Mobile World Congress 2013 promises to be bigger and better
than ever. The new venue will attract even more members of the mobile industry
to Barcelona this year to celebrate the industry’s success and catch a glimpse
of its potential future. The recently released Cisco
Visual Networking Index (VNI) indicates that this will be a rosy future
indeed. The study predicts that global mobile data traffic will increase
13-fold from 2012 to 2017, reaching 11.2 exabytes per month. But the numbers
don’t tell the whole story.
Once again, all of the players in the mobile industry
ecosystem are convening in one spot, promising excellent insights into the
challenges, opportunities, and potential future of the mobile industry. I will
be meeting with customers, analysts, and partners throughout the show, and, of
course, wearing out my shoes walking the floor.
Here are some of the key themes and pressing questions that
I expect to see, hear, and explore:
·
Next-Generation
LTE—What is the status of LTE deployment?
What has been the record of success?
How has LTE changed the mobile world? Where to next for LTE? Is there
life beyond LTE?
·
M2M—The Internet of Everything
and pervasive, fast, mobile connectivity are finally creating a real market for
machine-to-machine mobile communications.
What are those applications? What
are the new business models?
·
The Great
Indoors—Many countries now have pretty good outdoor mobile coverage. But
how do we extend that coverage indoors?
Especially given that new devices and applications are creating more
“nomadic,” rather than mobile, usage patterns amongst users.
·
Wi-Fi—Wi-Fi
really came out of the hidden corners at last year’s show to be on the agenda
of every mobile operator. I think that this will be the year of Wi-Fi
monetization. How do I make money from Wi-Fi? (Look for my blog during the week of MWC where I will share my thoughts
on the answer to this question).
·
Small
Cells—Small Cells and Wi-Fi are fraternal twins. They both provide
excellent wireless access with their own unique attributes. How will licensed
small cells and Wi-Fi coexist and complement each other? What are the new
business models for small cells? Check out some of the insights from me and my
fellow Big Thinkers in
Small Cells.
·
Enterprise
Mobility—Workers can now readily access email, calendars, and business
information from anywhere. However, research
by Cisco IBSG reveals that mobile business users expect much more. And
enterprises are trying to understand how they can really use mobility to
transform their businesses and their industries. What is the future for
Enterprise Mobility? Who will be the big winners?
·
Big Data—The
growing conventional wisdom is that mobile operators will need to learn how to
carefully mine and analyze, and act upon, their terabytes of meaningful
customer and network data to make their business more profitable. I will be
looking for interesting startups in this space and case studies of operators who
are really executing on this.
Of course, I can’t wait to get my hands on all of those sexy,
new mobile devices that will be everywhere.
It will be interesting to witness how the Apple versus Samsung battle is
evolving. Do the interesting new devices
from Nokia and Blackberry have any chance of challenging this battle of
titans? No doubt, the relationship
between the over-the-top services (OTTs) and the mobile operators will be the
topic of heated discussions. As will the topic of spectrum.
There is definitely a lot to look forward to and a lot to
learn from this year’s Mobile World Congress. As in previous years, I will blog
about the highlights and my key takeaways following the show. Please stop by to say hello and see some really cool things at the Cisco both, located at 3C54.
Also posted on cisco.com
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