Mobile fest sees touch screens, faster broadband dominate
More than 55,000 visitors (including delegates and exhibitors) attended the Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, according to its organisers the GSM Association. The three-day conference featured more than 230 chief executives and other high-level speakers.
Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone, filmmaker Robert Redford, Wang Jianzhou, CEO of China Mobile, John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia, Black-Eyed-Peas´ singer will.i.am and actress Isabella Rossellini were among the speakers at the Congress.
Surprisingly, since it was three years since the Congress was last in Cannes, many visitors were still wistful about attending the show there, where it was on a smaller scale, with more ad hoc networking.
Sadly the Catalonian crime wave continued unabated, with many reports of thefts in downtown Barcelona. This was despite the police asking visitors to take off their show passes as they got on to the metro.
One O2 employee described the police as very well organised with an English to Spanish translator on hand to help victims of crime – he had his wallet stolen – to report the thefts. And a consultant trying to get on to the metro found that as he tried to board the train two girls already on it, blocked his path.
Meanwhile a thief on the platform reached for his wallet. He managed to fend him off but another delegate reported a colleague´s wallet being stolen on the metro from his front trouser pocket while he was with two co-workers. Not one of the three saw it happen.
Observing, analysing and reporting on the Congress were 2,700 international print, Web and broadcast media. This year the press office was sponsored by Huawei and it was well equipped for about the first time ever.
The Congress also hosted 1,300 exhibitors across 1,500 stands with approximately 29,000 square metres of exhibition space and 30,000 of square metres of hospitality space, reflecting the fact that people come to the show to schmooze as well as do deals and announce them.
This year, the mobile entertainment hall (Hall 7) was busy and buzzy, unlike last year when it was a lot quieter reflecting the fact that as more of the world´s mobile users get 3G (or 3G plus HSPA) for higher data speeds, content is really starting to take off.
Next Generation Mobile Networks
Key themes of the Congress were that touch screens have gained real momentum as established handset makers seek to keep up with Apple´s iPhone and that lots of companies are investing in LTE (Long Term Evolution) based technologies to provide the high-speed mobile broadband successor to 3G, though some will introduce Mobile Wi-Max (like faster Wi-Fi for cities) beforehand.
Alcatel-Lucent boss Patricia Russo co-announced an agreement to combine its LTE R&D efforts with those of NEC of Japan to come up with a common platform. The motive: to increase speed to market by pooling resources.
Further evidence that the pace of change is speeding up in the industry was evident at a meeting of industry alliance Next Generation Mobile Networks. Its members are major industry players determined to get LTE - essentially really fast mobile broadband of up to 100 megabits a second off the ground faster than the usual standards body process could.
T-Mobile´s pavilion at the show saw a top table including: Dr Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm; Hamid Akhavan, chief executive of T-Mobile and chair of the NGMN; Dr Horst Lennertz of E-Plus´ supervisory board; and the CTOs of Telstra and Ericsson among others all in one room for an hour.
“The record attendance figures at this year’s Congress reflect both the extraordinary and compelling conference programme, which covered a broad range of topics from Long-Term Evolution to made-for-mobile short films to the environment, and the high quality of the exhibition,” said John Hoffman, CEO of the GSMA’s conference division.
“We are also delighted by the seniority of the people that have traveled from all over the world to Barcelona for the Congress - more than 43% of conference attendees hold C-level (Chief Executive Office, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Operations Officer or Chief Financial Officer) positions within their organisations.”
The event was sponsored by a number of companies, including LG and Telefonica. The EC´s Viviane Reding also caused a bit of a stir as she highlighted the need for lower data roaming charges, with a number of operators, including O2 and 3, announcing lower roaming charges ahead of any EC decision: 3 UK in the week before the show and 02 in January.
More than 55,000 visitors (including delegates and exhibitors) attended the Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, according to its organisers the GSM Association. The three-day conference featured more than 230 chief executives and other high-level speakers.
Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone, filmmaker Robert Redford, Wang Jianzhou, CEO of China Mobile, John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia, Black-Eyed-Peas´ singer will.i.am and actress Isabella Rossellini were among the speakers at the Congress.
Surprisingly, since it was three years since the Congress was last in Cannes, many visitors were still wistful about attending the show there, where it was on a smaller scale, with more ad hoc networking.
Sadly the Catalonian crime wave continued unabated, with many reports of thefts in downtown Barcelona. This was despite the police asking visitors to take off their show passes as they got on to the metro.
One O2 employee described the police as very well organised with an English to Spanish translator on hand to help victims of crime – he had his wallet stolen – to report the thefts. And a consultant trying to get on to the metro found that as he tried to board the train two girls already on it, blocked his path.
Meanwhile a thief on the platform reached for his wallet. He managed to fend him off but another delegate reported a colleague´s wallet being stolen on the metro from his front trouser pocket while he was with two co-workers. Not one of the three saw it happen.
Observing, analysing and reporting on the Congress were 2,700 international print, Web and broadcast media. This year the press office was sponsored by Huawei and it was well equipped for about the first time ever.
The Congress also hosted 1,300 exhibitors across 1,500 stands with approximately 29,000 square metres of exhibition space and 30,000 of square metres of hospitality space, reflecting the fact that people come to the show to schmooze as well as do deals and announce them.
This year, the mobile entertainment hall (Hall 7) was busy and buzzy, unlike last year when it was a lot quieter reflecting the fact that as more of the world´s mobile users get 3G (or 3G plus HSPA) for higher data speeds, content is really starting to take off.
Next Generation Mobile Networks
Key themes of the Congress were that touch screens have gained real momentum as established handset makers seek to keep up with Apple´s iPhone and that lots of companies are investing in LTE (Long Term Evolution) based technologies to provide the high-speed mobile broadband successor to 3G, though some will introduce Mobile Wi-Max (like faster Wi-Fi for cities) beforehand.
Alcatel-Lucent boss Patricia Russo co-announced an agreement to combine its LTE R&D efforts with those of NEC of Japan to come up with a common platform. The motive: to increase speed to market by pooling resources.
Further evidence that the pace of change is speeding up in the industry was evident at a meeting of industry alliance Next Generation Mobile Networks. Its members are major industry players determined to get LTE - essentially really fast mobile broadband of up to 100 megabits a second off the ground faster than the usual standards body process could.
T-Mobile´s pavilion at the show saw a top table including: Dr Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm; Hamid Akhavan, chief executive of T-Mobile and chair of the NGMN; Dr Horst Lennertz of E-Plus´ supervisory board; and the CTOs of Telstra and Ericsson among others all in one room for an hour.
“The record attendance figures at this year’s Congress reflect both the extraordinary and compelling conference programme, which covered a broad range of topics from Long-Term Evolution to made-for-mobile short films to the environment, and the high quality of the exhibition,” said John Hoffman, CEO of the GSMA’s conference division.
“We are also delighted by the seniority of the people that have traveled from all over the world to Barcelona for the Congress - more than 43% of conference attendees hold C-level (Chief Executive Office, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Operations Officer or Chief Financial Officer) positions within their organisations.”
The event was sponsored by a number of companies, including LG and Telefonica. The EC´s Viviane Reding also caused a bit of a stir as she highlighted the need for lower data roaming charges, with a number of operators, including O2 and 3, announcing lower roaming charges ahead of any EC decision: 3 UK in the week before the show and 02 in January.
Labels: 3G, 4G, Barcelona, Cannes, crime, GSM Association, handset, LTE, mobile, mobile broadband, mobile phones, Mobile World Congress, mobiles, Nokia, roaming charges, WiMax
posted by Joia Shillingford at Thursday, February 14, 2008
1 Comments:
Shame to hear about the level of crime at MWC – I was wondering what it would be like. We did a media event there in October and our event photographer's camera (and bag with laptop etc) was stolen from practically under his nose outside the entrance of the Hotel Arts. It's such a shame Barcelona is so rife with thieves.
Post a Comment
<< Home