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A look back at the key moments from Mobile World Congress 2018
Sitting here in the peace and serenity of my hotel room, looking out at the old cathedral across the square, as Barcelona wakes up on a sunny Friday morning, it’s hard to believe the scale and the intensity of the last 96 hours. The past four days have absolutely flown by with my first Mobile World Congress being every bit as frenetic and action packed as I had been warned.
According to the GSMA, 107,000 people attended the show this year – a truly mind-numbing statistic. However, even that number doesn’t give you a true sense of the gargantuan scale of the place. I have previously covered trade shows that boasted 95,000 attendees yet somehow felt far, far smaller than MWC.
The exhibition floor was dazzling and sparkled like a Las Vegas casino lit up in a sea of neon lights. Coupled with the endless noise and multiple cups of coffee required to get you through the experience, it had the effect of lulling you into a bleary eyed but happy telecoms trance.
Ericsson and Huawei’s stands felt like mini exhibition halls in their own right, as the two vied for the title of ‘most impressive stand’. For sheer scale and opulence, I would say Huawei probably just won that battle, but Ericsson had some truly impressive kit on display too – more on that to follow.
So now that the dust has settled on an exhausting but thoroughly enjoyable week, what are my lasting impressions from this year’s event?
5G Steals the show
As you might have expected, 5G was the watch word at this year’s event, and while there was only a smattering of 5G related demos, nearly everyone I met wanted to tell me their plans for 5G in the coming months and years.
Mats Granryd, director general of the GSMA, said in his key note address that there would be 1.2 billion 5G connections across the globe by 2025, giving a stark insight into the amount of work that lies ahead for network operators.
On day 2 of the conference, I spoke with SK Telecom, who were keen to talk about their efforts to make South Korea the first place in the world to roll out fully commercialised 5G services. Their executive vice president for ICT, Jin Park, told me that the company was investing enormous amounts of time and money to ensure that South Korea beats its regional rivals to the title of ‘first for 5G’.
At their huge stand in Hall 2, Ericsson provided a number of live demonstrations, designed to showcase the power of 5G. I was able to experience ultra low latency of just 6 milliseconds when I took part in their live 5G VoIP demonstration (full article here). An extremely clear and fast video conference call might not be the most stunning application that 5G will bring to the world, but it really did mark a dramatic improvement on current capabilities with 4G. It was a nice demonstration of the power 5G has to make people’s everyday lives easier and just plain better. In years to come when my grandchildren ask me where I was when I first experienced 5G, I can tell them that it was on the 1st of March 2018, at Ericsson’s stand at Mobile World Congress.
This was a good example of a sub theme that ran through the show. While ultimately 5G will deliver huge advancements in quality and will revolutionise whole facets of our daily existence, at its inception it might be more domestically focused.
Alan G Carlton, vice president of Inter Digital Europe said that he expected to see the first commercial rollouts of 5G taking place in 2019, but that we should not be expecting the full potential of 5G to be realised in those first few months.
"At first, the impact of 5G might be more subtle than you think," he said.
Carlton also said that he believed that the arrival of 5G would likely do away with the concept of monthly data allowances.
"5G is about delivering the perception of unlimited data, for everyone, everywhere," he explained.
This linked in with another key theme in the show – how will operators monetise the enormous amounts of data flowing through their networks?
A pop at the establishment
In order to deliver 5G, operators will need a helping hand from regulators, particularly in Europe.
"Our vision of intelligent connectivity requires a supportive regulatory environment – one that fosters investment and encourages innovation," said the GSMA’s director general, Mats Granryd, during his key note address.
"The mobile sector is set to invest half a trillion dollars in mobile capex from now until 2020. These investments can only be made if we have a regulatory framework that is fit for the digital age," he added.
This was a theme that a number of network operators picked up and ran with during the show. Perhaps the most outspoken of these was Vodafone Group’s CEO, Vittorio Colao, who said that Europe needed to "recover the concept of investment", improve margins or risk being left behind in the race to develop 5G (full story here).
"Returns for the telecoms industry must be better. Regulators should take that into account. We should not be overcharged for spectrum and we should have long spectrum life. They need to take a long-term view of just what technology can do. It’s not just about selling spectrum to squeeze as much money out of telcos as possible," he said.
Colao said that the responsibility was on operators to speak up and voice their concerns on the subject and present a united front on the matter. He also said that the media "have not done a tremendous job" on reporting this issue in the press – though surely I must score some brownie points for having now mentioned it twice in a week?
Overall network operators, particularly those operating in Europe, were keen to tell me that in order to invest in 5G they needed better returns and to be allowed to consolidate their positions through mergers and acquisitions.
In closing
In the interests of brevity, I should probably leave it there. I could ramble on for another thousand words at least about the various themes and nuances of the show. Needless to say, there will be a veritable tide of MWC related content going up online over the course of the next few days, so keep checking back for more updates throughout next week.
MWC 2018 was a genuinely impressive spectacle that delivered some really interesting and insightful commentary on the state of the industry. Roll on 2019, where we could well be discussing the roll out of the first 5G services in the world.
Friday review – 02/03/2018
