It's the biggest and most important show of the year. And despite predictions that it won't be a bumper year this year, there's still a heap of activity planned. Make your plans here, with our guide to Mobile World Congress 2009
Let me guess, you've picked this magazine up from a distribution bin in Barcelona. You need something to flick through while you're standing in a 30 person line for a jamon sandwich that you will still be tasting three hours later, and a scolded coffee that tastes of yesterday's grains. For this culinary pleasure you'll have little change out of €12. But no worries, it's on the exes, so you decide to chuck in a cookie as well. This is a mistake. As you stand in the queue, ears assaulted by the cacophony of mobile multimedia services being demo'd on the stand to your right, your phone is vibrating urgently in your pocket. It's the stand admin, reminding you that you have exactly three minutes to buy your food, eat it, and return to the stand to meet two gentlemen from MegaTelco, who might be potential customers, or could just be two research engineers looking for a job.
So, to distract yourself, you have turned to this MWC preview, wondering idly if you or any of your competitors get a namecheck, and instead there's a paragraph that looks almost explicitly designed to mock you. But worry not, dear reader, for we feel your pain. And, although it may not diminish it, perhaps you can take comfort in the fact that you are not alone.
It's either that or you are yet to get out to Barca, and are steeling yourself for the above experience, and others like it. Because, yes, everyone likes to have a whinge about the Congress, but most of those whinges are a result of the event's own success, or at least the failures of the planners to cope with that success. Deep down, we love it really, don't we?
But perhaps this year the queues will be a little shorter, the taxi drivers a little less dismissive of your pathetic little €15 fare, the jamon sandwich less repeating. Because this year, it seems, there is word that numbers may be down. So if you are in Barcelona, look around you, does it seem that way?
Certainly, when this article was written, the GSMA was officially stating that it expected visitor numbers to be up at the same level as last year, and that's somewhere around the 55,000 mark. Visitor pre-registrations were up, exhibition space was about the same, all was set for just as big a show as ever,
The GSMA's chief marketing officer Michael O'Hara, says, "We've seen no call down on space at all. Let's see what happens on re-bookings for 2010, but the signs for this year, in hotel bookings and registrations are that we are ahead of last year."
O'Hara says that although the economic crisis may not appear to be affecting people's travel plans for Barcelona this year, it has certainly pervaded the conference programme. Some late footwork sidestepped the original programme and swiftly headed off down the path called "Whooaah…", or rather, as O'Hara puts it, "At our leadership conference on the Monday there will be a key focus on how to sustain growth at times like this." Indeed.
As for other areas, O'Hara says the GSMA and operators will be using the opportunity to bend a few regulatory and governmental ears on the 400MHz spectrum due to be freed up as part of the digital switchover. The industry wants 25% of that made available for mobile. "I think you will see a consolidated industry voice on that subject at the event," O'Hara said.
The GSMA will also be pushing its line on next generation messaging, having brought the Rich Communications Suite item under its wing. The idea is to push the adoption of the idea of access to content and other services from the contacts book, using messaging as the driver.
There will also be a programme on mobile advertising, and specifically on mobile advertising measurement, to drive the process of delivering to the media industry the measurements and analytics it needs to have trust and confidence in mobile advertising.
And there will be the usual headline stars, meaning this year it is the turn of Kevin Spacey, and that bloke out of Black Eyed Peas, to give a small smattering of Hollywood glamour to the GSMA's focus on content services.
WHO TO SEE AND WHY?
LTE and 4G
One of the key themes of 2008 was rapid growth in HSPA networks which exposed the weakness in operator backhaul. As operators consider the next evolution to LTE or WiMAX they must again prepare to handle another backhaul bandwidth leap and, perhaps even more seriously, the challenge involved in moving to an all IP network and how this will affect time sensitive voice services.
RAD will be talking about the variety of challenges LTE creates and how backhaul networks will need to be modified to tackle them. The Femto Forum will also be talking about next generation networks and how femtocells will be key to resolving the capacity challenge.
Nortel's presence at the 2009 GSMA Mobile World Congress will eb the subject of much interest, given its current travails. It says that it focus will be on 4G network solutions for consumers and business-users. There will be presentations, demonstrations and collaborations (with industry names such as KDDI, Intel, Research in Motion (RIM) and T-Mobile) that will show:
– Nortel's LTE leadership
– Applications for generating WiMAX revenue
– Carrier VoIP Applications and Value-Added Services that accelerate time to revenue.
Exclusive for MWC: Nortel and T-Mobile will demonstrate a LTE User Experience, linking T-Mobile's live-air LTE Trial Network in Bonn, Germany with its live-air LTE Network at the Mobile World Congress. So visitors to the Nortel and T-Mobile booth will be able to experience cross country communication over a Next Generation LTE Network between LTE powered users in Bonn and Barcelona.
ADC claims to be the the only global network infrastructure supplier with a complete portfolio of pico and micro cellular network products, including in-building and outdoor distributed antenna systems (DAS), IP-based pico and micro base stations (BSS), wireless backhaul, and WiMAX products. ADC's focus is on providing cellular coverage in locations that are difficult or impossible to serve with traditional macro networks and enable carriers to cost-effectively extend network coverage and migrate to 4G services. This is likely to be a key topic this year, as operators plan how to provide the right sort of mobile broadband coverage to meet the requirements of their business customers.
"As the world migrates to mobile broadband and application requirements soar, mobile operators and owners of public and private facilities must find ways to deliver precision, high-performance coverage in any location, whether it is indoors, underground, or in other areas where typical macro network signals can't reach," says Dick Parran, president of the Network Solutions Business Unit for ADC. "The broad range of deployments of our micro cellular network solution portfolio worldwide demonstrates that customers have a large appetite for coverage and capacity solutions that deliver high performance, service flexibility, and a low total cost of ownership."
Femtocells have rarely left the spotlight recently with Sprint's 2008 nationwide 2G launch and more recently the announcement of the world's first 3G femtocell deployment by SoftBank using Ubiquisys devices. Central to the rapid evolution of femtocells from niche to mainstream proposition is the Femto Forum which will be talking about the femtocell business case as operators ready their propositions ahead of commercial launches.Starent Networks will be talking about the importance of solutions for the mobile broadband multimedia core. It can explain why now is the time to get into the heart of the mobile broadband network and have a look around.
Right now, data traffic is growing beyond expectations and is impacting the mobile operators network and profits. As networks migrate to 4G, operators will have to reinforce backhaul to ensure revenue keeps up with subscriber usage. The switch from circuit networks to packet networks becomes absolutely essential.
Additionally, the introduction of devices like the iPhone, BlackBerry Storm and Google phone has intensified the need for lightning-fast multimedia service delivery, and the core plays a central role. The core is also responsible for traffic management and policy definition and enforcement-key elements of the subscriber experience and a requirement for operators dealing with this explosive growth.
NEC will be showcasing its own mobile wireless broadband products including solutions in Femtocells, Mobile Backhaul, Mobile WiMax and LTE.
Motorola says it will demonstrate the latest advances in its vision of Media Mobility. Motorola will be pumping its video leadership position and the products and services that have already been designed and deployed. Motorola's focus has moved to the development of solutions that allow operators to deliver next generation infrastructure and media rich content services. As well as that it will be attempting to convince of its 4G credentials.
Motorola says it will demonstrate the following 4G mobile network capabilities:
– The LTE experience will showcase live HD video blogging, VoIP, video/document sharing and HD streaming video over the next-generation network
– WiMAX leadership by the number of commercial deployments; customer CPE availability; and applications and services deployed over the network, including IPTV
– Services expertise that reduce the complexity and cost for operators to build future networks and enhance their service proposition.
Of course Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent will all be present as well, completing the roster of major NEPs. But it is those companies with most to prove, including Al-Lu, that need to have the best show.
MESSAGING
With the Rich Communications Suite forming one of the GSMA's focus areas at the event, messaging will be a core topic to follow. The area's important because it ties together advertising, content and the core communications capabilities that operators can offer. Tekelec says that its TekMedia Mobile Advertising Solution enables providers to generate new revenue and increase subscriber loyalty by leveraging their SMS delivery to create relevant, targeted advertising. With the application, operators insert message text or advertising before or after the existing, incoming SMS content. Does that sound like a good or bad idea to you? Tekelec says operators can create time and location-based advertising programs and, by using subscriber profiles, target content to match individual preferences. In the wake of the discovery of mobile phone viruses such as the 'Curse of Silence' bug that affects smartphones – by shutting them down following the receipt of an infected text message – Tekelec will also talk to visitors about network security – as it has developed an SMS firewall for operators.
According to Alan Pascoe, Director of Product Marketing, SMS on its own is useful, but SMS interworking with other functions such as instant messenger, chat-to-SMS and voice is far stronger. Despite fears over IM cannibalising SMS revenue, trials have shown that when used in conjunction, both SMS and voice usage increased. And it's this interworking which enables the introduction of the more innovative SMS services for the next generation of consumers, such as mobile advertising and mobile banking.
Mobile industry watchers predict that during the economic downturn people in Europe will opt to either trade down to a less expensive phone or delay upgrading to a new phone. This represents an interesting opportunity for Synchronica – as people become more cost-conscious, the idea of a low-cost, flat-rate mobile email service that works on feature phones as well as smartphones becomes very attractive.
If Europe follows suit, it might well be a case of the developed world following the developing world. In countries such as India, Sudan, Nigeria, Russia/CIS and Chile, mobile operators and ISPs are rolling out low-cost mobile email services based on Synchronica's technology that work on almost any phone. Perhaps the time is right for mobile operators in Western Europe to take a leaf out of the emerging market mobile operators' book and offer this kind of solution to cash-strapped subscribers?
Syniverse will be launching its advanced messaging hub, which will deliver interworking between operators for IM, SMS, MMS and presence applications. Not only will users be able to see who is online and what would be the best way to reach the person they need to (via voice, SMS or IM) but if you are online you'll also be able to IM a friend who is not and he/she will receive your message as an SMS for example and vice versa.
Syniverse thinks this will be a big deal for both operators who will be able to offer their subscribers these functionalities through a hub, meaning that they will save costs and be able to market new services way quicker but also for users themselves who will truly be able to be always connected.
Acision is the messaging and charging partner of choice for more than 300 network operators and service providers, supporting over one and a half billion customers worldwide and has over 50% of global text and multimedia messaging traffic generated through its platforms. In 2009, Acision's focus will be on its three business domains: Messaging, Mobile Broadband and Mobile Marketing.
Cloudmark provides security for messages sent via emails, text messages and social networks. Jamie de Guerre, Chief Technology Officer, will be joining a panel on Wednesday 18th February, to discuss the threats posed by the next generation of telecoms services and technologies. In keeping with this year's MWC theme, "Think Forward" is looking to share its thoughts and expertise on the future of the mobile industry. Recent research by Cloudmark of 12 top mobile operators in Europe revealed that the rise of mobile spam is going to be of great concern. Worryingly, however, only 16% of operators across Europe are considering how to best guard against mobile internet and email spam.
Kirusa says Voice SMS has an extensive scope for mobile marketing and advertising companies with Voice SMS based derivative applications like Loudmouth and Contest applications.
Java and Brew clients enhance usage of Voice SMS through address book integration which allows users to send Voice SMS messages using native phone address book. Domestic exchange services offer enhanced value to users by expanding reach and high value incoming traffic. International VSMS offers interconnect between Europe, Africa, Middle East,Asia and Americas. Mobile operators get high value and margin for international messages. Kirusa says it is making some key announcements at the exhibition which will impact the future of mobile messaging, increasing its reach and the way it is offered to subscribers across the world.
TEST & MEASUREMENT
With new technologies, comes demand for interoperability and conformance testing, as well as design planning and optimisation. This means the test and measurement area will be vital during 2009, as operators need solutions to be ready quickly, but also to be fully confident that they will operate in multi-mode and multi-vendor environments.
Agilent Technologies will announce products at Mobile World Congress for the operator market that are all aimed at enabling optimum network management and the integration of LTE capabilities across all its solutions. These products include:
– Agilent's Drive Test solution – will bring LTE, UMTS, CDMA and WiMAX together for the first time across one receiver to allow operators to measure RF coverage of their cellular networks offering high levels of scalability, and indoor and outdoor testing capabilities.
– Agilent's Signal Analyzer solution – launches the LTE capability to integrate onto its existing platform, making it possible to diagnose any network failures and allow operators to determine key performance indicators while lowering test time.
– Agilent's Mobile Soft Switch product – which enables operators to monitor high revenue generating VOIP mobile calls in real-time, identify costly outage problems and acquire detailed information to save on costs and reduce churn.
Agilent will be at Hall 1, Stand D45.
The mobile broadband revolution is presenting significant challenges for both mobile operators and handset vendors to provide networks and devices which will deliver services and functionality that business and consumers actually want.
With the proportion of data revenue to total revenues steadily increasing and ARPU stable or declining, operators are now looking to migrate their subscribers to 3G or next generation 4G/LTE networks in a bid to gain a competitive edge and reduce customer churn.
Spirent is working with many of the world's leading operators and handset manufacturers in designing and testing these next generation networks and access devices and its uniquely positioned to provide insight into the issues that will "make or break" some of the current mobile development initiatives.
Spirent reckons the industry will be facing a number of key challenges including:-
– Call reliability – While all handsets may be certified to conform to the specifications, they certainly do not perform equally! Many operators are losing customers not because of the performance of their networks – but as a result of the variable performance of devices they are providing to their customers, which drop calls or fail to set up calls.
– Mobile Video – As handset manufacturers push the technology limits of HD mobile multimedia, what are the issues that need to be addressed to enable operators and content providers to offer a fully embracing service to subscribers? Can the role played by handset performance in the user experience of multimedia services be quantified?
– Location Based Services (LBS) – Touted as a significant revenue earner of the future, however, as applications compete for market share, there is one prerequisite for their success that may not yet be completely in place. To fully exploit their value, most LBS applications need quick and accurate determination of a user's current location. What is the solution?
SwissQual, the independent Swiss network quality measurement company, has launched a new network quality testing probe. The Diversity Unattended probe has all of the testing options, including RF scanning and intrusive video testing, and the high performance and environmental specifications, of the rest of the Diversity range. The probe is also completely compatible with the back end systems, file format and test configurations used in the SwissQual Evolution network quality management system.
Magnus Hylen, SwissQual Product Manager, says, "The Diversity range of probes has long been recognised for high levels of reliability and accuracy. This is due to features such as active heating and cooling, controlled power supply and built in shock mounting. As a result the Diversity range offers quite possibly the best MTBF figures in the business. Now we have transferred all of this functionality and performance into an automatically operated unit. In automated units, reliability is of even greater importance than it is for traditionally operated units."
OSS &BSS
According to Stratecast, key network operator objectives for 2009 include responsiveness and being interoperable with the ability to leverage existing assets and reduce costs. Stratecast states that companies with the "Rat Pack" mentality can help network operators meet these objectives, as they possess the necessary agility, deliver a well-defined, clearly differentiated market offering, and promote a culture of innovation.
"As network operators enter a new era of network and service complexity, razor thin margins, and non-traditional competition, there are operational challenges beyond anything that most have ever experienced," said Karl Whitelock, Senior Consulting Analyst, Stratecast, a division of Frost & Sullivan. "Business solutions that can meet subscriber demands and overcome the rising tide of market challenges are in critical need by the service provider community. Network operators continue to look for innovation from the industry's OSS/BSS suppliers."
Comptel has finalised the product integration from its acquisition of Axiom Systems last year, and it will be launching the new, fully end-to-end product line at the MWC. Several of Comptel's executives, including the CEO and CTO will be in Barcelona to discuss the details of the new line.Comptel will also be focusing strongly on mobile broadband and measures from managing bandwidth across these networks at the event, as well as highlighting a customer case study with UK provider Blyk, whose business model centers on advertising-based mobile services for 18-24 year olds.
VoluBill are an OSS solutions provider, dealing primarily with charging and policy management solutions. They be launching a new solution of theirs called Charge It.
As networks become increasingly complex and a growing number of subscribers continue to demand more personalized services, network operators have unique market needs that require support from vendors that can deliver innovative solutions and capabilities.
Another company present in this are will be Redknee. Lucas Skoczkowski, CEO of Redknee, says, "Redknee is focused on bringing innovative products and services to the market that result in a competitive advantage for each customer's business."
ADVERTISING AND MARKETING
Celltick will be announceing that its LiveScreen Media platform is operational. LiveScreen Media allows advertisers to place idle screen advertising campaigns prompting an immediate response from interested consumers. Advertisers who have already taken advantage of this unique media channel include Coke, America Express, Unilever and Honda. With the launch of livescreen.com, long tail advertisers will now be able to participate in idle screen promotions as well. A recent survey conducted among LiveScreen Media users indicates that 19% of customers were exposed to advertising on the idle screen during the last 3 months.
Gigafone will also be unveiling new details of its advertising platform. The company has brought together best of breed partners from across the areas of analytics, measurement, applications and software development, with a view to making mobile easy for advertisers and brands.
Finnsish company Iptune will be introducing its new product line-up as well. It says it delivers the ability for operators to be abe to e to accurately target, monitor and evaluate real-time user data to make truly personalised campaigns. The company says it has innovative data analysis technology for all IP-based traffic in mobile networks.
HANDSETS & HANDSET SOFTWARE
i-mate will be unveiling its brand new product – one which, according to the pre-publicity, "sees them break new grounds with a revolutionary mobile device that's like nothing else."
The company's theme this year is adventure, we are told, and apparently the new product will reflect this ethos.
We also expect there to be new versions of Skype for various operating systems used in the mobile space and partnerships with major handset and mobile technology vendors announced on day one of the show.
But the biggest hitter at the show in this area looks set to be Microsoft, which seems to have some big announcements lined up for Windows Mobile. It's bringing hyperactive sweat-generator Steve Ballmer over for its major press conference. Last year, of course, the company announced that it had signed up Sony Ericsson for its WIndows Mobile platform. This year looks set to be something similar, with perhaps a realignment of the company's strategy in the mobile OS space.
Synaptics will be exhibiting its capacitive touch-enabled products (think touchscreen phones and mobile devices). As you may know, Synaptics is the company behind some touch-based products such as the HTC G1, LG Prada, Samsung Tocco, LG Chocolate (2nd gen) phones, as well as the Microsoft Zune (2nd gen), HP Voodoo Envy (laptop) and Logitech Harmony One universal remote. Synaptics has some design wins with top mobile OEMs to announce; and news on how the NVIDIA Tegra development kit is using Synaptics technology; and the company's latest touchscreen developments.
Opera Software will also be there, previewing its new mobile browsers. Definitely worth a look.
Finally, we've been told that Symbian is on a big recruitment drive, so it's worth keeping an eye on what their developments are around open source.
SURPRISE ME
me2me is a brand new mobile communications company and will launch a new service, also known as me2me, which combines the Web with Voice Recognition Technology to provide a service to store and retrieve your information. me2me says it allows you to record, manage and receive personal voice activated messages via voice and text.
GLOBO/Globo Mobile will have first ever showings of CitronGO! that will include the recently announced 'Mood Settings' application. This means that, for the first time, users will be able to choose a 'Business' setting, to filter through work emails and client phone calls, or choose a 'Personal' setting, to receive calls from family and friends, along with social networking updates – all on their existing handset.
Sticking with could computing, Soonr is a leader in the fast developing space of cloud computing and mobile working solutions. Its CEO, Patrick McVeigh, has been invited by the GSMA to present its views on mobile and the convergence world. The presentation will examine convergence both from a technical standpoint, and from the strategic impact it will have on business models. There will also be a focus on green IT.
Nimbuzz was launched in May last year and a mobile VoIP, presence and IM provider available as a download to the mobile or the PC. Nimbuzz now connects 30 million contacts across worldwide IM networks and is generating 20k new registered users a day from over 200 countries.
The Nimbuzz iphone app, released in December, is bespoke for the iphone with landscape chat and there will be new dial out additions and updates launched before MWC.
Also in the news is Nimbuzz' s distribution strategy including partnering with existing local social networks to provide their members with real time web and mobile communication capabilities to enhance their offering without the cost/time and barriers of developing themselves. It announced a deal to this effect with StudiVZ, Germany's largest local social network with over 12 million members spanning across Germany, Switzerland and Austria, will be announcing a similar deal in February with Giovani.it in Italy .