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PrologueFirst, let me start off by saying that I agree with Benedict Evans that 5G as a technology isn’t all that earth-shattering. It’s really just a continuation of a well-established trend: fatter and fatter data pipes. Imagine being able to take your home Wi-Fi everywhere and that pretty much describes 5G.Getting excited about 5G, or talking about amazing new applications it enables, is pretty much like getting excited about a new version of DSL or DOCSIS.— Benedict Evans (@benedictevans) March 14, 2018This is not to say that 5G is not important, or diminish the work done by hundreds of thousands of engineers, scientists and other wireless industry professionals around the world … or that it won’t catalyze the development of a host of cool new applications bearing all of the latest buzzwords and acronyms.It’s just more that I find the underlying economic and geopolitical story far more interesting and meaningful. Sort of like the 2006 film Babel starring Brad Pitt, it is a multiple-storyline epic featuring two main protagonists that lead completely separate lives for the first four acts while gradually converging … until the climactic moment when their paths smash into each other.As the curtains open on Act V, we find the two protagonists having finally taken the stage at the same time. And while we can make some guesses as to how things unfold from here, the reality is that the story is still being written.The implications are enormous and bigger than the wireless industry itself. Indeed, this is perhaps the most important area to pay attention to in today’s increasingly tech-driven geopolitical arena.But we are getting ahead of ourselves; to fully appreciate the saga we need to start at the very beginning … where we find ourselves on a deserted Hamptons beach at the break of dawn, sometime in the mid-80s …Act I“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”Opening paragraph to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles DickensI remember the iconic scene[1][1][1][1] in 1987 film Wall Street when Gordon Gekko officially brings Bud Fox, an ambitious young broker, “inside” the curtain. It is a critical scene in the movie, made even more dramatic by use of what was then a novel piece of modern technology — the cellular phone. Gekko delivers the coup de grâce to the young broker by expounding — in real-time on that phone — on the beauty and awe of the sunrise from his beachfront palace as a metaphor for a new world of hitherto unimaginable wealth that he was about to enter.The first cellular phones were analog radio devices that would connect to a local tower that oversaw a fixed area, or “cell”, on a dedicated frequency. The radio-frequency (RF) technology was pretty much the same as that powering walkie-talkies — the trick there was figuring out how to connect the walkie-talkie to the circuit-switched phone network.Call capacity was limited because there are only so many slices of frequency into which you could divide spectrum before you run into quality issues. As a result, early cellphones and their related service plans were extremely expensive and generally limited to wealthy moguls like the fictional Gordon Gekko.But while Gekko extolled the “virtues” of unmitigated greed, scientists and engineers were working on the next generation of wireless standards, and trying to solve the fundamental problem of how to cram more channels into the same allotment of limited spectrum. It is essentially the same problem that they continue to try to improve on today.At the time, there were two competing methods on how to do this. The first was something called time-division multiple access (TDMA)[2][2][2][2]. With TDMA, you could have multiple users share the same frequency by dividing the signal into fixed time slots that were assigned to each active user.The second method was code-division multiple access (CDMA).As with TDMA, the goal of CDMA was to permit multiple users from sharing the same slice of frequency but instead of having fixed, assigned time slots to differentiate between users, CDMA used unique codes to identify each user (hence the name). These codes could switch and hop across multiple channels, making it more flexible than TDMA.From a technology perspective, CDMA was better because it was more scalable especially as the world became more digital and less analog over time. But as we saw in the battle between VHS and Betamax[3][3][3][3], sometimes it is not just about technological superiority.Act IIThe race was on between the two competing standards.Western European countries latched onto the TDMA method and a generally open, collaborative approach, releasing Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)[4][4][4][4] in 1991.The world’s first GSM call was made by Finnish Prime Minister Harri Holkeri on July 1st, 1991 and commercially deployed at the end of the year on a network built by German conglomerate Siemens and a then-relatively unknown conglomerate subsidiary called Telenokia. It would later drop the prefix, adopt the name of its conglomerate parent and become widely known simply as “Nokia”.Helsinki, Finland (Photo: Paasitorni)The competing CDMA method was not entirely novel — it had been pioneered as early as the 1930s by scientists from the Soviet Union. Interestingly, wireless phones based on the CDMA method were used in Moscow as early as 1963. However, it wasn’t until a former electrical engineering professor from MIT named Irwin Jacobs latched onto the technology that it found mainstream, commercial applications.In 1985, Jacobs launched Qualcomm — which stood for “Quality Communications” — based in the Southern California paradise of San Diego. The new company was initially focused on mobile satellite communications and because satellite bandwidth was so expensive and precious, there was an intense focus on bandwidth efficiency, which is what had led Jacobs to CDMA.The company went public in September 1991, raising $68 million to fund its CDMA research and later an additional $486 million to help commercialize a CDMA-based ecosystem. Qualcomm was perhaps the highest flier in the high-flyin’ 90s, ending the decade with its stock price increasing around 180x from its IPO price eight years earlier.Knowing nothing else but Qualcomm’s stock chart in the 1990s, one could have reasonably concluded that CDMA and its superior technology had won.But that was not to be, at least here in Act II.One issue for Qualcomm and its CDMA-based “cdmaOne” standard was that GSM had gotten a big head start.The “cdmaOne” standard was not adopted as a standard until 1995[5][5][5][5] at which point GSM networks in Western Europe and the United States had already reached 10 million active subscribers. By the time cdmaOne networks were deployed at scale, GSM networks had already reached over 100 million active subscribers.The other issue is that for voice, the technical advantages of CDMA were not that significant. TDMA did a fine job of transmitting voice and capacity constraints could be alleviated by adding additional wireless radios or reducing the size of each cell, especially if those radios could be purchased at affordable rates.Taking a more open, collaborative approach, GSM had also incorporated certain features such as a standard ID schema that allowed cellphones to be used across multiple networks by simply switching out the SIM card — which was much more important in Europe with its multiple country networks vs. the United States where people tended to travel internationally far less frequently.Ultimately, GSM won decisively by achieving scale and driving down cost. Because GSM networks were first to market, equipment manufacturers were able to deploy networks more quickly and inexpensively. Because GSM operators reached scale, handset manufacturers designed handsets around GSM standards. Because GSM was developed with a more open, collaborative approach, its technology licensing fees were lower. And because costs were lower, active subscribers tended to go with GSM networks vs. cdmaOne when given a choice.In September 2001, shortly after 9/11[6][6][6][6], I moved out to Hong Kong, which had deployed a GSM network.I was amazed at how much cheaper and better my cellphone service was compared to the United States. It was incredibly convenient to be able to simply switch out a small SIM card and start using your phone on another network. I loved my Nokia 8310 handset[7][7][7][7]. And I still distinctly remember how one annoying thing about work trips to South Korea — one of the few markets that had chosen CDMA over GSM — was having to use a clunky loaner Sanyo handset that didn’t have my address book or Snake[8][8][8][8].My Nokia 8310 handset (circa December 2003)GSM and Nokia had won the 2G war. CDMA-based technology was expensive and clunky and few people wanted it. By the early 2000s, Nokia was a giant, one of the world’s most valuable companies, at one point accounting for 21% of Finland’s exports and 70% of the Helsinki stock exchange market capitalization.But we were really just getting warmed up.Act IIILong before Apple unlocked “Smartphones” on the Technology Research Tree in 2007[9][9][9][9], wireless industry executives had suspected that data and not voice was going to be the long-term future of wireless. Fresh off the release of GSM in 1991, the various industry groups that set wireless standards had already begun trying to figure out how to transmit data at high speeds over the airwaves.Most had already known that GSM’s TDMA approach — perfectly adequate for voice communications — was just not going to cut it for data. While data could be transmitted over GSM networks, the transmission rate was capped at speeds reminiscent of the early days of dial-up modems. As nostalgic as I was for the halcyon days of the mid–90s, it was just not practical for anything outside of short-form messaging (i.e. SMS/texting).As wireless industry executives tried to find solutions for this technical issue, every path seemed to lead back to San Diego.San Diego, California (Photo: PV Magazine)It’s not enough to just have a good idea — you need to execute.While wireless operators worked 24/7 to deploy mostly GSM mobile networks around the world in response to the surge in active subscriber growth, Qualcomm was busy executing … and betting its future on CDMA. It too worked round-the-clock — frankly, an amazing accomplishment considering San Diego’s gorgeous year-round weather — to solve fundamental issues related to implementing wireless networks using the CDMA approach.Its main approach was to patent specific methods on how to perform various functions that were important in enabling wireless communication. For example, US Patent No. 5,280,472[10][10][10][10], issued on January 18, 1994, called for a “CDMA communication system in which cellular techniques are utilized in a distributed antenna system environment”. This particular one would cover instances where wireless signals need to be split up and re-routed and amplified within large buildings that remote tower-generated wireless signals would have difficulty penetrating.This was just one of an estimated 16,000 patents filed by Qualcomm over the years[11][11][11][11], of which at least 6,000 are related to wireless. In addition to building its IP portfolio, Qualcomm took a lead role in fostering eco-system development, including at various points producing handsets, network equipment and designing RF chips and chipsets.Photo: Gizmodo: Qualcomm's Amazing Wall of PatentsAs various 3G standards — represented by confusing acronyms like UMTS, W-CDMA, TD-SCDMA, CDMA2000 — emerged and were implemented, it became abundantly clear that CDMA was the common technology tying all of them together. With such a large patent portfolio around this method, it also became clear that Qualcomm was going to be collecting a recurring, steadily increasing stream of royalty payments for the foreseeable future.As 4G standards (LTE) rolled around in the mid- to late-2000s, cementing data as the key focus of the wireless industry, Qualcomm emerged as the dominant toll collector in one of the largest and most strategic industries on the planet.Act IV — Part I:For most of the first three acts, China is a mere after-thought, a minor character that is largely relegated to watching the main action from backstage:While Gordon Gekko was recruiting Bud Fox into his insider trading cabal, China was figuring out how to motivate its farmers to really put their backs into it so the nation could avoid teetering so close to the edge of starvation.While Nokia was busy deploying early GSM networks in Western Europe, China was figuring out how to dismantle its centrally planned industry without uprooting the lives of urban workers to the point where they would pour out into the streets by the millions like they did that fateful spring of 1989.While Qualcomm’s scientists were patenting thousands of wireless patents, China was figuring out how to open its doors so it could actually start trading the things that it had in abundance — e.g. inexpensive labor — for the things that it lacked, like wireless technology.In 1987, Ren Zhengfei — a former mid-level officer in the People's Liberation Army engineering division — founded Huawei in Shenzhen, the city bordering Hong Kong which was at the front lines of China’s economic reform program. At this point, China was 100%-reliant on foreign telecom equipment for its landline industry and most major international telecom equipment companies had established a presence in the country on the promise of tapping into China’s billion-person market.Shenzhen in the late 80s / early 90s (Photo: Shenzhen Municipal Government)At first, Huawei focused on re-selling imported telephone switches and fire alarms from Hong Kong. But for whatever reason, its founders decided very early on that the company should develop its own technology in-house vs. the “easier” path taken by others like Shanghai Bell to form a joint venture with multinationals to access foreign technology via transfers. Ren believed that “foreign companies were unlikely to transfer their cutting-edge technology and that Huawei would be better served by performing its own R&D”[12][12][12][12].Starting from a technology base of virtually nil, Huawei nonetheless prioritized R&D from its early stages. As a private company (vs. state-owned enterprise), Huawei suffered from lack of access to capital and was forced to borrow at extremely high rates in the early years. Despite these challenges, by 1993 Huawei had released its first significant in-house developed product — an electronic switch that could handle 10,000 lines, unprecedented for a domestic company at the time. It was a mature product and comprised almost entirely of foreign components but it was still quite impressive for the six-year old company.Huawei C&C08 Circuit Switch (Photo: DIY Trade, Shenzhen Huaxinzhihe Technology Co.)One of its strategies was to focus on market segments that were ignored by foreign technology suppliers. For example, international telecom companies preferred to focus on the rapidly growing urban centers while ignoring the poor, rural areas. Seeing this, Huawei adapted foreign technology to deal with “frontier market” issues — problems such as unreliable power grids and rats that like to gnaw on cables. Its business practices were “controversial” and by international standards probably textbook “corrupt” but in China at this time, function prevailed over form.Huawei began to separate itself from its domestic peers. By 1996, less than a decade after founding, it had secured its first international customer, selling circuit switches to Li Ka-shing’s telephone company in Hong Kong. By 2002, Huawei had overtaken Shanghai Bell, the largest Chinese-international JV at the time. Around this time it began expanding into adjacent markets like Internet and data communications, which was dominated by companies like Cisco.February 5th, 2003 marked the day that the name “Huawei” was formally introduced to the American lexicon (outside of a small group of telecom industry insiders). This was the day that Cisco sued Huawei’s American subsidiaries for copying code from its routers[13][13][13][13]. It marked the first major instance where a Chinese technology company had brushed up against an American one — not to mention the beginning of what I can only describe as a “lengthy and systematic effort by Americans to devise ever-increasingly creative and sophisticated ways to butcher the pronunciation of its name”.The suit was settled in 2004 but the damage had already been done. By this time, Huawei had captured one-third of China’s enterprise market and has never looked back.By the mid-2000s, Huawei was pushing hard into developing markets with an increasingly sophisticated array of products and services for both landline and wireless communications. Like its foray into China’s rural markets in the early 1990s, Huawei adapted mature products for developing countries facing problems that China had dealt with the prior decade such as non-existent or unreliable power grids and inexperienced technical staff.An example from one of my early Quora answers[14][14][14][14] was a low-power base station that could run on solar power, targeted at African countries that lacked reliable power infrastructure. In another early answer[15][15][15][15], I also discuss the important role the China Development Bank played in helping Huawei expand into overseas markets.RuralStar Base Station (Photo: Huawei)By 2011, Huawei had overtaken Ericsson as the largest telecom equipment supplier in the world with approximately $33 billion in revenue and industry-leading profit margins.It was around this time that Huawei had started aggressively pushing into consumer electronics[16][16][16][16] as well, piggybacking on the smartphone revolution and its now massive R&D operation to vault into the Top 10 of smartphone OEMs. By 2017, Huawei was pushing $100 billion in revenue, largely driven by growth in its consumer devices division which was now challenging Samsung for the top spot in smartphone market share (by unit volume). Today, the company has around 180,000 employees worldwide with 80,000 of them involved in R&D[17][17][17][17].Act IV — Part II:While Huawei was pushing forward at breakneck speed (even compared to the rapidly evolving Chinese economy), China’s state-owned telecom operators were plodding along slowly, trying their best just to keep up with the rapid and accelerating march of communications technology.Prior to 1994, the state held a monopoly on the provision of telecommunications services through the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and its operational arm, China Telecom. In 1994, to kick off reforms, the first competitor was established (China Unicom) and in the following years, there would be a series of reforms as Chinese policymakers tried to mold these former government ministries into modern corporations.It was around this time that Qualcomm had first reached out to China. Although the Chinese government had already selected GSM for commercial use in 1994 — attracted by lower cost and ease-of-deployment — Qualcomm set up a partnership with the People’s Liberation Army (kind of crazy when you look back and think about it) to use its CDMA technology for military communications. However, in 1998, Chinese President Jiang Zemin “shocked the world” when he announced[18][18][18][18] that the PLA would no longer be allowed to engage in civilian activities, swiftly killing off the joint venture plans.The Chinese government was initially hesitant to partner with Qualcomm until they would address three priority issues:It wanted to be able to deploy phones that could work on both GSM and CDMA networksIt did not want to pay the royalty fees or structure that Qualcomm was demanding for its CDMA technologyIt wanted access to the design of Qualcomm’s CDMA chipsetHowever, as detailed excellently by MacroPolo[19][19][19][19], in the backdrop of late-90s negotiations to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO), Chinese policymakers decided to drop most of these demands and, under pressure from the US government, agreed to allow Qualcomm and its CDMA technology into the Chinese market. This decision would prove very costly in later years but for now, China was more focused on WTO accession.Source: MacroPolo: From Windfalls to Pitfalls: Qualcomm’s China Conundrum - MacroPoloFollowing this decision, over the next decade Qualcomm’s revenue in the Chinese market grew from zero to nearly $2.5 billion and came to represent almost one-fifth of the company’s revenue. And this was just the beginning — as China began to commercially deploy 3G networks in 2008, this number was set to explode even higher.Source: Company Filings via Capital IQIn the most recent fiscal year (12 months ending September 30, 2018), Qualcomm’s revenue from China had increased to over $14 billion and represented over two-thirds of its revenue stream.A large part of this revenue stream, especially in the earlier years, was paid by foreign smartphone OEMs like Apple[20][20][20][20] but as Chinese smartphone OEMs (incl. Huawei) took market share in China and around the world, they began to realize how much Qualcomm was making off its intellectual property — because they were now the ones paying these royalty fees in increasing amounts.But just as Americans are about to break out the champagne and “USA! USA!!” chants, the latest missive from the Debbie Downer-in-Chief[21][21][21][21] himself flashes across our feed …We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S. Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 Billion. We cannot let this continue!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 4, 2018Somewhere between China’s reputation as the world’s most rapacious “intellectual property thief” and the tens of billions of dollars per year it pays to international technology companies like Qualcomm … lies reality.Act V is where we are going to find out what that reality is.Act VOn November 8th, 2016, Donald Trump pulled off a surprise win over Hillary Clinton in the United States presidential election. Eight days later, a far less publicized political battle was taking place, this time over a topic that only a handful of people in the world really understand at a deep, technical level.Remember the industry groups that we met in Acts I to III that played such a critical role in choosing and setting wireless standards?Well, they are still around and playing just as critical a role. Depending on which technologies are incorporated, the respective IP holders may be richly rewarded, just as Qualcomm had for the better part of the last three decades.On November 16th, 2016, members of this standards body, 3GPP[22][22][22][22], met in Nevada to decide whether something called “polar coding” would be incorporated into official 5G canon. It was up against an alternative approach called “low-density parity check”. Intense debate ensued over which one was better.To a casual observer, the debate of “polar coding” vs. “low-density parity check” may have appeared to be a Nerd Fight of Epic Proportions but behind all of the computer science and technical jargon was something much deeper — what it was really about was control over the next-generation of communications technologies.As you may have guessed, this is where the paths of Huawei and Qualcomm finally began to converge.You see, China was getting weary from paying tens of billions of dollars every year in licensing and royalty fees for technology invented 15–20 years ago at a time when they did not have the capability or resources to even have a seat at the standards-setting table. While they had been late to the standards-setting game for even 4G/LTE standards, the country’s leaders had committed to making sure that this would not be the case with 5G. And Huawei was the main horse that they were betting on.As Huawei had grown through the years, it had continuously re-invested this growth back into R&D. By 2017[23][23][23][23], close to RMB90 billion ($13.8 billion) per year, out-spending Qualcomm by two and a half times in absolute terms (i.e. before adjusting for the approximately 3x[24][24][24][24] difference in wages between Shenzhen and San Diego).In doing so, it had quietly built up its very own patent wall:One of these patents was around the aforementioned “polar coding” method while Qualcomm held patents around the competing “low-density parity check” method. During the 3GPP debate, Western companies largely backed Qualcomm’s method while Asian manufacturers favored Huawei’s. In the end, both were accepted into as viable alternatives in the 5G standards book and each side moved on to battle over other (likely even nerdier) topics.While accumulating the most patents is still an important part of the game (as we saw in Act III with 3G), commercialization is an equally important consideration (as we saw in Act II with 2G).And on this front, China is racing ahead. Not only is it already the world’s largest wireless market by far, with 10x the number of base stations as the United States (and 40% of global sites[25][25][25][25]), its wireless operators are already well into the roll-out schedule and plan to be fully commercialized (for “standalone” or “full” 5G; see Note i) by the end of 2020[26][26][26][26][27][27][27][27]:The 3GPP debate in Nevada presaged the fault lines that we are now beginning to see, not only for 5G but other technologies as well. The elections of President Trump and the rise of other right-wing political parties in Western European countries has only increased the politicization trend.On April 16th, 2018, ZTE, the second-largest Chinese communications equipment supplier after Huawei, was hit by the U.S. Department of Commerce with an export ban[28][28][28][28]. The ban would prevent it from accessing critical components provided by U.S. suppliers (e.g. optical chips) and force it to re-design its equipment. It was a crippling blow to the company and while later reversed, was one of the first clear signs of this increased politicization.Then, just a few weeks ago on December 1st, 2018, Sabrina Meng, CFO of Huawei and daughter of its founder, was arrested in Canada at the request of the U.S. government in what was viewed by most as a politically motivated escalation. President Trump essentially confirmed it several days later[29][29][29][29].And that pretty much brings us to the present.The key protagonists, Huawei and Qualcomm stand together on stage, surrounded by a host of supporting cast members. The crowd watches with rapt attention, eagerly awaiting the next twist in the story …EpilogueAs I sit here and write in the last few days of 2018, it is quite clear that we are still very much in the middle of Act V — and it looks like there will be plenty of more excitement and fireworks to come.I also must admit that I am not 100% sure how Act V and the “race for dominance” will ultimately play out between Qualcomm and Huawei, not to mention all of the other actors on stage.As you saw through the first four acts, there were many twists and turns along the way, with new characters entering the space and old ones fading away with each successive generation of wireless standards. Add to that the increasing politicization of technology and the oft-times capricious nature of geopolitics and my crystal ball is quite foggy at the moment.But I do think understanding how we got to this point is very important if we want to think about the possible future scenarios and where we go from here — and that is why I took you through this fairly expansive review of the history of wireless.That said, I do want to leave you with some final thoughts on the topic:The emergence of Huawei as a major IP holder will inevitably cut into Qualcomm’s wireless market dominance and position as the favored toll collector.Opening quote to Act I notwithstanding, this is actually not just a Tale of Two Companies; it is also about existing players like Ericsson, Nokia and Apple that have long chafed at Qualcomm’s licensing fees and dominant market position[30].As I wrote in a recent answer[31], Qualcomm collects upwards of $30–40 on each iPhone that was sold — on top of any chips it provides — due to its “double-dipping” licensing structure. For 5G, Qualcomm announced that it would charge “up to $16.25” in royalties for every phone — much lower, an indication of lower negotiating leverage.The battle between commercialization vs. technology will be another area to watch.I do not know enough of the technical minutiae — stuff like “polar coding” vs. “low-density parity check” — to fully assess but my gut tells me that the differences between Huawei’s approach and the one supported by Qualcomm may not be that material and certainly not like the difference between TDMA and CDMA during the 2G and 3G mobile standards wars.We cannot rule out the possibility (as unlikely as it may seem at this point) that Qualcomm and Huawei end up collaborating or working together out of pure self-interest (an “if ya can’t beat him, join ‘em” type situation).The likelihood of global wireless standards bifurcating into different camps seems to be increasing, although it is far from inevitable at this point.If this happens, there are two clear camps — China and the “Five Eyes” Anglophone group. If you throw the European Union and Japan into the Anglophone group (let’s call it the “U.S. Alliance”), you are talking about a combined population of around 1 billion (that is significantly wealthier on a per capita basis) compared to 1.4 billion in China — all things considered, fairly balanced.But we cannot forget about the other 5 billion+ people out there — and places like Southeast Asia, India and Africa are where the front lines of the battle for technology dominance will take place.From the perspective of these 5 billion plus, the entrance of Huawei into the fray is seen as a positive development, insofar as providing them with another option and greater leverage to negotiate on fees.This bifurcation trend may also play out in other areas of technology, not just wireless standards.Semiconductors are another strategic (and related) industry. Chips are how you take the IP from the patents and convert into real-world use cases. They are critical components in network equipment, as ZTE was reminded in April 2018.The U.S. Alliance dominates the semiconductor industry, especially upstream (i.e. semi capital equipment). Certain specialty equipment like extreme UV lithography[32] is dominated by European like ASML and Japanese players like Canon/Nikon and can be easily controlled through measures like export bans over “dual-use” technology.However downstream production is dominated by Asian manufacturers, notably Taiwanese and South Korean foundries. Moreover, the consumer electronics supply chain is deeply entrenched in China and the East Asia region.So it is very complicated, and this is what makes predicting how the various points of negotiating leverage play out so hard.National security concerns are very valid. But I think they can be addressed without forcing others to have to split into camps that are non-interoperable. That would be a shame for everyone.Finally, the one thing that I do know for sure is that we’ve come a long way since the days of Gordon Gekko and his massive brick of a cellular phone.Explanatory Note[Note i] There is a bit of confusion out there as to what constitutes “5G”. Part of the reason is that there are essentially two different levels of 5G implementation:The first is something called “non-standalone” which means augmenting the existing 4G network with 5G hardware that will focus on ultra-high-bandwidth data services.The second is called “standalone” which means everything can go on the 5G network.It is somewhat analogous to the difference between a plug-in hybrid vehicle like the Chevy Bolt and an electric-only vehicle like Tesla.Roll-outs for “non-standalone” 5G implementation are happening in 2019–2020 throughout most of the world — for example, Verizon announced that “5G services” would begin in 2019[33][33][33][33]. However, China is planning a particularly aggressive roll-out schedule for “standalone” 5G compared to every other country with scale deployments in 2020.Whether or not this is the right strategy remains an open question.Footnotes[1] Wall Street (1987) - Wake up call (Drop it)[1] Wall Street (1987) - Wake up call (Drop it)[1] Wall Street (1987) - Wake up call (Drop it)[1] Wall Street (1987) - Wake up call (Drop it)[2] Time-division multiple access - Wikipedia[2] Time-division multiple access - Wikipedia[2] Time-division multiple access - Wikipedia[2] Time-division multiple access - Wikipedia[3] Videotape format war - Wikipedia[3] Videotape format war - Wikipedia[3] Videotape format war - Wikipedia[3] Videotape format war - Wikipedia[4] GSM - Wikipedia[4] GSM - Wikipedia[4] GSM - Wikipedia[4] GSM - Wikipedia[5] cdmaOne - Wikipedia[5] cdmaOne - Wikipedia[5] cdmaOne - Wikipedia[5] cdmaOne - Wikipedia[6] Glenn Luk's answer to Are there any survivors of 9/11 on Quora?[6] Glenn Luk's answer to Are there any survivors of 9/11 on Quora?[6] Glenn Luk's answer to Are there any survivors of 9/11 on Quora?[6] Glenn Luk's answer to Are there any survivors of 9/11 on Quora?[7] Glenn Luk's answer to Why is the smartphone industry dominated by the U.S. and East Asian nations (e.g. Japan, South Korea and China)?[7] Glenn Luk's answer to Why is the smartphone industry dominated by the U.S. and East Asian nations (e.g. Japan, South Korea and China)?[7] Glenn Luk's answer to Why is the smartphone industry dominated by the U.S. and East Asian nations (e.g. Japan, South Korea and China)?[7] Glenn Luk's answer to Why is the smartphone industry dominated by the U.S. and East Asian nations (e.g. Japan, South Korea and China)?[8] Nokia 8310, giocando a Snake II / playing Snake II[8] Nokia 8310, giocando a Snake II / playing Snake II[8] Nokia 8310, giocando a Snake II / playing Snake II[8] Nokia 8310, giocando a Snake II / playing Snake II[9] Glenn Luk's answer to Will China become an innovator?[9] Glenn Luk's answer to Will China become an innovator?[9] Glenn Luk's answer to Will China become an innovator?[9] Glenn Luk's answer to Will China become an innovator?[10] CDMA microcellular telephone system and distributed antenna system therefor[10] CDMA microcellular telephone system and distributed antenna system therefor[10] CDMA microcellular telephone system and distributed antenna system therefor[10] CDMA microcellular telephone system and distributed antenna system therefor[11] Which Are the Most Valuable Patents in Qualcomm Patent Portfolio? - GreyB[11] Which Are the Most Valuable Patents in Qualcomm Patent Portfolio? - GreyB[11] Which Are the Most Valuable Patents in Qualcomm Patent Portfolio? - GreyB[11] Which Are the Most Valuable Patents in Qualcomm Patent Portfolio? - GreyB[12] https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/130215_competitiveness_Huawei_casestudy_Web.pdf[12] https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/130215_competitiveness_Huawei_casestudy_Web.pdf[12] https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/130215_competitiveness_Huawei_casestudy_Web.pdf[12] https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/130215_competitiveness_Huawei_casestudy_Web.pdf[13] https://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/Cisco_Mot_for_PI.pdf[13] https://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/Cisco_Mot_for_PI.pdf[13] https://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/Cisco_Mot_for_PI.pdf[13] https://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/Cisco_Mot_for_PI.pdf[14] Glenn Luk's answer to Is there an indigenous Chinese product that is the best in the world?[14] Glenn Luk's answer to Is there an indigenous Chinese product that is the best in the world?[14] Glenn Luk's answer to Is there an indigenous Chinese product that is the best in the world?[14] Glenn Luk's answer to Is there an indigenous Chinese product that is the best in the world?[15] Glenn Luk's answer to How does China finance its development projects in Africa and South America?[15] Glenn Luk's answer to How does China finance its development projects in Africa and South America?[15] Glenn Luk's answer to How does China finance its development projects in Africa and South America?[15] Glenn Luk's answer to How does China finance its development projects in Africa and South America?[16] INTERVIEW - Huawei makes aggressive push in consumer devices[16] INTERVIEW - Huawei makes aggressive push in consumer devices[16] INTERVIEW - Huawei makes aggressive push in consumer devices[16] INTERVIEW - Huawei makes aggressive push in consumer devices[17] Caring for Employees - Huawei Sustainability[17] Caring for Employees - Huawei Sustainability[17] Caring for Employees - Huawei Sustainability[17] Caring for Employees - Huawei Sustainability[18] 1998年江泽民宣布“军队不再经商” 震惊世界[18] 1998年江泽民宣布“军队不再经商” 震惊世界[18] 1998年江泽民宣布“军队不再经商” 震惊世界[18] 1998年江泽民宣布“军队不再经商” 震惊世界[19] From Windfalls to Pitfalls: Qualcomm’s China Conundrum - MacroPolo[19] From Windfalls to Pitfalls: Qualcomm’s China Conundrum - MacroPolo[19] From Windfalls to Pitfalls: Qualcomm’s China Conundrum - MacroPolo[19] From Windfalls to Pitfalls: Qualcomm’s China Conundrum - MacroPolo[20] Glenn Luk's answer to Where does the money I pay for an iPhone go?[20] Glenn Luk's answer to Where does the money I pay for an iPhone go?[20] Glenn Luk's answer to Where does the money I pay for an iPhone go?[20] Glenn Luk's answer to Where does the money I pay for an iPhone go?[21] Debbie Downer - Wikipedia[21] Debbie Downer - Wikipedia[21] Debbie Downer - Wikipedia[21] Debbie Downer - Wikipedia[22] 3GPP - Wikipedia[22] 3GPP - Wikipedia[22] 3GPP - Wikipedia[22] 3GPP - Wikipedia[23] https://www-file.huawei.com/-/media/corporate/pdf/annual-report/annual_report2017_en.pdf[23] https://www-file.huawei.com/-/media/corporate/pdf/annual-report/annual_report2017_en.pdf[23] https://www-file.huawei.com/-/media/corporate/pdf/annual-report/annual_report2017_en.pdf[23] https://www-file.huawei.com/-/media/corporate/pdf/annual-report/annual_report2017_en.pdf[24] Cost of Living Comparison Between[24] Cost of Living Comparison Between[24] Cost of Living Comparison Between[24] Cost of Living Comparison Between[25] Blog: How many global base stations are there anyway?[25] Blog: How many global base stations are there anyway?[25] Blog: How many global base stations are there anyway?[25] Blog: How many global base stations are there anyway?[26] Subscribe to read | Financial Times[26] Subscribe to read | Financial Times[26] Subscribe to read | Financial Times[26] Subscribe to read | Financial Times[27] China Mobile Confirms Aggressive 5G Standalone Plan | Light Reading[27] China Mobile Confirms Aggressive 5G Standalone Plan | Light Reading[27] China Mobile Confirms Aggressive 5G Standalone Plan | Light Reading[27] China Mobile Confirms Aggressive 5G Standalone Plan | Light Reading[28] Secretary Ross Announces Activation of ZTE Denial Order in Response to Repeated False Statements to the U.S. Government[28] Secretary Ross Announces Activation of ZTE Denial Order in Response to Repeated False Statements to the U.S. Government[28] Secretary Ross Announces Activation of ZTE Denial Order in Response to Repeated False Statements to the U.S. Government[28] Secretary Ross Announces Activation of ZTE Denial Order in Response to Repeated False Statements to the U.S. Government[29] Trump says he would intervene in Huawei case to help secure China trade deal[29] Trump says he would intervene in Huawei case to help secure China trade deal[29] Trump says he would intervene in Huawei case to help secure China trade deal[29] Trump says he would intervene in Huawei case to help secure China trade deal[30] Apple is still selling iPhones in China despite being ordered not to[31] Glenn Luk's answer to Where does the money I pay for an iPhone go?[32] Extreme ultraviolet lithography - Wikipedia[33] Verizon’s first 5G hotspot will launch in 2019[33] Verizon’s first 5G hotspot will launch in 2019[33] Verizon’s first 5G hotspot will launch in 2019[33] Verizon’s first 5G hotspot will launch in 2019

First off, let me say that I've been doing web development for over a decade, but only did I start doing it full-time professionally 8 months ago. However, previous to that, I freelanced over a dozen websites, so I'm speaking from my personal experience. Also, note that I live on Long Island in New York, and everything here is more expensive than most of the country. So any dollar figures I write shouldn't be taken literally, since you may live somewhere with a totally different economy and demographic. The few dollar values I put in are mainly used to show why it's better to not go for small quick cash, but rather to develop a good relationship with a client so you can not only make good money on the initial development, but potentially have monthly income for hosting, maintenance, etc.Now, I'm assuming your question is really"How can I find people to pay me to build websites for them?"If that's what you mean, then it kind of depends on what type of "company" it is, but most of the important stuff is the same for a broke freelancer and a Fortune-500 Company.I'll get into the differences quickly here.============================================== Form an Actual Corporation if You Haven't Yet ==============================================If you are a freelancer, you REALLY should form an LLC, trademark your name/logo, and create a real business with a Tax-ID. It'll cost you $1,000 or so to do it on LegalZoom, but it's worth it if you're serious about pursuing this. People are more comfortable with businesses than they are with random individuals (even though businesses are random individuals). The only exception to this is a recommendation / referral from a friend or family member, in which case a client is more comfortable dealing with an independent contracting freelancer, because they personally know someone who vouched for you.============================================== Get Business Cards Made & Make a Killer Website ==============================================Whether you're a start-up with very little capital or a Huge S-Corp with hundreds of employees, a great way to find clients is to Get Business Cards and hand them out EVERYWHERE. Give all of your friends and family members 5-10 each for them to hand out. This is extremely cheap, and it's a good way to start getting clients.If you are a start-up with some capital, first, make sure you have a great, responsive, hard-coded website with a portfolio of ANY websites you've created, graphic design work, or even Analytics reports for people you did SEO and/or SEM for.If you happen to have a decent amount of capital, you should run Google AdWords for your company website, too.I'll be going more in depth on how to do your website and properly set up AdWords later.============================================== Get Sales People that work on Commission ==============================================You should also put out ads on Craigslist, LinkedIn, etc for people in sales. You'd train them on how your business works, get them business cards, and basically make a a list of all the things they need to know. They're job would be to find people that need websites and get them to sit down for a meeting with you. You can hire full-time sales personnel, but if you have to pay that person a salary, you're probably going to wind up losing money. You don't get full-time sales people until you're business has grown to a certain point.What you're looking for is people with jobs, are good at sales and have a good personality. They would work whenever they wanted to, and the best of them would, in a sense, be working full time. That is, whenever they go into a business, they ask to speak to the manager. They tell all their friends and coworkers and hand out copies of their business cards. They go online looking up local businesses and contacting them if they don't have a website. If they DO have a website, they still contact, but the pitch is different. You'll explain it to them, but it would be something like,"Hi I'm Joe from ABC Web Design. I've noticed that you have a website and a Facebook page, but your website isn't mobile friendly, and you don't have many followers on Facebook. When I google keywords related to your business, you rarely come up on the first page. If you have some time, I'd like to talk to you about how we can not only redesign your site to make it elegant and aesthetically beautiful, but we'll make sure it looks beautiful on all devices. We also would update and change the content and layout of your site to not only improve your Search Rankings, but to increase user engagement. We use psychology and statistics when designing a website, and we do it in such a way that it keeps visitors on your website, because they are engaged in the content. This helps convert visitors into customers." etc etc etc blah blah blahYou get as many people like this as you can, and you pay them commission, so your only expenses are the business cards, and initial time spent training them. After that, THEY will get clients for you because they want to make money.You can choose how you'd pay them, but a sliding scale usually works nicely (ie, if they get you a client who gets $1,000, they get 10%. If they get you a client that pays $15,000, they can get 20%. Basically, you start anywhere from 5-10%, and max out at whatever you're comfortable with, which is probably 20-35%. Then you decide on the dollar amounts at which the percentage changes.) You can also decide what happens if they get a client to come in, but they don't buy a website or service. If you have the money, you should offer an incentive of $50 - $200 for just getting a client to meet with you, and then they get a percentage if the client signs a contract / gets a website. Doing this will make them work harder to bring clients in. The only disadvantage to this is if a salesperson sends his friends in with no intention of getting a website so he can keep collecting an easy $200. However, if you discuss this beforehand with your sales reps, I can almost guarantee it won't happen - it's never happened for us. Firstly because we don't hire sales reps that aren't professional adults. Secondly, you'll know (and you'll tell them) if someone comes to a meeting to talk about their website, and they seem lost and not passionate about their business, they're probably not really looking for a website. Thirdly, you could set a rule where they get the fee no matter what for getting a client to a sit down meeting with you, but you limit it to a maximum of once per week, or once every 10 days, etc. You could also stipulate that if a certain number of clients come in and don't purchase anything and never follow up or answer phone calls or e-mails after the initial meeting, they either stop getting that fee permanently, or they owe you money, or whatever else you want. Like I said, you decide how you pay your employees.NOTE: These people will not be you. They're job is to set up meetings with potential clients with YOU. They need to know the basics of web design, SEO, etc so they can pitch, but they aren't going to be going into detail about exactly what will be done. The quote I used above is probably the extent of what the sales-people would know/say. They can say "We can increase visits to your website, rank you higher on Google, give you a beautiful and mobile-friendly website, etc", but they won't get into exactly how. At a certain point during the conversation, the prospective client may ask a technical question, bring up the fact that they already have a web design company, etc. Whenever that point comes up, your salesperson will say, "OK, [person's first name], I'd really like for you to meet with [your first name]. He's our lead developer and he knows more about The Internet, Web Design & Advertising than I do about The Yankees - And I have Season Tickets! If you let me know your schedule, I can set up an appointment for you and he can go over exactly what we can do for you and how we can do it. And he can come to you, or you could come to the office. There's no charge, and I'm not saying this because I work there, but not only does he REALLY know his stuff and keep up on the latest changes, he's one of the hardest workers I know, and his staff is amazing as well"(You can choose if you want to be a hard-sell kind of company, but I find that being casual, and making little jokes like that works better. There are certain people who just can't say "no", and anyone in sales could pick up on that a minute into the conversation, so in those situations, they might push a little harder, but generally speaking, I find that being polite and slightly informal works well. You don't want to act/pretend like you're the person's best friend, but it's OK to feel them out and go off-script to just talk with the person about, say baseball, if they bring it up. If you spend 3 minutes talking about the website, and the client says something that you can tell that they are interested in / want to talk or learn about, etc, you should spend some time talking about that. That breaks down the stranger wall, especially if you're talking about something you're familiar with yourself, even if it's just an opinion, like "I hate how all these people are getting rich and famous for literally doing nothing. It's disgusting to me that so many people care about The Kardashians.". Then all you have to do is say, "I KNOW! It's CRAZY how so many people care. They don't know these people in real life, yet they devote hours each week seeing 'what's new' with them. It's like, "I'm a celebrity, but I'm not a musician or actor or writer. I just go about my day and people love me because I'm so awesome". If everyone who followed these people stopped for a month and spent that time learning something new, like how to play an instrument, not only would they have gained a new skill and gotten pretty good, but the country will have millions of people with new skill-sets". Stuff like that is what will really make a potential client come in for a meeting.Everything I said above about how your sales people should talk is also how you should talk to clients. You want them to feel comfortable with you, and you want them to see you as a human being that they could be friends with. It's not a skill you can really master by practice - some people are just naturally good talkers, and everybody loves them. But you can practice your tone of voice. Make sure you don't sound nervous - you should talk to clients the way you talk to someone you've know your whole life. Be yourself. You can also read books on social engineering, which will help you greatly when talking to clients. Just don't use social engineering to rip people off or break the law. Study how human beings work, because just being an amazing developer doesn't mean shit if a client feels awkward when talking to you.============================================== Your Company's Website & Advertising for it ==============================================I said earlier that I would get back to the website and Google AdWords. I'm doing that now. Remember that I said your website should be hard-coded, as in don't use a CMS? I emphasize hard-coded because, while you can use WordPress as your company's website, but there are people looking for Websites that know enough about the industry to think to themselves, "Why would a Web Development company's website be on a CMS like WordPress? Maybe they aren't that good at actual development" and you could lose potential clients that find you online. It's not common, but for any business, if there's something you can do that will increase your total revenue by even half of 1%, you do it.Plus, writing the front end with a meta-framework like SASS with your own functions & mixins, along with your own Javascript/jQuery will essentially be like writing your own Framework that you can use for future sites. Don't be afraid to use modules and partials from existing frameworks like Bootstrap - just make it your own.Now, if you're just starting, you might not have much to put on a Portfolio Page. This is my personal opinion, but it's better to just NOT have a portfolio page rather than have one with less than 5 projects, especially if the websites were blogs or other sites you created for yourself. The reason I believe you can get away without having a portfolio page, is because the purpose of a Portfolio Page is to show clients what you are capable of. But what the portfolio page really does is creates an association in the user's mind between a conglomerate of all the pieces of the portfolio and your company. If you had 20 portfolio pieces, there's no doubt that at least some of them would bare nearly NO resemblance to another. Most websites have a logo up top center or top left with a horizontal menu to the right or beneath the logo, but color schemes, scaffolding, images, etc give different websites different "feels". So it's not like a portfolio page gives a user a definitive idea of your personal design style and what you are truly capable of, but that's kind of its purpose, right?============================================== Make Your Services Page BE Your Portfolio ==============================================A Portfolio is used to SHOW what you are capable of. A list of services SAYS what you are supposedly capable of. A list of services with intelligent yet easy-to-understand descriptions and nice pictures can SHOW what you are capable of.Just make sure that your Services page is GREAT. Don't be afraid of white-space - make use of it, in fact. You want this page to be loaded with content and images, but not mushed together.I'd use a two or 3 column layout for a page like this. I highly recommend utilizing a grid system, 12 or 24 columns if you don't mind the math. I use 24 because you can get much closer to Phi, or the golden ratio, which is 1 to 1.618033988749895. With a 12 column grid, the closest you can get to that wonderful, amazing element of nature, is 7/12, or .58333, which is .0347 away from Phi. 8/12 is .0486 away from Phi. But with 24 columns, you can do 15/24, which is .625, only .0069 away from Phi. You could, of course, create your own classes that match Phi exactly, which I did in my custom framework, but 15/24 is honestly close enough for me. It's up to you if you even want to use a grid system, let alone a 24 column grid system, but I suggest you do at least a 12 column grid system. And make The Services page 2 or 3 columns. You'll have to mess around to see what looks the nicest, but I think 2 is probably the better bet.For each Primary Service, create a div with an id of the name of the service,List each Primary Service as an h2.Add paragraphs, possibly justified beneath your h2 describing what the service is, how it can benefit the user, and why someone should choose YOUR company to perform this serviceAdd images in different locations, depending on the service. For example, if the service is E-Commerce, you could center the h2, and then create 3 columns beneath that. The center can be the content / paragraphs. On the top left you can put a Photo-shopped image of an E-Commerce site page with products. On the top right (last column), you can add a picture of one of those products. Mid left, add a picture of a pointer clicking an "Add to Cart" button. Mid right, a shopping cart image. Bottom left, an envelope/package. Bottom right, a person holding the product. The pictures tell a story. Do something like that for your services, and it will impress the hell out of people.Another good idea is to not stack the service divs in the 2 primary columns parallel; you should zig-zag them, making use of white-space. Better yet, do the zig zag but make it 3 primary columns, and the center column is filled with SVGs of Social Network Logos, Website Related Logos (HTML5, CSS3, PHP, Python, Rails, Apache, Linux, Android, iOS, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. Put them all in the same shape, like a circle or square with rounded corners, and just put one per row, going all the way down the page, so as people scroll and read the services on the left and right, they'll see what programming languages, CMSs, Software, and Operating Systems you use and develop for/with. It's just an idea, but the point is, be creative, and make this page REALLY powerful. Also make sure that at some point in each service div, like at the end, you put a Call to Action.Add some more custom Photo-shopped images, like a Stock Photo of 3 Desktop Monitors with Sublime Text open on one, Chrome openned in the middle displaying your website, and Photoshop open on the right with an image of either your website layout or some image on your website. Better yet, make the image you see in Photoshop, the nearly-finished version of the image itself. So people will be looking at an image of 3 monitors, one of which has the image itself in it. That's another cool idea.If you build this page right, people will almost subconsciously build a portfolio of your potential work in their mind's eye. After viewing the services page, people should be able to say, "Wow, they have a great eye for design, and they really know their stuff. I didn't realize Google AdWords could be so effective, but after looking at that pie chart, I'm gonna have to try it out!"============================================== Start a Google AdWords Campaign ==============================================Now, if you have capital and a good website, as long as you don't live in Manhattan, Silicon Valley, Austin, etc, you should start a Google AdWords Campaign. Take time in choosing your keywords, negative keywords, ad-text, etc, and set the budgets appropriately so you show up in the top 2 or 3, even if it costs you a few dollars a click. If you set up AdWords properly, you're only going to be getting clicks from actual prospective clients, and from there, it's your job to get them to contact you. Use negative keywords like "Tutorial" and "Classes", and monitor your Analytics EVERY DAY, and keep changing up your keywords and ad-text. Also, make sure your SEO is really damn good.Getting back to the website, make sure your Call to Action is visible immediately on every page. Clickable Phone number + E-Mail address in the top right of the header, a short "Name, E-Mail Address, What are you Looking for?" contact form in the sidebar, etc. You want people to engage.Lastly, you have to make sure that when you get a client referred to you, you CALL them IMMEDIATELY. If they don't answer, leave a voicemail saying something like, "Hi, I'm Joe from XYZ Designs. I saw you filled out the form on my website (or I was told by so-and-so that you were interested in a website). Anyway, I just wanted to reach out and introduce myself. Hopefully we can schedule a meeting soon to discuss what you need." etc. You can say things like "I don't charge for consultations - I'm not like the huge Web Development Firms that force you into 6 month commitments and charge you hourly for everything. While my profession is technology, which is new, I prefer to do business "the old way", in person, face to face, without any tricks to make a quick buck. I know that I provide amazing services, so I don't need to do things like other companies"You just did two HUGE things there - You established your humanity. Lots of web designers don't know how to talk to people, and they don't know about business. By contacting them quickly, even if you just leave a voicemail and send an e-mail, they'll appreciate it and realize, "Hey, this kid is a hard worker." That in turn will make them believe that they can trust you, as far as trust goes with strangers, at least.You also just separated yourself from the greedy competition. If the client has been shopping around, he or she will have already dealt with people like this, but even if you're their first call, they will still respect you for it. You can charge hourly rates for your clients when they're asking for additional services that weren't part of the initial contract, but NEVER charge anyone for a first meeting, or even a second. You could charge $100 for a 1 hour meeting, and some people will pay it, but you have a FAR BETTER chance of landing the client if you don't do that. You want the client, not the quick cash, because a client, even one that starts out with a simple 5 page static website that you charge, say, $1,000 for, could turn into a $350/month hosting & maintenance client. And if you're clients are happy, they'll recommend other people to you.I know I wrote a lot, but there's still more I could write. Other people will answer your question, though, and more briefly I suspect with lots of good options. I hope this helps you, though. Feel free to comment if you want any specific advice. But remember, focus on getting clients. Bring business cards everywhere and give them to everyone. Try to get people to do sales on a commission basis. But before you do that, make sure you have an outstanding website with Google Analytics & Google & Bing Webmaster Tools. You also want to have AT MINIMUM a Google Plus Page, Facebook Business Page, and Twitter Page. Also, if you have a physical location, make sure you let Google know, because local listings / My Business is crucial these days.

I can answer this to a degree, contextualized through my own experience as a highly trained immigrant to Oslo, Norway, from Croatia, a small South-East European country with a load of economic and political problems. My experiences may not be representative of other personal conditions and particular destinies.PreambleIn Which We Meet Our Hero.After completing my Ph.D. in Automation (Electrical Engineering) in 2012, with the focus on Marine Robotics / Cybernetics I decided to look for employment outside my country. I had previously had limited experiences living in the UK and US. I had previously lived for 1 year in the UK while I was lower sixth form, in a public boarding school (public, confusingly, means private in the UK, and boarding school is the one where you live in the school). Lower sixth form in the UK is the penultimate year of secondary / high school, so I guess, high school junior in the US? Kids aged roughly 16 - 18, mode on 17. In the US, I lived during a three month research stint tied to my Ph.D. research on a scholarship in Monterey, CA, researching in the Naval Postgraduate School. I had also traveled extensively during my Ph.D. around Europe and to a lesser degree to the US and around the world. I speak English at the native speaker level.It took me about three quarters of a year to find a job in Norway, and I chose to concentrate on Norway for several reasons:During my studies, I had learned that Norway invests extreme amounts of money, even by the EU standards (i.e. the whole of EU through the Directorate for S&T's instrument called Framework Programme 7 before 2013, and now Horizon 2020), into marine technology and marine cybernetics research,Norway, although a small country, has a disproportionally large labor market, relatively speaking, for highly trained marine technology and marine cybernetics professionals, with globally operating Norwegian-based companies such as Kongsberg, Marine Cybernetics, DNV-GL, and multinationals with significant presence and marine technology operations in Norway, like ABB, GE, Siemens, Rolls Royce Marine, etc.Norway is in the same time-zone as Croatia, CET, and is 5 hours away by plane with one change-over somewhere in Western or Central Europe (usually Frankfurt, Munich, Copenhagen, Zurich, Brussels, or Vienna). During the summer, there are cheap seasonal flights directly to the coast by Ryanair. I have a lot of family in Croatia still, as well as friends, and like to be close.Norway is extremely socialist. I espouse socialist values, and, compared to other possible countries that would have an interest in an immigrant like me (a highly trained focused expert who might only be able to get paperwork based on his expertise and the real need of some company to employ a guy with such credentials), like Canada, the UK (Scotland), the US, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Hong Kong, it is the best governed. I am very wary of the US culture of over-work (although I grant that I may be misinformed or not have the proper understanding of how it looks in practice). This is especially true at a juncture in my life where I want to think hard and serious about starting a family and having a good work-life balance with respect to that. Norway also offers apt labor rights to employees, and a good amount of paid vacation, as well as paternity leave, health, social welfare programs etc. I consider the American approach to vacation (summed up as one word -- "No") to be uncivilized in the extreme.Norway is still essentially European. Any alienation that I may come to feel should at least be less than in the US, or in Asia.Norway is extremely family-friendly.Most critical to my experience, I had some connections in Norway that helped when competing in their labor market. So all that said, come February 2013, I packed my bags, sat on the plane, and arrived for a two weeks stay in a hotel before I found myself a place to live. The plane, the overweight luggage charges, and the two weeks of stay in the hotel near work were picked up by my company. Seeing as how the oil market has moved in the last two years, I would not expect to see the same happening again were I to get a job today. I also got a liaison in the Chamber of Commerce through my company's Global Mobility office who helped with paperwork, and, which turned out to be rather critical when comparing my story to those of other immigrants -- vetting and vouching for me with Norwegian landlords and essentially acting as my at-large factotum during the first few weeks, driving me around and setting me up as painlessly as humanly possible.Prior to getting the job I ultimately landed, I have to point out that the job-hunting embodied two vastly different experiences:With one company, I went through a protracted competitive and whittling-down process since they were advertising and hiring globally and for a very specific purpose. I begrudged the company for not going through the process more efficiently and communicating their ultimate choice (of another person) sooner. The process was drawn out, very formal, and without too much interaction save for one interview. They would have been happy to cover the travel costs for, from Croatia, had I not had a parallel activity in Norway at a date that was satisfactory for both, so I was already in the country. They were kind enough to send a chauffeur to the airport at Oslo, where I landed for my other activities, and drive me three hours to the company headquarters, and covered the price of the train back to Oslo. So a civilized, but largely faceless and formal process, with a tail end of waiting for the ultimate answer by far too long and slightly mismanaged in my opinion.With my ultimate company, it started with a friendly phone-call by a Technology Manager in charge of the unit that was interested in getting me, on the recommendation of mutual acquaintances who were kind enough to refer me. We had another chat with the unit manager, and the guy who would be my immediate manager after a week from the initial chat. Two weeks after that, they paid for me to come in for an in-person interview. This was not an advertised position essentially, but the company saw it as an opportunity to get the expertise that I embodied. So I was basically head-hunted personally and in a targeted way. They presented me with an offer right after the interview, and gave me three weeks to consider (it was right around the time of Christmas holidays, so companies would have shut down anyway for at least two weeks). I accepted. Very fast, very friendly, I didn't feel too much tension, and after the first experience, was duly impressed by their willingness to come to terms almost immediately.Now, finally, on to the actual experiences of living and working in Norway.Working in NorwayThe GoodWorking in a big multinational company in Norway is... well I don't have a good standard for comparison, having only worked in academia before my stint here, but in general -- nice, civilized, and interesting. It does have its share of frustrations, but I imagine that will be the case anywhere and everywhere. Now, my standard for comparison is Croatian business life and business practices, and e.g. American practices are in many respects even further removed. So, when I say "the internal administration seems to be fast and efficient", maybe for an American it would seem overly bureaucratic and convoluted, but then that person would run away screaming and insane from Croatia. That said -- my onboarding period was extremely efficiently handled. I got a nice office with modern, functional furniture (electrical motor for adjusting your desk, a fancy chair that has more ways of setting it up that I have cared to learn), a cellphone, a computer, 2 big screens, and other paraphernalia within the first week. Well, the laptop was a temporary hand-down that I got on the first day, to be followed by my own, brand new model in two weeks.The working language in my company is English, and at the time there were very many expats and international workers, so communication was never a problem. All Norwegians (at the workplace for sure, and I would wager -- most Norwegians in general, regardless of age, at least in Oslo) also speak quite good English, if with an unmistakable Scandinavian accent. But then again, I probably have an unmistakable Slavic accent, so there is that. The company also agreed to pay Norwegian language courses for me.Norwegians in general are practical, goal-oriented folk. They strike me as having a good balance between setting up workable and rational rules, and sticking to them, and being willing to adapt to a situation. Unlike Croatians, they have a can-do, positive outlook and don't have a particular Croatian trauma and obsession with not incurring any costs in doing business. You've got to spend money to earn money. And if the cost is rational, targeted, known in advance, and will lead to a business result, it gets paid quickly and efficiently.By and large, you can be very flexible with your time, involvement, vacation days, going to the doctor, or doing administration stuff with the state (although for that last one, there is not much need since most of the administration is digital and web-based). There are some restrictions if, unlike me, who works in R&D, you work "front line" in direct contact with customers and in the core business of the company. Then, work is driven by customer-imposed deadlines, and since we build complicated solutions that are systems constructed from components produced, shipped, and coordinated from factories around the world, you may have some constraints on when in particular you want to take your spring, summer, autumn, or winter vacation.Hierarchies in Norwegian companies are flat, and bosses don't command respect just by the virtue of being placed on top of you in the organization chart. They are rather approachable (if sometimes bland and non-committal if you insist on talking to them only about the business), and almost to a fault don't expect any obeisance or sycophancy. The right way to socialize with bosses is to talk about leisure, sports, the weather, travel etc.The "Bad" -- Well, the peculiar in any caseEven in globally operating companies with a multinational workforce, for getting ahead and being in the know, Norwegian is a must. Then again, Norwegians act extremely friendly and like it very much when you exhibit any interest in learning their language. However, I have seen that the feelings get mixed once you've established yourself as at least a mediocre speaker of Norwegian. As time passes, their enthusiasm for talking to you like they would to an idiot child decreases. They start "forgetting themselves" and begin to just talk normal in front of, or to you, and then are a little bit stumped when they see that you can't quite keep up. However, this is probably not strange. I try to think how the situation would play out in e.g. a Croatian company, and I can't in all honesty say that it would be much different. This is by and large true for a lot of things I will say in this section.Getting ahead, in the career sense, is absolutely predicated not only on learning Norwegian, but actively integrating into the Norwegian lifestyle, preferences, culture, and leisure time activities. Norwegians, somewhat like Croatians, are a small nation, so everybody knows everybody else, and networking and mingling are very important. Combined with the sometimes stifling Janteloven ("You shall not consider yourself to be better than anybody else. You are not, the society will not treat you as such, and you will get no more breaks or opportunities than anybody else."), this means that whom you know, who is a good friend, and who you've managed to impress with your personality and your good humor, is equally important to how good you actually are in whatever you do. On the other side of that coin, they still manage to be more meritocratic than Croatians, but Croatians are a byword for nepotism, corruption, and clientelism.Due to this deep-seated respect for the opinions of others and sense of community, decision-making and responsibility-taking, as well as exercise of authority is sometimes... challenging. The way they try to resolve this is by calling an irrational number of meetings, especially when the decision to be made is a multi-faceted one, with many valid arguments in favor of different courses of action. If there is no consensus, you can be sure there will be another meeting on the same issue. Ultimately, this sometimes undercuts business because in a lot of situations, it is important to be fast, rather than right. Especially in the really interesting problems, when it is simplistic in the first instance to try to frame the decision as right-or-wrong. This does feel nice for the people lower down on the pecking order because you get the sense that it truly is important (and it really is) what you think how the company, or your team, or your unit, should proceed on some matter. However, what I think many people fail to understand is that sometimes you either don't have an opinion, or would just like to get on with your work, in whichever way someone tells you to. Sometimes you just need information on how to proceed, and not a debate.Other than that, what I think I am noticing as frustrations or down-sides of the job have more to do with the nature of big corporations in general, than with anything uniquely Norwegian, like the Peters principle ("people tend to get promoted to their exact level of incompetence"). Also, if you are extremely efficient and effective in your work, and if your work is the company's core business and you are in the "front lines", which in my company means engineering the actual deliveries, your chances of getting promoted off of that front line are slim. Because you are indispensable right where you are right now. Whereas as a middle manager, your less-than-efficient-engineer colleague might do just as well. And that is largely true when you consider the job one rung on top of yours. But if you really want to advance along the entire ladder, you need that rung's experience to move forward and further. Not just for the sake of being a team leader.In that last respect, I've noticed that careers in Norwegian engineering companies have some of the nature of "switchback staircase". You get promoted by leaving a company, and stepping into a higher-up role in the other company. Then after some years you come back to the company in a yet higher role. This is something that happens in Norway -- companies often take people back, even after a period where these people have worked with a direct competitor.The UglyNothing really.Living in NorwayOslo And Public TransportNorway is a relatively non-urban country. Even Oslo, the biggest city, is quite small compared to some other European, and even Scandinavian cities, like Stockholm or Copenhagen. The government actually actively pursues the policy of decentralized development, and Norwegian people in general seem to not mind living in the country, or rather, actually prefer it. On top of questions of relative size, to me, who came from the capital of Croatia that is loosely the same size as Oslo (maybe 100 - 200 thousand inhabitants more, depending on how far you cast your statistical net), Oslo just doesn't feel very big. This is due to the fact that Oslo, which for me was quite unexpected since I tend to associate the trend much more with cities and towns in the US, is not very congested or urbanized, urban panning-wise. It has a relatively small urban center, surrounded by a lot of suburban sprawl of detached housing. While in Oslo the public transport infrastructure is good, that is not necessarily the case over all. Oslo has the T-bane, the semi-underground semi-overground light rail, a network of slow and meandering trams, a high speed underground railway connection between the eastern and western railway networks of Norway, buses, and ferries all operated by the same concern -- Ruter.no. Whenever the T-bane stops service (after midnight on weekdays and Sunday, and after 1 am on Friday and Saturday), even in Oslo getting around in public transport becomes a hassle.Nightlife, Social Life, Drinks, And TaxisThese leads me to segue into discussions of nightlife, social life, drinks, and taxis. When you are out and about in Oslo (and even more so in other cities and town) after hours, the only real efficient option of getting around is taxis (and Uber). Taxis are goddamned expensive, but so is almost anything else associated with urbanite nightlife. Drinks are ridiculous, as I am sure many of you already know. Prices of alcohol and nicotine products are extremely high on account of the punitive tariffs imposed by the government. This stance of the Norwegian society towards drinks and tobacco I find to be extremely hypocritical. If you consider that it is so damaging and dangerous -- ban it outright. However, I think every sane person can immediately recognize that this will not work. The Islamic world tried this, and still there is a lively black market for alcohol in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, or Iran. This is one aspect of the otherwise quite accomplished Norwegian nanny state that I severely dislike. To a man from a culture that is the most... interesting, to put it diplomatically, mix of the Mediterranean and Slavic cultures, it is of supreme importance to have his beer or wine in peace and not have the nanny state look down upon you with a tsk-ing sound on its lips and a wagging finger on its hand.Other aspects of nightlife are equally expensive, and to add insult to injury, quite annoying as well. All nightclubs rigorously enforce fire rules (as all establishments in Norway in general rigorously enforce all of the rules all of the time), which results in scenes which I had for the longest of times considered, when I would see them on American TV shows like Friends to be some weird fiction. Namely those of people freezing their asses off in those pesky lines for admittance into nightclubs. More often than not, not without paying an exorbitant fee to top it off. Additionally, all premises that remain open after a given time (I don't know exactly, but I'd say maybe 10 pm) employ bouncers and guards, who are entitled to refuse you entry if they only judge you to be inebriated, or in general, a menace. For me, inebriation at a reasonable level is in no way necessarily connected with being a potential problem in a nightclub or bar. This has more to do with a person's experience in drinking, the set of cultural expectation about how to behave while out at night, and how drinking in general is perceived by the society.Inebriation, Pulling Tail, And FightingThen again, maybe that kind of practice is for the better in Norway, where people generally go for what I like to call the bipolar approach -- either they are stone-cold, dead-set, boring-the-pants-off-of-you sober, or fucked-up drunk beyond possibility of parole. There is no culture like in the Mediterranean countries (Italy, Spain, France, Greece) of being cheerfully tipsy, inhibitions-somewhat-released, comfortably buzzed. Where the buzz and the tipsiness sneaks up on you because you've been sipping wine with cheese, grapes, and nuts for the better part of the afternoon which somehow decided to turn into dead of night at some point. In Norway, like in the UK, you drink to get shit-faced, and that's the sole point of the exercise. Norwegians seem to regard alcohol exclusively as an intoxicant / drug, without a cultural patina associated with drinking as a social activity established through the course of history. As you wouldn't "sip" heroin or meth, but you'd shoot up in order to feel the psychotropic effects, so with alcohol.Additionally, compared to Croatians, and most Italians I've known, Norwegians have poor self-control when drinking. If I was inclined to not being particularly charitable, I'd wager that it was because they actually like that the alcohol gives them the excuse to act more outside of the bounds of what is normally expected of them. More in tune with their id, as opposed to their nanny-state-moderated, Janteloven-totting superego. It is not uncommon (not particularly common, but in my subjective experience also not uncommon enough) to see drunken Norwegians getting into fights with each other. The kind of fights entered in are more a case of peacocking and signalling, then of wishing to actually do someone lasting harm. For me, this was extremely scary, because in Croatia, you fight if a) you're a sociopath thug, b) you've been assaulted by a sociopath thug. In both cases, you fight hard, fast, dirty, and for dear life. No amount of alcohol will cause adult socially functioning Croatians to consider getting into a fight over sports, women, or political opinions. Of course, there are crazies, sociopaths, psychopaths, bullies, hooligans, and thugs everywhere. And the reason why normal tax-paying upstanding citizens don't like to posture aggressively and invite for fights is that what might happen once the proverbial bro proverbially comes at you is that you (or him) get curb-stomped, you get your family jewels kicked out from underneath you, or a knife finds its way to a fist-fight, or a gun finds its way to a knife-fight.Additionally, it is really funny (and recently, for reasons of changed personal circumstances, also somewhat frustrating) to observe Norwegian mating rituals. Norwegians are, in the opinion of this reviewer, notoriously bad at play-of-words, double entendres, and seduction in general. They congregate into bars in unisex groups, proceed to drink themselves into a stupor, without making much effort to communicate with the opposite number. Once comfortably smashed out of their brains, they proceed to play touch-heavy, and bumble that they "like each other", which basically means they want to have sex. After which more often then not, they do (fortunately, mostly away from the prying eyes of the Attenboroughian neutral observer).DrivingComing back to daylight affairs, the road network in Norway leaves a lot to be desired, and the country has but one motorway that I consider worthy of the name, from Oslo along the west side of the Oslofjord towards Kristiansand. The road network includes several A-roads, but generally speaking, Norwegians often fly domestically. It is difficult to keep a country with geography of Norway connected by overland transport. Additionally, Norwegians drive extremely passively and defensively, and quite slow, to someone from Croatia. This is one of the reasons I don't really enjoy the thought of having to eventually buy a car and drive here (at the very latest, if and when I start a family, if I will still be living here) -- I think I'd have real problems with being constantly annoyed over how slow and passively the traffic moves over here. It's similar to California, how I remember it while I was living there. So for Americans reading this, I guess not too different from home, but for Italians, Spaniards, maybe the French (?) and people from the Balkans, this is an excruciatingly bland and passive, almost boring experience. And I fear that I might not be able to refrain from committing misdemeanors like speeding or what would be considered "aggressive" driving.Janteloven; Or How We Tore The Neck Off Of The American Dream And Proceeded To Shit Down Its NeckIn general, from my perspective life in Norway is very calm and organized, and Norwegians are quite worry-free, because they have a rich nanny state that takes care of a lot of things for them. One thing that people need to understand when living here is the Janteloven. In Croatia, we actually have, as a remnant of communist times, a similar term, but in Croatia it is (I would daresay, in the particular socioeconomic context, and perceived needs of Croatia to develop into a modern country, rightly so) perceived as an extremely negative, stifling, and limiting ideological term -- Uravnilovka (roughly Equalization). Both terms can be understood with the same positive and negative facets, and there are, to be sure, both of those.On the positive side, like all socialist ideologies, Janteloven provides social homogeneity, corps esprit, sense of community, and a social safety network that removes a lot of existential weltschmertz from the life experience of even the most socially imperiled Norwegians. On the negative side, I will just share one particular image for Uravnilovka that pertains equally well to my experience and perception of Janteloven -- that of a pendulum blade like in Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum, or like the circular saws springing from the walls in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. These blades are tuned exquisitely to a certain height that is enforced as a universal standard. If your height happens to exceed that to which the saws / blades are set, you get cut down to size.I would imagine that to Americans with their diametrically opposed idea of the American Dream, this sounds like something out of a story with which the Tea Party scare their children.Ordnung Muss Sein; Or On The Question Of Whether You Need A PMP To Have Fun In A SMART Way; Oh, And Sports, Just So, So Many SportsA funny thing about Norwegians in formal settings, like let's say in a company, is that a lot of the time they insist on everything fun being exquisitely planned, with four-color highlighters, neatly organized lists, and arranged seating. It is almost as the idea of the ancient and mystical art of "just shooting the shit out on the patio" is wholly unknown to them. They want to know when we are going, where we are going, how we are getting there, what's the plan B, what do we need to buy before we get there, of course, most important of all, HOW DO WE SPLIT THE BIL.L, before they will even consider doing something fun. And by that, they always mean some kind of organized activity. You cannot just go have something to eat and some drinks. Or you know, god forbid, talk, tell jokes, flirt, and tell stories. There has to be something participatory to do for the organization. Some kind of team-building bullshit. How we build teams in Croatia? Step 1) Lots of food. Step 2) Mountains of booze. Step 3) Maybe some drugs. Step 4) It is in fact not the case that Ana from Accounting must look much worse without all the makeup in the morning. But I'm still not seeing clear from all the booze anyway.The obsession with planned activities reminds me of American summer camps or kindergarten groups.There is one thing that Norwegians are super-passionate about, though, and that is sports. They are an amazingly good-looking, fit, and healthy nation and I have to tip the hat to them for that. But the amount of preoccupation with sports is too damn high, quoth the memetastic Jimmy McMillan. They are crazy about sports, especially the Nordic skiing disciplines, but extending to jogging, cycling, gym, crossfit, everything. If you don't do sports, you are dangerously close to being considered a pariah. And, like the joke about the Vegan, the Cross-fitter, and the Anti-GMO guy, they will tell you about it.Closing Arguments And VerdictIf I wanted to be uncharitable, I'd be inclined to describe the less appetizing facets of Norwegian society and Norway as:They are hidebound. A lot of them do exactly the same thing as the neighbor, and do the popular thing, and do it at the exactly prescribed time of the year, with exactly prescribed gear, having the exactly prescribed opinions on how great whatever they are doing, is.They are spoiled. They have an excellent, rational, social, rich, and high-functioning nation-state that provides, and often don't know how good they are having it, and are prone to First-World-Problemism. In this, they manage to walk the fine line of doublethink wherein they are at the same time extremely liberal and progressive in theory, and quite xenophobic and bigoted in practice.They are unambitious. Their approach to work, while practical and honest, is quite laissez-faire and lackadaisical. Come friday 2 pm, nobody's around to answer phones and emails, and everyone's halfway across the first hill to their cabin.If, on the other hand, I wanted to be charitable, I'd cover exactly the same bases as the above like this, claiming of Norwegians that:They are socially cohesive. They value the same things, understand each other well, are neighborly, and raise children with a high participation of the entire society. They find strength, courage, and beauty in adhering to tradition and unanimity.They are calm, rational, and practical. Their excellent, rational, social, rich, and high-functioning nation-state is an excellent example of how a nation state should be set up. Seeing as how they have their cake and continue to eat it to, at least while the oil still flows, they for the love of all that is holy cannot understand why Rwandans, Somalis, Ex-Yugoslavs, or Russians would choose to operate differently.They realize what is really valuable in life and that you work to live, and not the other way around. They travel on holidays across half the world, are home a lot to spend time with their families, are healthy and content due to sports and spending time in nature, and suffer low levels of work-related stress.All people are people, and there's beautiful, ugly, or boring people everywhere. Croatians are not the rose-petal-smelling pearly ass-farts of rainbow-regurgitating unicorns either, but the question was not about Croatians anyway. For an excellent overview of Croatian idiosyncrasies, I urge everyone to read the excellent Croatian son-in-law, Cody Brown's blog Zablogreb, or more recently, his collected columns on the Voice of Croatia.