Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly feature, Analyst Angle. We’ve collected a group of the industry’s leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry.
In thinking about what I expect from this year’s edition of Mobile World Congress, I don’t really have to look much further than my previous experience. I will eat lots of ham sandwiches while running between meetings. I will hear at least one story about somebody who knows somebody who got his or her wallet stolen on the subway. At least one of my meetings will be canceled and two or more will be delayed. Discussions about how the previous location was better are a given as well.
Of course I don’t travel halfway across the world for those things. I come to Barcelona to see what the big topics and trends in mobile infrastructure will be for 2013. Small cells, LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) and big data all appear going into the show to be the sources of the big stories for this year’s edition of MWC.
Small cells have been a popular topic at MWC for several years, and this year won’t be any different. In fact, now that we are closer to real large-scale small cell deployments, I expect we will hear more about them this year then ever before. Vendors have been pointing towards 2013 as the time frame for commercial shipments, so only naturally they would want to use this years MWC to show off those small cell solutions. Announcements coming from NEC, Ericsson, NSN, and Airspan all support this.
Airspan’s announcement with Radysis actually spans two of what I believe will be the major stories of this year’s MWC – small cells and LTE-A. Even though many operators are still in the early stages of LTE deployments, it is never too early to look towards the next network evolution step with LTE-A. This year’s conference should be a big year for LTE-A. I fully expect LTE-A announcements will come from all corners of the mobile ecosystem – chip manufacturers, device vendors and network infrastructure companies.
With network infrastructure vendors, no doubt LTE-A demonstrations will be heavily on display. These demonstrations will fill a familiar role for vendors that used to be reserved for HSPA+ and the non-advanced form of LTE (the plain old LTE that everybody is deploying now.) Demonstrations are a great way for vendors to show their progress when it comes to the latest network technology. While HSPA+ and LTE will still get their showings in Barcelona, it is hard to believe LTE-A won’t get the most prominent position in the vendors’ booths. And, the type of LTE-A demonstrations we are most likely to see are those that use carrier aggregation, as this appears to be how mobile operators will be first upgrading to it.
The third and final major theme I expect to see at this year’s mobile conference is big data or IT meets telecom. There is clearly a blurring of the lines between IT and telecom. Earlier this month traditional IT company Oracle purchased telecom vendor Acme Packet. Many of Cisco’s recent acquisition moves can be seen as strengthening the company when it comes to this area of big data and telecom networks. Cariden, BroadHop and Intucell will all help Cisco as mobile operators look for solutions that allow them to better manage their network data and optimize their networks for improved performance and monetization.
Sure LTE and LTE-A will bring increased capacity to networks, but those things alone will not solve all of the challenges that face operators when it comes mobile broadband. Harnessing network data for improved performance and new service revenues are just as important. Big data and its role when it comes to mobile networks very likely will be the biggest theme of this year’s Mobile World Congress.
The theme I look forward to exploring the most at this year’s MWC is one I haven’t listed. The reason why is I don’t know what it is yet, and that is why I so look forward to exploring it. I do a fairly good job at sensing what the big stories of MWC will be each year. However, there are plenty of years where I discover something new that I never expected. Discovering the unknown is always the best part of the trip to Barcelona. Hopefully it will be the same again this year.
Daryl Schoolar covers the wireless infrastructure space at Ovum, with a primary focus on market activities as they apply to the radio access network (RAN). RAN coverage includes macro, micro and pico cell solutions for CDMA EV-DO, HSPA/HSPA+, LTE (TDD and FDD), LTE-Advanced and WiMAX. Schoolar’s research includes not only what infrastructure vendors are developing in those areas, but how mobile operators are deploying and using those wireless networking solutions. Schoolar brings over 11 years of industry analyst experience to Ovum. Prior to Ovum he held similar positions with Current Analysis and In-Stat. Before becoming an industry analyst, Schoolar worked at telecommunications service provider Cable & Wireless USA, where he worked on that operator’s market and competitive intelligence team. Schoolar has a Bachelor of Science in Marketing Management from Virginia Tech.
