This year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) broke 100,000 attendees. That’s up from 94,000 in 2015. The Barcelona-based event is too big to ignore, and too big for vendors to skip. Meanwhile, the event’s organizer, the GSMA, appears to be sitting pretty. According to Light Reading (LR), two years ago it generated $164 million, when attendees numbered only 85,000.

Vendor angst is a reality, as the comments to that LR article suggest. But is that an evergreen sentiment? Large industry events always create concern about costs and return on investment. Size creates another impediment for journalists covering the event. “Like being at CES for the first time: overwhelming,” wrote Telco Transformation Editor Mike Robuck, in a post to his brief slideshow.

Takeaways from GSMA Intelligence

Following Mike (a friend and former colleague) and other on-site journalists is one way to tap into an event like this when you can’t attend. Another is to wait long enough for analysts to issue good summaries. GSMA Intelligence has done just that. An arm of the well-funded GSMA, this analyst shop issued a 15-page wrap-up of MCW 2016 last week that focuses on devices, networks and services.

Devices. GSMA Intelligence points to declining handset innovation and rising interest in accessories and wearables. One type of the latter is augmented reality (AR), which layers information onto a users’s field of view. In one study produced by Boeing, AR headsets led their engineers to major efficiency and accuracy gains. For its part, virtual reality (VR) remains a gaming application, constrained by processing power.

Networks. 5G was the headliner. The biggest benefit? Not speed, but its basis in network virtualization and software defined networking (SDN). Moving forward, service providers are weighing proprietary against open-source options – another eternal dilemma. Verizon could launch as early as 2017. Mark Zuckerberg showed up to tout Facebook’s Telecom Infra Project (TIP). That’s one of several global efforts to “connect the unconnected.” There were three Internet of Things (IoT) themes: 1) Low-Power Wide-Area (LPWA) networking; 2) the “cacophony of standards” that surround IoT platforms; and 3) the “exponential” rise in IoT security threats.

Services. On the rise are mobile commerce/payments, the sharing economy and ad blocking. Launched in 2007 in Kenya and Tanzania, M-Pesa is a mobile phone-based money transfer system. In one success story, M-Pesa enabled direct payments to Afghani policemen. Removing corrupt middlemen from the process in effect raised their salaries. The sharing economy is seeing high subscriber and transaction growth (30-50 percent). At the same time, it is shifting into winner-takes-all consolidation. One winner: AirBnB, which had 30,000 hostings in Barcelona during MWC week. As for ad-blocking, that’s a reminder that giving consumers choices makes for tricky business models.

Should I attend?


Spanish cuisine is one draw, as I posted in a paella-loving comment to the LR slideshow. Industry events are a great way to catch up with friends and check in with tech companies. What else about MWC? One of my recent clients is Spanish, and nearby. Why not pay them a visit? A colleague in another company lives on Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic Islands. Only a $49 flight due south of Barcelona. Maybe next year…