3GSM World Congress presents one of the most important annual B2B events in the area of mobile communications and services. Typically, all the important vendors and service providers are present on the show as exhibitors. In addition to the Tier-1 vendors and operators there are number of smaller yet innovative companies and start-ups. Visitor attendance is mostly consisting of executives and high-level managers. By providing a unique opportunity for tracking the greatest innovations in the mobile industry and the best practices at one place, 3GSM is a place to visit for discovering novel industry trends with direct access to the innovative products and services from the mobile industry leaders.
Pervasive broadband connectivity for mobile devices was one of the most explored topics this year, with wide range of continually improved technologies – HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) – an evolution of the, now widespread, 3G technology, and WiMax – evolution of the Wireless Microwave Technology best known for its older, low-bandwidth incarnation: IEEE 802.11 or, as it is widely known, WiFi. HSPA is specified by the 3GPP Release 5/6 providing up to 14Mbps downlink and up to 5.8Mbps uplink data transfer rates and enabling interactive high quality streaming services. On the IEEE side, Wireless broadband technologies, IEEE 812.16 WiMax, are being deployed in the urban areas e.g. WiBro in South Korea. The choice of communication channel might be a major strategic decision influencing a lot of businesses (especially Telcos) in the area, as well as the acceptance of high-bandwidth data services. The major mobile equipment manufacturers and MNOs are currently working towards 3G LTE (Super 3G) standard which is designated to dramatically enhance the 3G data network capacities, by providing end-user data bit rates up to 100Mbit/s in the future, thus paving a way for demanding interactive mobile services and real-time premium content streaming. Speaking of demanding data services, 3G Mobile TV has turned to be the great star of 3GSM this year, and the technical developments in the field of real-time broadcasted video content promise to enable great changes in the lifestyle by bringing mobile triple play to the end users as well as creating new revenue channels and increased ARPU for the service providers. Interesting development are also “femtocells” presented by picoChip - the 3G/HSDPA base stations intended for usage in a home or small office as an alternative to WiFi, allowing MNOs to provide full coverage and significant reduction of costs for mobile users by enabling location based billing possibilities.
On the other hand, there is an increasing number of multimodal communication devices promising a seamless transition between different network topologies (e.g. being able to seamlessly switch from GSM to WiFi) as the Wi-Fi Alliance announced last week. There is also a notable step forward in providing global coverage for end user devices in the areas where GSM network is not available or in the exceptional use cases, such as catastrophe management when GSM network might be also affected – one of the world leaders in satellite-enabled mobile communications, Thuraya, presented on this year’s 3GSM the world’s smallest satellite phone SO-2510.
With the increasing number of communication channels and increased connectivity, there is also a multitude of devices and services for enhancing the always-connected lifestyle. On the Microsoft’s presentation of Windows Mobile 6, I had a great opportunity to see how they bring this concept into the reality, by virtually transferring the most significant office features to personal mobile devices while still providing a great level of usability. The world leader in push emails services, Research in Motion and its Blackberry are now challenged by rising number of competitors, e.g. such as not only MS, but also Emblaze’s spin-off EMoze, which is working on the partnership agreements with the major Telcos to deliver a promise of a push email service that is free for the end users. There is also an increased number of competitors in the mobile instant messaging arena, such as Tornado and 3UK, awarded in the category Best Mobile Messaging Service, making the IM over SIP protocol and future converged messaging some of the most important topics this year, and opening the doors to the seamless accessibility and continuous connectivity, independent of the device or messaging client you might be using.
As the mobile collaboration is gaining momentum, the handset manufacturers have realized that one of the keys towards reaching the end customers is not only the availability of the wide range of features, but also simplicity of use and design. Remarkable are great improvements in the UI design of presented devices – from transition of the most specific feature of PDAs - the touch screen, to rising number of phones (sometimes even double touch screen e.g. NTT’s D800iDs) , to considerably improved overall design & usability. In the area of business devices some of the highlights were Nokia E65 intended for the executive users which for example enables push-to-talk conferencing for predefined groups, as well as Samsung i600, compact and lightweight device with the QUERTY keypad, with the wide range of connection possibilities (GSM, Wifi, Blootooth) and running Windows Mobile. Samsung was awarded the Best GSM Mobile Handset or Device Manufacturer award for its 2006 flagship device SGH-D900, and also presented a whole new line of ultra slim phones with the most representative U100, only 5.9mm thick. The most eye-catching products this year were the ultra stylish ‘Prada Phone’ by LG, co-designed with the popular fashion house, as well as Sony Ericsson devices from the Sony Walkman series, which were described by many visitors as the most ‘trendy’ ones. As a great innovation in the lifestyle area, French company Parrot presented its new line of Bluetooth-enabled Home Theater Speakers which remove the tedious cabling and enable rich user experience, and also provided unique multimedia experience for the visitors after the 3GSM regular closing hours.
There is however still a major barrier to widespread usage of advanced 3G services on the presented mobile devices. It is still the case, that Japan with NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA, the world’s first 3G service, is one of the rare countries where usage of mobile data services enabled by the 3G feature-rich devices has truly taken off, in spite of the availability of the pervasive 3G coverage in Europe, North America, Australasia, and increasing portions of South America and Africa. One of the most important barriers to the pervasive usage of mobile data services is definitely the cost factor as it used to turn off even the most eager early technology adopters. However, there is an increasing number of MNOs who have put the billing on their agendas, and started a transition towards mobile data flatrates in order to enable serious uptake of data services over mobile broadband connections. There is also a considerable movement towards unified services, where e.g. ‘Pay-Buy Mobile’ initiative from GSMA gathered several MNOs to enable mobile phones to be easily used for payment of the services and products world wide.
In the last years, there has also been a lot of buzz around mobile content, such as premium music content offered by music labels and premium video content offered by the studios. However that market has not still seen the true uptake in the major parts of the world with 3GSM coverage. One of the start-ups in the mobile advertising arena, the young and innovative AdInfuse based in San Francisco, presented a targeted advertising model which will enable users to download and use mobile content such as video clips and mobile games for free or in subsidized form, in exchange for the acceptance of personalized mobile advertisements based on the profile and preferences of the user.
This is only a short global overview of the trends from 3GSM ’07, presenting a small (but the most prominent in my opinion) portion of what could be seen last week at Barcelona, so please free to contact me at ana.balevic [at] gmail.com should you have any additional questions, feedback or you are just interested to discuss mobile topics ;)
Some of the photos from the 3GSM could be found on my Flickr photo stream
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