NEWCASTLE, Washington — With no end in sight for their proposed mega-merger, Sprint and T-Mobile US are still coordinating on 5G strategies and publicly highlighting the combined strengths of their networks. Top executives from both operators made that much clear on stage at the Mobile Future Forward conference.

Sprint CTO John Saw and Karri Kuoppamaki, VP of technology and strategy at T-Mobile US, spoke hours apart but their comments could just as well be construed as a running dialogue. This was particularly true when the conversation centered around the race to 5G and what will define success.

“It’s not a race to be first, it’s more of a race about who gets it right and who has the best network,” Kuoppamaki said. “If you want to have a platform in place or the coverage in place that allows you to go after those 5G opportunities that make the most sense then you have to have a network in place that’s available everywhere.”

Together, Sprint and T-Mobile US claim their 5G network will eventually cover 99% of the country and Saw said they’re the only U.S. operator to make that promise to date. Because their quest to merge is still unfulfilled, the operators are also trying to balance their standalone and combined aspirations.

“The real defining moment is going to be achieving nationwide 5G and we have publicly talked about starting that journey this year and then reaching nationwide 5G next year and it’s going to be enabled by the low-band spectrum that we have in place,” Kuoppamaki said. “It’s important that the spectrum strategy that you have supports the realization of 5G in the right way. That’s why the merger with Sprint is so important because when you bring the assets of the two companies together you do get spectrum across all bands, you get a network that has performance that’s much better than anything else when you talk about average speeds over 450 Mb/s for more than 90% of the population.”

Saw also framed the race to 5G on a national level, but highlighted the competition that will play out internationally. “The country with the strongest 5G infrastructure … will be the hub for innovation and investments,” he said. “That’s why the race is important.”

While increased speeds in the 5G era will be a critical feature, it’s not the means to an end, according to both execs. “One of the biggest misconceptions about 5G in my mind is that it’s just about speed,” said Kuoppamaki.

“The success of 5G for an operator is not going to be measured by a speed test,” Saw said. “I don’t think that matters. I think the real success for 5G of any operator is the economic value that you create in vertical industries. … I think that is where the differentiator is.”

Saw also explained that more vertical industries will start adopting 5G as an enabler for automation and artificial intelligence (AI). “I think we’ll see a lot more applications for the traditional industries” to join the digital economy through the aid of 5G, he said.

“If you look at 5G and you think about who’s going to be the next Uber in the health care industry or the automotive industry, I think there’s so much more potential with 5G,” Saw said. Telemedicine and high-density applications simply aren’t possible in an LTE environment, he added.

The path to reach that realization will be long and arduous for many players. However, mobile networks have gone through these transitions before and developers will once again have to balance 5G capabilities with what’s actually required in each environment, Kuoppamaki explained. New applications coming in a 5G world will have to go through a learning curve and developers will have to be smart about applying low latency, for example, only in cases where it’s necessary so as not to needlessly tax the networks, he added.

“I think you will see a multi-facet network from the operators,” Saw said. “The shift is going to be toward services. It’s not going to be so much access.”