Looking back at my first MWC

My first Mobile World Congress is almost over and it has been one that I won´t forget any time soon. It has been hectic, and on Day 1, I was wondering what I had let myself in for. Now though, I´m looking back at the week gone by, and it has been absolutely fantastic.

We´ve been very busy – those of you at the show have probably seen our camera crew shooting videos which will be uploaded to the site from next week. And I know I´m not the only one feeling the strain – by Tuesday afternoon, there seemed to be a universal glazed look on the faces of everyone at the show – I´ve learned that MWC really does take a lot out of you.

However, it is far better to be busy at these types of show than not – and one thing that I´ve learned is that there are a lot of very nice people in the telecoms world. The time I´ve spent networking at the show has been a real pleasure, the hospitality I´ve been shown here has been incredible and what I´ve learned about the trends that the industry is seeing have been invaluable.

Mobile money is a hot topic, making the decision to concentrate on that topic in our next issue of MCI seem like an inspired one. There appear to be two types of mobile money – m-commerce for the developed markets; using mobile devices for trading and paying bills, and mobile money in developing nations, where mobile technology is used to serve those who are unbanked or under-banked. The most interesting thing that I´ve noted about mobile money is how it has helped curb corruption in poverty stricken countries, where reliance on mobile to receive money is replacing reliance on shady middle-men. Also, some of the apps that I´ve seen have been shockingly clever, M2M and the connected world concept appear to be gaining a lot of traction and data roaming is a huge issue, as can be evidenced by my phone bill.

We´ve also been fortunate enough to enjoy some great weather and judging by the amount of deals that have been made at the show, the sun is good for business. There has also been a fair amount of news from the event, and the Telecoms.com team has been busy speaking to some of those involved, analysts and industry experts to find out what it all means in terms of the direction the market is moving in. We´ll be collating our thoughts and views when we land back in London and sharing them with you over the course of next week.