Speaking to media in Sydney, Boost Mobile co-founder and former CEO of 360Fly Peter Adderton warned that both carriers and customers are unprepared for the age of 5G networks.

Though he concedes that the next-generation network technology is at least 5 years away from having any real significance in our lives”, Adderton says that it’ll prove a necessary step to sate the growing data diets of customers.

He says the key driver for 5G networks will come from the networks, who need to expand the capacity of the network to become more efficient to deal with exponential growth in data demands of customers.

However, he says that carriers have failed to consider the potential  market impacts of the premium price-tag that will come with 5G network-compatibility.

He says the requirement for customers to upgrade will have an unavoidable impact on their profitability, potentially pushing them back into the business of subsidising handsets in order to transition enough customers across to 5G to alleviate pressure from older networks.

“We’re not going to be getting cheap phones when it’s 5G,” he says.

He claims that 5G will be a feature that comes with a premium, saying ”you won’t just be able to turn it on and have it jump over [automatically].”

“I haven’t heard anyone ask how much more a Samsung Galaxy S7 will cost when it’s 5G.”