IMO it provides natural hedging for Telstra in multiple areas....

IMO it provides natural hedging for Telstra in multiple areas. Just thinking out loud here -

1) 5G allows Telstra to compete with NBN effectively if the government ever decides to privatise NBN and they are forced to compete. NBN would need to build out their own wireless / 5G network to compete and it takes time to build the breadth and depth in know-how to do that - or they can just follow VODA / Otpus' footsteps and complain to ACCC..... ;-) Also it's worth noting NBN currently relies on Telstra to do a lot of the heavy lifting, they're more of a contract manager than an owner operator.

2) Continue to provide Telstra the dominance in the non-NBN domain. They have a stronghold in both wireless and wired connectivity (e.g. the implied 50% market share of NBN connections from the recent presentations).

3) As NBN gets built out and TPG's FTTB creating distraction, it is going to get tougher and tougher for telcos to get cheap access to 5G via ACCC. It's in Telstra's interest to move to newer technologies quicker in order to leave the stragglers behind - go build their own network if they want to stay in the game. Getting the spectrum is the easy part of it, building network in a greenfield ain't.

4) Moving 3 or maybe 4 steps ahead 5G or xG will potentially render NBN obsolete. Not qualified and not going to the nitty gritty's of technology limitations here though. From a consumer perspective, I don't think people were expecting the copper network and cable network could from 24Mbps+ and 100Mbps+ respectively back then and it's happened.

These are assuming everyone else's at a standstill while Telstra moves forward though, and that's obviously not going to be the case..... ;-)

On a side note, I must comment that I do feel Telstra is changing their mix of customer support options. I used to be able to find Chat 24x7 very easily as it's peppered throughout the Telstra site. It has gradually become obscure these days, especially when I can google it quicker than finding it on Telstra's website.

DYOR and good luck to all.