MWC 2010 - On The Path Of Today's Reality

I can remember Mobile World Congresses or 3GSMWorldCongresses in the past in which future network developments were marketed quite aggressively. Long before HSPA networks were launched, the technology was heavily promoted, marketed and discussed during the event, sometimes a bit too obsessively for my taste. Fact and fiction were often very close. CEO's and other high ranking people were running around with prototype mobiles only to appear on the market years later to show them of. On the network side, vendors were spending big time money to praise their 3G network developments on big banners.

On this year's MWC it seems to be a bit different to me. With LTE at the doorstep I was a bit surprised to find that there isn't really much of a hype around it. Sure you can find demos if you look for them, and the technical background of them are quite impressive as well. However, most companies are far more interested to show you their latest and greatest stuff to be in the stores tomorrow. Some realism setting in I suppose and a sign that HSPA networks in general with maybe a few exceptions carry the current data traffic well.

So to me it looks like MWC has arrived from the future to the today.

Comments

[Michal Morawiec]

Well that's really interesting taking into account that Ericsson press heavily announced world's first 84Mbps HSPA+ and 1Gbps LTE showcases and similarily NSN announced 112Mbps HSPA+ and CPC showcases. I am curious whether those promised speeds meet reality. Did you have a chance to see these demos?

[Reda]

Networks like cars and other long term investments were showcased way too early because you were supposed to plan (or save if you were an individual looking at a car in a motorshow). These days the recession has thought us that your company might not be even around in 6 months time so show me what you got here and now ;-)

[Martin]

Hi Michael,

yes, the marketing people are still pushing out press releases but on the show floor things are a bit more discrete than what they used to be :-) That's my impression anyway.

Cheers,
Martin