It's Thursday morning and before I head of for the final day of the Mobile World Congress, here's what happened yesterday.
In the morning I went to see a number of companies doing measurement and testing equipment for LTE networks. While in UMTS, a lot of info can be extracted from the Iub interface between the base station and the radio network controler, this is no longer possible with LTE as all functionality has been put into the base station. So other innovative ideas are required to analyze and debug the radio access network in the future. I've seen lots of interesting approaches and I am sure the hearts of many engineers while beat faster when they get one of these new testers into their hands.
The highlight for me on Wednesday was of course my author session at the Wiley booth in hall 2 to promote the launch of my new book. Lots of people came by to say hello, to have a chat, to see what is going on and to pick up a copy. At the end of the session we were sold out. Thanks to all who stopped by it was very nice meeting you and to see the different angles you have on the industry.
Later in the afternoon I went to see TV moderator Guy Daniels at the TelecomTV studio to see what he thinks of this years MWC and the state of the industry. It was good to see them being in Barcelona again in full force pumping out lots of great interviews that one could watch live, over one of the huge video walls at the Fira, and as a live stream on the Internet on the TelecomTV.com homepage. This year, the program was also broadcast via DVB-H, so people lucky enough to have a Nokia N96 or other DVB-H capable handset could watch this and a number of other channels for free. I also had a chance to get a backstage look at the TV equipment used for producing the shows, including the 10 Terrabyte disk array that stores the week's production.
One thing I didn't get to see was a demo of Nokia's Home Control hard and software which seems to have been cancled at the last moment. A bit dissapointing, I was very much looking forward to that.
After the Symbian Foundation Party on Monday and the great dinner reception of Ip.Access on Tuesday I didn't really get enough sleep so I opted for something more quiet and with less people last night. The food was good and the amount of sleep a bit more so there is enough energy left for the final day at the Fira.
You might have noticed I have not written anything about new mobile phones having been announced this weeks. Well, they have just not really been my prime focus. Too many other things to see here that can't easily be seen on the web. Any suggestions from your side which mobiles I should look at before the Congress closes this year?
Well, you always talk about the nokia nseries... I suggest you to pay attention to the eseries. I have a n78, a e51 and a e61i, and my experiencie is that the eseries is much faster. I don't know why, but the software seems better suited, especially for the e51. So, if you can give up the great photos you can take with the nseries handsets, try the new e75, or -my favourite- the e73.
Posted by: Carlos | February 19, 2009 at 09:36 AM
Just a correction: my favourite is the e71 (I think there's no e73, but the e63 seems nice, too).
Posted by: Carlos | February 19, 2009 at 01:30 PM
Hi Martin,
From what I saw, the new E75 as Carlos said is really nice. I was specially looking at the messaging part of it and I was glad to test that you can now synchronize your subfolders with Mail For Exchange and add till 15 mail accounts.
I have had a demo of the new Palm Pre with its webOS and it is really nice. However I had not the chance to make my own demo to feel the power of the UI.
As you guess, I was finally at MWC but it was due to a late replacement in my company (I knew it on monday evening for a flight the next morning). I had a lot of company to talk to so I could not go to Wiley's booth until Thursday morning when I was told that your book was sold out and that you may not come back on the stand. I was, however, glad to see that your book was a success.
Have a nice final day at MWC, while it is really cold back in France. I miss the MWC days when you could wear a shirt at 11 AM !
My best to you
Posted by: Yohann | February 20, 2009 at 01:16 PM
Hi Carlos,
yes, I am more an n-series person :-) I've seen the new e-series devices but much prefer to wait for the N97. Personal preference.
Kind regards,
Martin
Posted by: Martin | February 22, 2009 at 09:20 AM
Hi Yohann,
wow, indeed very last minute. Hope it was not so stressful and you had some time to take a look at some things apart from only going to business meetings.
Kind regards,
Martin
Posted by: Martin | February 22, 2009 at 09:22 AM