The big Qualcomm announcement at this year's IFA trade show opening keynote? The company is going to make 5G the new normal, by introducing a 5G modem option for the Snapdragon 400 platform.

That's a big step in making 5G ubiquitous. In the same way that 4G was a want-to-have and became an almost-everyone-has connectivity across much of the globe, the faster and lower-latency 5G experience is slowly seeping into more and more affordable devices.

The American company predicts that the reach of the SD400 platform will mean an additional 3.5 billion users will have access to 5G in the future. That's not a small number - and should give governments, policy makers and networks greater incentive to push forward with 5G plans.

We're somewhat surprised to hear this announcement so soon. After all, with the promise of Snapdragon 600 series also being promised 5G in 2020 - the higher-end 800 and 700 series have already succeeded, of course - we're still waiting for such a device to hit the market.

In a briefing with Pocket-lint ahead of the IFA conference, Qualcomm called this news a "directional announcement" - because there's no specific timescale or company partnerships announced just yet.

That said, with the IFA trade show underway, companies such as Nokia are perfectly positioned to reveal a relevant device. We'll have to keep an eye out as to what emerges at the show...