Viewpoint
The Global Mobile Broadband Forum celebrates its tenth year this year, as we look back on a decade of ambition and innovation in the mobile broadband space
As operators around the world look to ramp up their 5G rollouts, there is a growing sense that the first quarter of 2020 will see an explosion of activity in the 5G space.
As operators in Europe, the Middle East and Asia look to begin scaling up their 5G operations, other key markets, such as China are set for their own epic 5G launch in early 2020.
Later this month, the telecoms industry’s key players will gather in Zurich, Switzerland, for the 2019 edition of the Global Mobile Broadband Forum, hosted by Huawei.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Global Mobile Broadband Forum, with Zurich being a very apposite choice for the venue.
Switzerland became the first country in Europe to launch 5G services and has some ambitious plans for ramping up the reach of its networks over the next 12 months.
According to the latest statistics from Opensignal, Switzerland has the highest maximum download speeds in Europe, with Swiss consumers being able to access speeds of 1.2Gbps. Compared with maximum speeds of 657Mbs in Italy and 569Mbps in the UK, that is a large speed premium for Swiss consumers.
Each year, the Global Mobile Broadband Forum partners with mobile operators from its host country. This year the event will partner with Sunrise, who played a key role in launching 5G in Switzerland.
Since the first iteration of the show in Oslo in 2010, the industry has undergone a rapid period of change. Over the last decade, the industry has gone from a standard 4G offering, with speeds of around 10Mbps, through to the launch of the world’s first gigabit capable LTE network, and on to the world’s largest LTE at scale deployment in China.
This year’s event will be held from the 15th-16th October in Zurich, Switzerland.
The event will include key note addresses and critical insight from some of the industry’s foremost experts, including Ken Hu of Huawei, Olaf Swantee of Sunrise, Arnaud Vamparys of Orange and Enrique Blanco of Telefonica.
The Global Mobile Broadband Forum will also host an interactive Cool Tech exhibition area, showcasing Huawei’s end to end range of cutting edge 5G technology through numerous live demonstrations. The area will showcase 5G use cases in the VR, AR, 5G live streaming and 5G smart manufacturing.
The Global Mobile Broadband Forum will also play host to the first Wireless Intelligence Summit, which will focus on the key, developing trends in the 5G space. The summit will focus on the key areas of investment for operators, in order to cultivate a competitive landscape. The Summit will feature five distinct streams:
• 5G Investment Trends: 5G Empowers Industries to Promote Global Economic Growth
• 5G Investment Space: 5G’s Contribution to Global GDP, and Huawei’s 5G Global Strategies and Propositions
• 5G Investment Return: Discussion on Value Chain Evolution in the 5G Era
• 5G Investment Pioneer: Capital Growth Fuelled by Early 5G Market Investment
• 5G Investment Hotspot: 5G Is Becoming a Global Investment Hotspot
In addition to the conference sessions, the event will also feature a number of interactive round tables, which will drill down into the specific challenges and opportunities that abound for operators as they look to ramp up their 5G offering.
The event will showcase best practice from some of the world’s most ambitious 5G rollout projects and will bring together key strategies for the next phase of 5G ramp up.
A decade on from the launch of 4G, the mobile broadband sector has undergone radical transformation. With the advent of ultra-high definition video streaming and advances in online gaming, users are now beginning to demand ubiquitous, gigabit capable connectivity on their mobile devices. At the Global Mobile Broadband Forum, the industry’s pioneering experts will gather to help make that dream a reality.
