Telecoms want to take the place of WiFi. If you follow the non-technical 5G articles, there is a lot of promotion of how 5G _will_ replace WiFi.
Within the last year, we denied Verizon's 5G proposal. They want to run fiber and wireless backhaul to provide indoor access for some buildings. It's also important to watch which door these proposals come through. It's a tell as to what their actual agenda is.
I think they're hoping it will inspire (strongarm?) people into buying new phones, which will juice a slowing smartphone market for both OEMs and the carriers that take a cut of sales.
