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 may be tons about open mobile networks and the sorts of cellular gadgetry and providers that might be connected to them – handsets, vehicles, helicopters. And the story about how mobile may also play in sundry enterprise fields is powerful; the narrative round related buildings, cities, hospitals, venues, warehouses, factories, and crops is properly instructed 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 corporations, 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 largely to promote digital change to the telecoms trade. However MWC 2024 can be an increasing ecosystem present, significantly spurred by the rabid promise of AI, reflective of an trade that’s correctly wanting outwards ultimately – at its companion function within the transformation of different industries.
As a result of all of these cloud capabilities and programming interfaces, and the inner change programmes they engender, will not be 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 functions and new clients. They’re about enterprises, largely. And if MWC isn’t an enterprise present, by any stretch, then the 2024 model definitely appears 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. Plenty of exhibitors have remarked upon the bizarre neon and unusual wizardry amid the acquainted signage on the present ground; a lot of it attracts on generative AI, in fact. However there are a variety of operational expertise (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 means of the door.
However the enterprise in back-rooms is busy, busy, busy – says everybody. Not simply with enterprises, however between numerous and all the ecosystem elements: between airtime distributors, community distributors, cloud distributors, compute distributors, chip makers, module makers, software program builders, software builders, consultants, and integrators. (With apologies to anybody we overlooked.) On the similar time, MWC 2024 isn’t a telco present (to us, investigating enterprises, requesting briefings), as a result of the operators hardly turned up.
That’s, aside 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 non-public networks, edge computing, and industrial IoT for enterprises in Business 4.0 – with smatterings of generative AI, largely simply because they must. 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 a lot of the tech ecosystem is working to make 5G a necessary 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.