At the moment, Samsung is well behind Nokia Corp, Huawei and Ericsson in the networks business. It made the mistake of backing CDMA and WiMax wireless technologies (remember them) which ended up being the betamax if the wireless standard world.

Samsung thinks it has an opportunity to catch up by moving fast and early on 5G, the wireless technology that telecom equipment makers are rushing to develop as the next-generation standard.

Kim Young-ky, Samsung's network business chief, told Reuters his outfit was going to move fast to be among the top three with 5G. 

He said the company would do this by moving early and getting enough foreign telcos using its technology.

Major network firms are targeting the United States as it moves rapidly ahead with plans to open spectrum for 5G wireless applications. Some US officials expect to see the first large-scale commercial deployments by 2020.

Samsung wants to make more than $8.6 billion in annual sales of 5G equipment by 2022,.

The key to all this is scoring a deal with Verizon Communications to commercialise the technology. Other firms working with Verizon on 5G include Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Intel.

Verizon conducts field tests this year and aims to begin deploying 5G trials on home broadband services in 2017 in the United States, likely the first 5G application commercially available before a broader mobile network standard is agreed.

As the industry has yet to decide on a 5G mobile standard, Samsung plans to start by selling equipment such as base transceiver stations and home receivers for fixed wireless broadband access.

The fixed wireless broadband market alone could be worth tens of billions of dollars, Kim said.