This year’s Mobile World Congress promises to be as busy as ever.
Six of Ovum’s telecoms analysts will be heading to Barcelona to join over 60,000 attendees from the mobile industry for what is sure to be an exciting few days.
We’ll be publishing regular updates from the conference below, giving our opinion on the biggest news stories and letting you know what’s happening each day.
You can also follow our Twitter feed to hear our quick take on the latest announcements as they happen. Click here to follow us.
February 29, 2012 – As the mobile industry gathers in Barcelona for the industry’s largest annual event, we provide our view on the most interesting announcements from the third day of MWC 2012. Schmidt paints a future for the human race, with Google at the center – Tony Cripps Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt’s keynote… Read more
February 29, 2012 – The Innovation session at MWC 2012 showcased a fantastic array of innovations in the telecoms industry. However, as with all discussions around telecoms innovation, the greatest financial beneficiaries may not be the telcos – at least not directly. An array of examples was presented from both large and small players, demonstrating… Read more
February 29, 2012 – The recognition that telecommunications infrastructure is of strategic importance for national development in emerging markets isn’t new. However, at an Alcatel-Lucent event at MWC 2012, six government ministers from emerging markets all proclaimed that they are prepared to shape their regulatory and fiscal agendas around the development of telecoms infrastructure. Government… Read more
February 29, 2012 – At an MWC roundtable attended by Ovum, Marc Rennard, Orange’s Executive Vice President for Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, said that Orange is looking to increase revenues from its emerging market operations from its current €3.4bn to €7bn by 2015. However, Rennard stated that if Orange cannot be the number… Read more
February 29, 2012 – With 15 million users having checked in over 1.5 billion times and boasting support from 750,000 merchants, Foursquare is now looking to the next level of contextual personalization to drive its business. The location-based social network has a considerable amount of user data to leverage and it now plans to use… Read more
February 29, 2012 – The automotive sector is clearly now more important in operators’ M2M strategies than it has been in the last few years. So who better to close the first day of MWC’s speech sessions than Bill Ford, an executive with the eponymous motor company and great-grandson of the famous car company founder… Read more
February 29, 2012 – The recognition that telecommunications infrastructure is of strategic importance for national development in emerging markets isn’t new. However, at an Alcatel-Lucent event at MWC 2012, six government ministers from emerging markets all proclaimed that they are prepared to shape their regulatory and fiscal agendas around the development of telecoms infrastructure. Government… Read more
February 28, 2012 – Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt’s keynote presentation at MWC described his impassioned vision of the future connected world. Schmidt’s keynote painted a realistic picture of a world where the vast majority of the global population will be able to participate in and help develop the digital world. But of course, it… Read more
February 28, 2012 – As the mobile industry gathers in Barcelona for the industry’s largest annual event, we provide our view on the most interesting announcements from the second day of MWC 2012. Facebook looks to overcome device-side limitations with new initiatives – Eden Zoller Yesterday, Facebook announced that it is “taking on mobile web… Read more
February 28, 2012 – Today, Cisco announced two new enhancements to its mobile infrastructure portfolio: the availability of its Hotspot 2.0 Wi-Fi-compliant access points for service providers, and small-cell (Wi-Fi/femtocell) gateway functionality on its ASR5000 platform. This platform also supports the vendor’s 2G, 3G, and LTE mobile packet core networks. In addition, and possibly most… Read more
February 28, 2012 – Greenpeace International has used MWC 2012 to blast the telecoms industry’s climate laggards. While some operators and vendors have clear strategies for carbon reduction, others have shown what Greenpeace regards as a failure of leadership in wise energy choices. Bharti Airtel, which is acknowledged as a market leader in terms of… Read more
February 28, 2012 – A study commissioned by Telenor into the benefits of m-health in 12 different countries highlights the potential reach and breadth of mobile health innovations. The results demonstrate the scale of innovation occurring in mobile health, finding that there are an estimated 500 projects globally. The study also provides an indication of how… Read more
February 28, 2012 – The first keynote at MWC 2012 packed a punch as the CEOs of Vodafone, AT&T Wireless, China Mobile, and Telecom Italia outlined their visions of the mobile future and the challenges ahead. Their overriding message was that the mobile industry will continue to deliver value to customers, and will be the… Read more
February 28, 2012 – Telstra – Australia’s only LTE operator – has announced the launch of two new LTE-enabled devices, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 8.9 4G and a prepaid dongle. Telstra continues to aggressively push LTE. Its LTE1800 network was launched in September 2011, offering postpaid dongles only. It then launched the HTC Velocity 4G LTE… Read more
February 28, 2012 – Yesterday, the Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI) held its 2012 summit at Mobile World Congress. The summit was held approximately one-year after the formation of the Initiative. The purpose of the GTI is twofold. Its first goal is to ensure interoperability with the more common frequency duplex (FDD) version of LTE. Its… Read more
February 28, 2012 – At a dinner last night, Orange CEO Stephane Richard proclaimed that it was now time for operators to invest in their networks. According to Richard, the key drivers of this are the demand for high-speed (fixed and mobile) broadband and the potential opportunities for new services, with payments singled out for… Read more
February 28, 2012 – Nokia reinforced its support of Windows Phone at MWC 2012 with the announcement of its first Lumia handset aimed at the mass market (the Lumia 610), and a 3G variant of its flagship Lumia 900 handset for the global market. Hoping that Symbian still has relevance in top-end “hero” devices, Nokia… Read more
February 27, 2012 – Today, Facebook announced that it is “taking on mobile web standards” as part of a new cross-industry W3C group that aims to drive consistent HTML5 implementation for mobile devices. Approximately 30 companies have already announced their support for the Core Mobile Web Platform Community Group, including Samsung, HTC, Sony, Nokia, AT&T,… Read more
February 27, 2012 – As the mobile industry gathers in Barcelona for the industry’s largest annual event, we provide our view on the most interesting announcements from the first day of MWC 2012. Nokia offers Windows Phone to the masses while daring photographers to go Symbian – Tony Cripps Nokia announced the Lumia 610, its… Read more
February 27, 2012 – Skype’s debut on Windows Phone – nine months after Microsoft announced that it was acquiring the VoIP provider – fills one of the obvious application gaps on Microsoft’s latest smartphone platform. In its initial guise, Skype for Windows Phone runs as a standalone application and offers a fairly typical Skype experience… Read more
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