps. It’s too slow for augmented reality and too slow to respond for autonomous vehicles. China’s 5G is about twice as fast (300 Mbps vs. about 150 Mbps in the US), and the telecom companies are focused on so-called 5G2B – 5G to business. Huawei claims 6,000 contracts to build standalone 5G networks for Chinese businesses, vs. about three dozen in Europe and fewer than 10 in the US.