MWC23: Dig beyond 5G/6G at the World’s Most Important Tech Show

By Dave Reddy

Practice Lead, Media and Influence, Big Valley Marketing

This week, the GSMA’s annual gathering on the Spanish Riviera, Mobile World Congress (MWC), takes place in Barcelona. It is the most important tech show in the world. Yes, nearly three times as many people attend CES each January (a reported 200,000-plus vs. MWC’s 80,000-plus). But virtually nothing demo’ed at CES matters unless it’s anchored to a rock-solid connection of semiconductors and other wireless and networking equipment. Without connectivity, MWC’s raison d’être, consumer toys are as entertaining and useful as a couple of tin cans ‘connected’ by a string.

MWC also serves a greater mission. We can live without 99 percent of the admittedly fun stuff we see at CES. But the technology at MWC changes and even saves lives, so much so that the conference has its own built-in policy sub-show. While the vast majority of this year’s show will focus, as it has for nearly a decade, on 5G (and 6G), pay close attention to what the experts and government officials at MWC say about tech policy – and whether or not governments will help solve problems or, instead, be obstacles. (It will likely be a little of both.)

The Battle Over 6 GHz

One such issue is 6 GHz spectrum. Spectrum is always an issue, because the more connections there are – and it never stops growing – the more spectrum is needed to push data (and voice) between those connections. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decides what spectrum can be used, and how, in the United States. And in 2020, it announced that 6 GHz would be opened up for broad use.

But it hasn’t opened up just yet. It should later this year – but the argument over exactly who will get to use it (fought among big telco (e.g., Verizon, T-Mobile), big cable (Comcast, Cox) and WISPs (wireless internet service providers) continues.

The lesser-known WISPs want in. And I agree with them. (In full disclosure, we work with a company that services WISPs, Cambium Networks . But advocating for my clients isn’t why I agree with WISPs.)

WISPs want to bring connectivity to places often overlooked by bigger players: rural environments, for instance. Having grown up in a rural area, Cape Cod, an hour-plus south of Boston, I experience this limited connectivity first-hand whenever I visit. That near-perfect connection you experience 99 percent of the time in San Francisco, LA or New York? Visit Cape Cod or Alaska. Travel to indigenous lands in Northern California. Drive through a sparsely populated area of a Plains state. You will soon learn that isn’t the connectivity most Americans experience.

Closing the Digital Divide

You might think, well, poor connectivity is merely an inconvenience. Actually, it’s more than that, as we quickly discovered when school, work and other activities moved online during the pandemic.. Planning to work from home? Taking courses online? Meeting a doctor over Zoom because his or her office is 100 miles away? Try that with a lousy connection.

That’s the digital divide (or the affordability gap). And it isn’t just happening in developing parts of the world. It happens in America, in all 50 states.

While the FCC’s decisions only affect Americans directly, the agency’s rules and regulations ?also send an important signal to the rest of the world. It will be intriguing – and hopefully refreshing – to hear the policy folks at MWC talk about 6 GHz and other solutions we can use to make strong connectivity available to everyone in the country and on the planet. To be sure, 5G and 6G will help, too. (The technology defined by these confusing telco terms operate together, not in a vacuum.) But if 5G or 6G skip over the less sexy parts of the country and the world – the parts where it may not as economically feasible to connect people to what most of us consider standard – then the digital divide/affordability gap will only get bigger.

I’ll report back after #MWC23 with a recap of the show, including, hopefully, some good news about bridging the affordability gap.