The sandwiches are stale, the beer is over-priced and the queue for a taxi is a depressing sight, it can only mean one thing; we’re heading back out to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress.

Some people might suggest the importance of this annual event is dwindling, but it is arguably still the focal point of the telecommunications industry. Buzzwords will be everywhere this year, but there are three important questions we are hoping to find the answer to over the next four days.

How will the telcos sell 5G to the consumer?

After years of being promised 5G will change our lives, now is the time for the hype to transfer into reality. Over the next twelve months dozens of operators around the world will launch 5G networks and we’ll start to experience the connected vision of tomorrow. But for all the propaganda, now we need the delivery.

While many have been gearing up for enterprise related services and business models, telcos will have to figure out how to sell 5G to the consumer. It might not be the biggest pot of gold available, but it is certainly revenue which can be squeezed out of customers. But how do you convince consumers to spend those extra pounds each month?

Marketing and sales strategies in the telco industry have always been built around the idea of ‘bigger, badder, faster’, with consumers constantly being told extra speed is the best possible solution for worldly woes. To be successful in the future, new ideas will be needed. As it stands, 4G is very fast and can get faster. These are networks which can handle pretty much every service or product which is available to the consumer, and it’ll be years before we hit the speed ceiling again. So how do you sell 5G to a consumer when speed is no-longer a pain point.

Currently, 5G is a solution without a consumer problem. Soon enough the services will appear to demand the bigger speeds, but whoever figures out how to balance this tricky equation in the meantime will certainly be in a good place.

What impact is politics having on the telco industry?

Its impossible to escape politics at the moment, and the on-going conflict between the US and China is central to this tale.

There is certainly an impact, though how much trauma this will create in the long-run remains to be seen. Right now, you can already see certain markets thriving and others dithering through a landscape of accusation, aggression and uncertainty.

Over in Korea, the telcos are rapidly rolling out 5G. This is one country which snubbed Huawei, though this should have come as little surprise considering a preference for a domestic champion. The Korean telcos are embracing 5G and the stable environment which has been created, leaping ahead to claim a leadership position in the race towards connected riches.

In Europe, progress might be faltering. Although many of the European nations do not seem to share the aggressive anti-China sentiment as the US, rule makers are yet to carve out a specific position on Huawei as a vendor in the 5G mix. Right now, it does look like Huawei will largely be able to operate throughout Europe, but the various governments and the European Commission are yet to define a concrete position.

All this creates is an element of uncertainty and uncertainty is the enemy of investment. It’ll be interesting to see what impact this political predicament is having on the industry, and how much of a slowing impact it is having on deployment plans throughout the bloc.

What does the future hold for the humble smartphone?

Foldable phones have been stealing the headlines over the last couple of weeks, and it does beg the question of what the smartphone will look like in a decade.

Although numerous companies have tried and failed to redefine what we conceive as a communications device, there are certainly some interesting developments which will not only encourage the evolution from a form-factor perspective, but also the way in which we use and perceive devices.

The foldable devices are an interesting development, entertainment and gaming will be taken up a notch, but you also have to consider gesture control, voice interaction, biometric authentication and edge computing.

Looking at the gesture control and voice interaction to start, with connectivity being built into everything around us not just the smartphone, the idea of a digital gateway is completely redefined. Factor in Bluetooth headsets and augmented reality glasses, suddenly you don’t need to look at a screen all the time to ride the virtual highway. The constant demand for a screen might erode when your voice can deliver everything you need.

For biometric authentication, once most of your data is stored on the cloud, theoretically every screen could become your interface. And of course, once edge computing starts leaping forward, more processing power can be removed from the phone and hosted elsewhere. Not only will this allow for more powerful services and applications, but it changes the requirements for components in and on devices.

Combine all of these factors, and the idea of a smartphone changes. There could be a lot more freedom to create new products.

Grab me and talk to me!

We’ll be wandering through the halls over the next couple of days at MWC, so if you want to expense a beer and set the world to rights, grab me and talk to me!