In case you hadn’t realized it yet, next week sees the Mobile World Congress taking place in Barcelona, Spain, traditionally providing the biggest showcase of mobile and wireless technologies and business models. Wireless Watch will distil the key trends from the welter of announcements and analyze them in next week’s issue, but in advance, what are we expecting to take center stage?
Handsets:
The cellphone majors always steal the limelight with glitzy stands and launches in Hall 5 of Barcelona’s Fira exhibition center. Even with marketing budgets under pressure, and attendance likely to be down somewhat compared to last year, the big four will make a splash, and even the diminished Motorola should put some more flesh behind its Android-focused plans to revamp its smartphone proposition, though we don’t expect actual launches. Nokia will be heavily focused on touchscreens and musicphones, while Sony Ericsson will be leveraging its key Walkman and Cybershot brands for more integrated services, though sadly it will not have the long anticipated PlayStation Portable smartphone. Samsung will have a huge line-up including the world’s first 12-megapixel cameraphone.
The key theme will be phones that are optimized for web and multimedia usage, and that are tightly integrated with web services, whether content stores or popular third party apps like Facebook. There will also be strong focus on location awareness and GPS, and some early LTE prototypes.
There will be a large number of would-be new entrants to the handset market, with several PC makers (Toshiba, Acer, Lenovo, maybe Dell) launching smartphones and others eyeing the cellco channel for netbooks and MIDs. Also, specialized companies like Garmin/Asustek and Hyundai will be trying to extend their brands from other markets into phones.
Significant queues of new players are something we haven’t seen in the rapidly consolidating cellphone sector for years, and this change, even as the market comes under such economic pressure, reflects the convergence of the smartphone with the PC and the media player, and the rising importance of consumer branding to handset economics, as flagshipped by Apple.
With Nokia still transitioning Symbian into an open source model, the operating system crown will go to Android, though the LiMo Foundation and Windows Mobile also have major announcements lined up to prove they are still viable alternatives. HTC, Huawei and Samsung will have high profile Android launches, and many of the new players are also using the open source platform. While LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson have promised Android phones, they are unlikely to have their models ready to launch in Barcelona.
Backhaul:
This is one sector that is not too daunted by the recession, as even scaled-back 3G and mobile broadband plans by operators will still require a huge boost to the transport network. This will stimulate interest in high capacity backhaul solutions that also reduce operating costs for carriers. Highlights will be the integration of modern IP Ethernet systems into legacy networks, as well as the issue of backhauling dense, small cell networks effectively (one to watch ‘ start-up DesignArt’s shift towards small cell backhaul).
Mobile operators:
As usual, the major cellcos will use their keynote spots and networking events to set out their wishlists and put pressure on vendors and standards bodies to follow their agendas. In the past, for instance, Vodafone has called for a faster roadmap towards 4G, and a reduction of the number of standards operators are expected to support in networks and devices. The need to reduce the number of platforms, and so reduce costs, while speeding up development and provisioning of new services, will be at the heart of the cellcos’ presentations. They will be looking to increase their control and enhance their position in the mobile broadband value chain, from pushing operator-dominated initiatives like the Open Mobile Terminal Platform and Next Generation Mobile Network alliance upon vendors, to announcing their own takes on application stores, own-branded devices and user interfaces to put their brands in the forefront of mobile users’ minds.
‘4G’ networks:
Given the 3GPP-oriented nature of the event, and the timing ‘ with LTE standards close to finalization and operators starting to announce roadmaps ‘ LTE will be a dominant theme. Every equipment and device maker will rush to put forward a convincing story, even if products will not ship for another 10 months or more (witness the NSN Flexi Base Station for LTE). It will not be enough just to talk up the performance benefits of LTE, or the services it will support, in the way that 3G was unleashed on the world ‘ this time around, potential adopters will be interested in risk avoidance, flexible approaches to deployment such as small cells and hotzones, and the gritty realities of the open access, all-IP model.
WiMAX will also make a surprisingly strong impact, despite being always the ‘outsider’ technology in this Europe and 3G focused event. This will be driven strongly by Intel, highlighting the ready availability of this particular OFDMA/MIMO/IP platform, and the deployments by real operators from Clearwire to UQ in Japan to a host of developing market operators. WiMAX needs to make a strong statement, at a time when LTE has grabbed the spotlight on the hype curve, and it will be important for 802.16e’s backers to focus on their technology’s roots in the open internet model and in fixed/mobile or quad play approaches ‘ differentiating itself from the wide area mobile agenda of 3G and 4G.
And HSPA+, and even the 2G data enhancement EDGE, will also be strongly featured, as they promise carriers relatively low cost ways to eke the maximum performance out of their existing networks, without the need for new spectrum.
Femtocells:
With many trials and some live operator deployments, femtocells will have a high profile in Barcelona. The market is splitting, as it matures, into miniature, self-managing base stations of three different classes, to fit the three main business models. This will be clearly seen at MWC, with vendors and chipmakers looking at ways to support all three categories, or to specialize. The first main areas will be indoor residential femtos, often integrated with consumer equipment such as gateways, to support homezone tariffs, in-home media networks, improved indoor coverage, and new personalized applications. Second will be enterprise femtos, larger devices to support 16 users or more and, while more self-managing than traditional corporate picocell products, carrying more functionality in areas such as security and hand-off. Third will be outdoor femtos, to support the trend to increase capacity in 3G networks, or to build or extend 3G and 4G in new areas, using a dense set of tiny cells, closely targeted to areas of high demand for broadband.
Applications:
The fight to create the most appealing, well stocked software store, and lure the largest number of developers, is well underway, and new stores are expected from Samsung, Nokia and Microsoft. Within those stores, as well as music, games and other content, there will be a heavy focus among developers on ‘social location’, a key driver of growth in mobile web services, as well as on enterprise offerings.
Other themes:
Other important themes that are often overshadowed by the handset and mobile web wars include:
‘ the rapid expansion of GSM in growth markets like India and the creation of a new generation of low cost, high performance 2G kit and terminals to suit
‘ the changing role of the core network, which in the multimedia services world needs to become far more intelligent and function-rich, and may be more frequently decoupled from the RAN
‘ by contrast, the parallel shifting of more functionality and intelligence (such as deep packet inspection) to the network edge, to enable carriers to deploy new services without the risk of fiddling with the core, and to reduce strain on backhaul
‘ the rise and rise of M2M (machine to machine) networks and business models, with networks being turned to business, industrial and even consumer applications that are invisible to the end user and are fully automated. These, and a growing range of sensor-based applications, will take the wireless network far beyond the cellular model and drive new breeds of chips and software.