5G is coming, and although the standards aren’t fully defined, it’s going to be a game-changer. Its ramifications for service delivery are broad, from the extremely high-capacity radio interface that will deliver extremely low-latency services, to scaling to billions of new IoT devices for smart homes, cities, vehicles, and more. Even before 5G standards have been defined, operators can gain critical first-mover advantage by embarking on their SDN strategy today. Forward-looking operators can ensure the success of their 5G networking strategy by choosing technology partners with broad wireline networking experience, as well as software programmability expertise.