MWC 2024: Bleary-eyed and dead-on-our-feet, after 72 hours in Barcelona and 24 hours in briefings…
MWC isn’t just a telco present, anymore; it’s not even a telecoms present, actually. Which displays properly on the occasion itself, in addition to the trade that places it collectively. Sure, there’s heaps about open mobile networks and the sorts of cellular gadgetry and providers that shall be connected to them – handsets, vehicles, helicopters. And the story about how mobile may additionally play in sundry enterprise fields is strong; the narrative round linked buildings, cities, hospitals, venues, warehouses, factories, and vegetation is properly informed on the operator stands in corridor 3, in addition to in keynotes and panel periods.
And there’s no query, in fact, that lots of the interlopers right here – the consultancy companies, cloud hyperscalers, system integrators, setting out their very own monster footprints in halls 3 and 4, and in any other case stomping about noisily in assembly rooms and champagne receptions – are right here principally to promote digital change to the telecoms trade. However MWC 2024 can be an increasing ecosystem present, vastly spurred by the rabid promise of AI, reflective of an trade that’s correctly wanting outwards ultimately – at its companion position within the transformation of different industries.
As a result of all of these cloud features and programming interfaces, and the inner change programmes they engender, should not actually about making cellular operators extra environment friendly, even when effectivity is what makes boardroom eyes glow; they’re about unlocking new capabilities in 5G networks, to make them related to new purposes and new clients. They’re about enterprises, principally. And if MWC will not be an enterprise present, by any stretch, then the 2024 model definitely looks like an occasion with a broader focus, drawing a wider crowd. It’s a actually good present.
The buzzy curiosity in telecoms-related tech is notable within the new manufacturers and stands in Barcelona. A variety of exhibitors have remarked upon the bizarre neon and unusual wizardry amid the acquainted signage on the present flooring; a lot of it attracts on generative AI, in fact. However there are a variety of operational know-how (OT) outfits in tow, as properly, six weeks early for Hannover Messe. And assembly after assembly, the phrase is that even enterprises are out in pressure. Twelve-hundred is the quantity quoted – which doesn’t sound a lot given there are 90,000 delegates by way of the door.
However the enterprise in back-rooms is busy, busy, busy – says everybody. Not simply with enterprises, however between varied and the entire ecosystem components: between airtime distributors, community distributors, cloud distributors, compute distributors, chip makers, module makers, software program builders, utility builders, consultants, and integrators. (With apologies to anybody we neglected.) On the identical time, MWC 2024 will not be a telco present (to us, investigating enterprises, requesting briefings), as a result of the operators hardly turned up.
That’s, apart from Verizon Enterprise (at size, and intimately), BT (interestedly, however briefly), and Vodafone (deferred to subsequent week). In the meantime each different a part of the ecosystem has wished to talk about personal networks, edge computing, and industrial IoT for enterprises in Trade 4.0 – with smatterings of generative AI, principally simply because they need to. Protection will observe from these briefings, and extra editorialising (about Barcelona basket-cases, blood baths, and b!tching), as properly; the purpose right here – within the press room, late on Wednesday – is that MWC 2024 rocks, and that many of the tech ecosystem is working to make 5G an important a part of digital transformation.
They’re additionally variously working – the place the enterprise is sensible – to make nationwide cellular networks part of the deal. Even when there’s a good quantity of navel-gazing, or denial or distractedness or indecision, by operators, nonetheless.