Mobile World Congress Overview

On February, 1^st, I wrote a Mobile World Congress preview blog and said I expected to see Mobile Backhaul at the show.  Here I am at the last day of the show, and I want to tell you about the major themes I’m seeing.

First and foremost, the major theme is mobile broadband optimization, which includes mobile backhaul as one of the improvement mechanisms.  There were many announcements about this, including one from Dialogic.  This theme also includes mobile video optimization as you’d expect, and also much activity about mobile video quality of service and quality of experience.  In fact, there was a panel that Dialogic spoke on with regards to this.  

LTE is also a theme at this show, tying into above as a way to deal with the mobile broadband issues.  The service providers are positioning themselves as innovative and customer-oriented by talking about LTE.

Another major theme here is Android.  The Android area is very cool and there are Android devices galore.  But let me say that even though Apple is not here, they are here – you see iPhones and iPads everywhere, and they are being talked about.  Yes, Apple didn’t pay a dollar to exhibit at the show, but they are here.

And finally, Cloud Services is here.  Every year, there is always one theme that people latch onto (even though I find the latching specious).  Last year, that theme was Femtocells, as there was Femtocell signage everywhere. This year, that theme seems to be Cloud, even though the cloud attachment for some players lacks adjacency.  But unlike Femtocells, I do not expect Cloud to fade into the background next year.  I expect Cloud messaging to actually ratchet up as the Telco ecosystem gears up even more.

So that’s it from Barcelona.  It’s warmer in New York than in Barcelona.  Let’s see what happens next year.