Mobile World Congress in Barcelona 2019 – Powerful digital winds, lift the sails!

Advice for extraterrestrial smart creature exploring the universe: to quickly check human technology make a 1 day stop in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress.

MWC is the most impressive and vibrant worldwide feria of digital experience and technology. Founded by telco’s GSMA consortium, now hosts every new digital discipline, from digital health to smart cities, and from graphene to startups. This year MWC is expecting more 107,000 visitors, 2,000 exhibitors and conferences, parallel events, etc., etc.

At #RepsolDigital we enjoy this congress because it gives us many signals of the industry direction: when are new communication technologies going to be available? What are the adoption rates? Inventions? Gadgets? New user experiences? in a nutshell, what is coming next in the digital world for business and citizens.

At Repsol we introduce this input to our energy transition strategy, helping in the preparation of new commercial product/services and moving our digital investment at the right speed. By seen the world under our customer’s view we define our new offering strategy. Repsol teams and experts cover the MWC from startups initiatives (Repsol Foundation and our Corporate Venturing team actively networking at the 4YFN forum), energy commercial developers, our digital HUBs experts and communications researchers. So we attend MWC to learn and to connect with other ecosystems. And this is what I enjoy the most: speaking with people of other cultures and disciplines that are not familiar with the energy business or Repsol at all (yes…humility is a condition required in digital to learn from others).

 In the middle of elevator pitches and 15-minutes meetings I had time to greet our master rally pilot Isidre Esteve (The Unstoppable) who was showing our Dakar 2018 car at Vodafone booth. The audience was amazed with his teaching on team spirit, driving and technology at the worst deserts (sand in Peru dunes is completely different than sand in Atacama desert; so do our customers in Mexico are different than in Indonesia).

My notes of this 2019 Mobile:

o Impressive Chinese advance. Huawei & others not merely device manufactures but network technology designers with challenging deployment capabilities. They show muscle to be providers everywhere, expressing quality and competitive prices (geopolitical battle between USA and China did not take place publicly during MWC… wait for new chapters). Alibaba offering cloud services with substantial discounts over western alternatives (a point for future blogs: how did open source knowledge accelerate China software impulse?).

o 5G deployment is starting now in a few countries (South Korea), and in trial in many European countries. Spain not with a clear roadmap: will start in zones of big cities, commercial services by 2022. But will be a driven-by-demand effort. Interesting to note that this 5th generation will mean more energy cost for the networks and energy efficiency will be an issue. Progressive deployment means dual existence of networks, with dual compatibility devises, etc. I saw hybrid solutions, like a 5G home node, delivering signals via Wi-Fi to 4G devices (and I saw a 5G antenna for the first time).

o Mid-low profile presence by large USA internet technology giants (focused on services, an user experiences, and sharing many demos with different partners). Apple absent as usual.

o A new generation of devices: first 5G smart phones, foldable phones (Huawei Mate X large OLED panel), superior optics (first 10x zooms), video bracelets. Time to dream.

o Who wins the innovation market? According to some analyst GSMA creates the network but customers will look for the new innovative services at APP marketplaces, so internet players will get the best pieces of the cake (not the telcos..). There is a sense in telco industry that they build the structure but they miss fancy decoration….(so they are the blue-collar workers…)

o New contents and use case for 5G: a lot of industrial and machinery cases. Other area of expansion: all devices connected to digital assistants. Interfaces available for everything. At domestic level, this means a huge market for home automation (so consumers will spend at zero mile point). IoT, embedded SIMS everywhere. A great opportunity to familiarize customers with energy alternatives!

o Several prototypes of autonomous cars. Algorithms available, now discussion is about road infrastructure and “electric-fuel”. Speed of adoption by industry players (car makers, energy companies and administration) a hot topic.

o Identity solutions (from biometric to digital ID, the concept is key to facilitate in a secure way the adoption of services by customer). Could turn to be a kind of entry barrier in future. SAFR from RealNetworks facial recognition improving: read my face and told my age minus one year.

o Early discussions about the future of enterprise LAN (may they disappear in mid term?)

o Real world blockchain samples: parking services + a digital assistant and a mobility platform (but frankly: have you ever saw an interesting demo of blockchain? The better it works the boring the demos is (please Spielberg come to help them)).

o Time to play with new YUMI point of sale at Atos booth: a multipurpose and easily configured point of sale tablet (launched in NY Retail feria early this year).

o A multinational exhibition and attendance, you may think you are in Shanghai or London. Still less than 20% of female attendance (my survey). Despite the digital boom and the forum Wome4Tech, most of men in the exhibition. This digital industry is not that advanced in terms of opportunities.

o A lonely corridor where two young Indian engineers, sitting on the carpet, were coding something in their laptops completely isolated from the chaos (Vamos STEM!). In the antipodes, big consultant companies with impressive booths, but with blinded crystals and “for invitation only”…not very friendly…

Tips for MWC 2020 newcomers: if you plan to attend book your hotel in advance (least 6 months) or you will find yourselves sleeping 2 hours far at wonderful Catalonian country place (prices get crazy in the downtown, 5 times; no taxis but plenty of fun). Identify with sectors do you want to visit, move quickly and set up 15 minutes meetings. Use the congress app for networking and distribute your activity. A morning at the congress will turn to 1-2 weeks of contacting/assessing new products.

At #RepsolDigital we are working on energy transition to improve our lives in a sustainable way and this concept has a strong link with digital mobile developments. Would you like to exchange ideas around these concepts? Send me an email. Enrique D.