Tag Archives: MWC

MWC 2024: Navigating Opportunities and Challenges in the Telecom and Digital Infrastructure Landscape

Once a year, at this time, we release our update on the telecom and digital infrastructure sectors. Mobile World Congress (MWC 2024) serves as a catalyst, helping us validate our market assumptions and gain new insights. This year, our primary observation is that these sectors are undergoing a transformative period characterized by divestments and consolidation. Companies and financial… Read More »

Industry Update – MWC2023: Velocity or Suspended Animation?

Mobile World Congress 2023 is back to its old glory as the top telecom/Internet event, with attendees rushing to physically meet post the Covid era. It launched under the “Velocity” theme to highlight the speed at which technology was accelerating. This contrasted against a backdrop of market and financial challenges plaguing the mobile industry ecosystem which were evident… Read More »

State of the Telco Industry: MWC2019 Perspectives

This year I’ll opt to write a few quick thoughts on the state of the telco industry instead of the annual report that follows MWC. Time is tight, so let’s get straight to the main points. Foldable Phones Foldable phones were the main highlight of MWC2019. Both Samsung and Huawei launched models featuring foldable screens. At prices in… Read More »

The AI-Telco Intersect Opportunity: A Dehype!

Artificial intelligence is in yet another hype cycle – the fourth since the 1960’s. What is different this time from past hype cycles is that it is driven by data from the bottom up as opposed a top-down approach in previous hype cycles. The pervasiveness of connectivity and the Internet make AI applicable in many industries, including telecom.… Read More »

Is There Room for Innovation in Telecom?

Startups lead innovation in the technology world. But is there room for startups in the telecom world? And, what is the future of innovation in this industry? Innovation is one of the themes of this year’s Mobile World Congress which is starting next week, so will the ecosystem address this question? Is telecom a utility play? Services providers… Read More »

The Road to MWC: The Challenge Ahead

It’s only a week or so for MWC to opens. The biggest telecom event in the globe continues to grow, challenging companies to get their message heard. Press releases are no-longer effective. Day 0 – Sunday before the show – is now a full event day. But even that is not enough, leading major corporations host to analysts and… Read More »

The State of IoT Connectivity

MWC16 was a great venue to check the pulse of developments in IoT connectivity. We summarized part of our observations which we shared and published (link). It caused many follow ups by colleagues and friends who voiced a wide range of opinions that I thought some further color would be useful. To start, the main challenge in IoT is… Read More »

Observations and Trends in Wireless Communications from MWC16

The 2016 edition of MWC had two key themes: 5G and IoT. Both themes are positioned as potential revenue drivers for MNOs, but they are diametrically opposed propositions. These themes enforce the status of the MNOs as connectivity providers. Connectivity is a (necessary) commodity; 5G and IoT will take time to unfold as bounded by the requirements of… Read More »

Observations on MWC 2014 – My Takeaways

In a nutshell, the wireless industry keeps on getting broader and more bifurcated. This is the main trend that has been around for years and that will not stop. Communication is becoming truly pervasive. Opportunities and confusion are intermingled. To understand it all, one needs to cut across wider breadth and dive into greater depth to separate hype… Read More »

Mobile Data Traffic Predictions Say: It’s WiFi Offload!

If you’re in the wireless infrastructure business, you’ve seen it many, many times. I’m talking about the predictions showing exponential mobile data traffic growth. Hardly a conference presentation goes by without seeing this graph on the first or second slide. It became customary to preface any discussion with this context, often with the idea to get people salivating… Read More »

MWC 2012: Larger Devices, Smaller Cells!

Just back home from MWC’12… What a show this year… Over 67,000 attendees and some 1500 exhibitors, and some student protests in the mix… It was the biggest to date and a good finale for the Fira before moving next year to a new nearby location. For those in the mobile infrastructure space, long gone are the days… Read More »