Industry News - April 2015

By: Jesse Cryderman

Mobile World Congress 2015 surpassed its own attendance record last month, drawing more than 93,000 visitors to Barcelona.  Better weather and consistently bigger crowds, even late in the week, helped boost the buzz which was palpable at times. The Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G took center stage at MWC2015, and supporting technologies of these two trendy topics were equally hot, including NFV, SDN, small cells, millimeter wave technology, and advanced analytics solutions of every stripe.

The 5G PP delivered its vision of a ubiquitous 5G network and Ericsson, Nokia Networks, and Huawei were pegged as the companies to watch in 5G network equipment development. Three additional variants of LTE were showcased as well: LTE-U, LTE-M, and LTE-B. These technologies leverage the benefits of LTE in exciting new ways. Nokia and KT, for example, explained how LTE-M connectivity for M2M/IoT devices can enable a low-bandwidth device to run for 10 years off just two AA batteries.

A diminutive LTE cell spot from Nokia Networks

European Commissioner Günther Oettinger speaks with the 5G PP

On the device side, wearables (particularly watches) and the latest phones and phablets from Samsung were consistent crowd catchers. Surprisingly, some of the hottest devices were unable for public perusal, shrouded by red ropes (Huawei) or transparent jail cells (Samsung). This probably means the devices aren’t quite ready for primetime.