This Year It's Mobile World TV: TelecomTV.com gets Bigger And Better Than Ever At Mobile World Congress, Barcelona

by Ian Scales, Managing Editor, TelecomTV

 It just gets bigger. Mobile World Congress is nearly upon us again and although we all like to exhale deeply and puff our cheeks at the thought of all those acres of stands and throngs of people, we all know we really like it. MWC is the ‘must attend’ event in telecoms: you have to be there and you know it’s going to be worth the time and effort. Indeed, when you get to Barcelona you’ll immediately see that what we used to call the mobile industry is now morphing inexorably into something much bigger than handsets and radio technology.

Last year was the 20th anniversary of the Memorandum of Understanding that kick-started GSM, which in turn created a huge market for mobile technology. Now, as the $10 handset becomes a reality, the industry is preparing for the next phase - this is where the technology becomes a platform for broadband-based applications and content on a truly global basis. We’ll simultaneously have handsets cheap enough for practically anyone on the planet to own and broadband-optimized mobile terminals so sophisticated that they’ll get up and make your breakfast in the morning... OK, a slight exaggeration, but you get the drift. TelecomTV is there too. We’re Mobile World TV and we’re also bigger and better than ever before with the largest screens in Europe (so large that the Great Wall of China and Martyn Warwick’s face are the only two things that can be seen clearly from space).