Mobile World Congress (#MWC23) 2023 – Day 2 Update

Day 2 of MWC 2023 kicked off with some exciting announcements where many telecom industry leaders showcased their latest products.

The second day of this year’s event began with a keynote focused on telecom innovations, and the impact that these pioneering technologies are having on global industries.?

The second keynote of Day 2 addressed one of the great big questions in the telecommunications industry - are we moving into a period ripened for new digital collaborations??

The official podcast sponsor for MWC 2023, The Great Indoors (TGI) has discussed how technology was underpinning our everyday lives. The recurring message from several speakers is the realization that technology can enable tackling challenges facing humanity like the digital divide, the threat of climate change, lifting the world out of poverty, and enhancing education. The event was joined by leaders from some of the biggest service providers on the planet such as #AT&T, Bell Canada, #BT, #Millicom, T-Mobile (#tmobile) , #Telefonica, US Cellular, #Verizon, #Vodafone, and more. The predominant commonality was the intrinsic responsibility and emotion that every one of them had for the welfare of the communities they serve.

Here go some of the key highlights of Day 2:

• #EU Industry Chief Thierry Breton takes an open-minded approach to the big issue of “fair share” and who would fund 5G network rollout. Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, and Telecom Italia have been actively promoting for Big Tech to pay the fees. Telefonica CEO Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete added that “This is the time to collaborate between telcos and Big Tech. Collaborating means everybody contributing with a fair share of the effort".
• Orange ’s CEO Christel Heydemann said that “Telcos must deal with a very difficult equation between investment and regulation. Five of the largest online traffic generators account for 55 per cent of daily traffic on telco networks. My conviction…is that regulators and policymakers have a major role to play to balance this unsustainable situation.”
• The chairman and CEO of Telefónica , José María álvarez-Pallete said that there is no future without telcos. Alvarez-Pallete was specifically referring to the newly launched GSMA Open Gateway initiative, announced at MWC, which bonds telcos, the industry, big tech, and developers to “create the digital future together”.
• #GSMA Director General Mats Granryd stated that the Telecom industry can lead transformation in a new era of virtual worlds, as he explained the potential for new business models enabled by emerging innovations such as Web 3.0, the metaverse, and intelligent connectivity.?
• Ericsson Software called on the telecom sector to adopt the digital twin concept which can enhance the entire life cycle management of the industry. Ericsson’s VP and Head of Network Deployment Offering Evolution, Ebru Kirac claims that digital twins (#digitaltwins) will be very effective for proactively panning efficient sites.
• Digital Transformation is fueled by Private 5G (#private5g) which ensures deployment flexibility and availability of the network. Having a standalone Private 5G will be adequate for enterprises to underpin next-generation services. Private 5G will be an enabler for Industry 4.0 transformations together with other key advancements such as MEC, Open RAN, Orchestration, and Automation
• D-Link, a global networking solutions company, revealed its latest products and innovations around Private 5G O-RAN, M2M (machine-to-machine), Enterprise Solutions, and Smart Homes at the event. The company presents services for comprehensive enterprise private 5G solutions based on O-RAN infrastructure and 5G core networks.?
• Jurrie van den Breekel , VP, of Strategic Partnerships at Spirent Communications highlighted the challenges aroused by the technology migration to cloud-native 5G core, MEC, and virtualized RAN (vRAN)
• Mavenir calls for heightened network security. The 5G roll out may bring many cyber threats according to network software developer Mavenir. Deborah Brown , VP of Mavenir Government Channel, said that “It should be the interest of all 5G market providers to collaborate on security challenges.”
• #Intel released its 4th generation Intel #Xeon Scalable Processors with its #vRAN Boost chip developed in partnership with #Verizon. 英特尔 stated that fully integrated vRAN acceleration can save compute power to approximately 20 percent compared to legacy generations.
• Another interesting highlight was the GSMA Intelligence bullish on the second wave of 5G. GSMA Intelligence forecasts that 5G growth will be significant in #India, with the expansion of services from #Airtel and #Jio in 2023. GSMA Intelligence foresees there will be four 5G networks in India by the end of 2025. Other than that, 30 more countries are also expected to launch 5G services in 2023. According to GSMA, as of January 2023, there were 229 commercial 5G networks globally and over 700 5G smartphone models.

This is for today. Stay tuned for the update from 3rd day tomorrow.