Carriers eyeing spectrum, IoT and 5G; devices diversifying in price
BARCELONA, Spain – Jeff Wang, senior partner at IBB Consulting, attended Mobile World Congress 2015 to take a look at major trends playing out in the carrier and device spaces.
Wang took a moment to share his thoughts with RCR Wireless News, and touched on a number of predominant themes that played out over four days at Fira Gran Via.
“Trend one is really related to kind of spectrum and how are carriers looking at licensed versus unlicensed spectrum. How are they looking at a scenario where cellular and Wi-Fi are playing together more and more and how important is Wi-Fi to that future business,” Wang said.
A number of major telecom players made announcements at Mobile World Congress regarding the confluence of LTE and Wi-Fi.
Alcatel-Lucent, for instance, demoed their new LWA technologies, Wi-Fi boost and cellular boost. Wi-Fi boost uses cellular technology and licensed spectrum to enhance Wi-Fi, while cellular boost does the inverse. There are currently in-field trials with deployments planned for later in 2015.
Wang pointed to the second trend as carriers looking for nontraditional revenue streams by embracing the “Internet of Things,” which is poised to become a game-changer with powerhouses like Ericsson and Cisco moving aggressively into large-scale application.
Wang pegged the third major carrier trend as working aggressively toward “the next big platform,” which is likely to be 5G, despite there being no accord or standardization on what 5G will actually comprise. He said 5G will definitely include lower latency, higher capacity and higher speeds but, “How do they actually take advantage of that in tomorrow’s world?”
“In a 5G world there might be a lot more unlicensed spectrum than we think involved in there,” Wang explained. “Those are the standards that are being defined today with the key of it being kind of openness and availability and access no matter where you are.”
On the device side, Wang noted a diversification in price point of mobile devices.
“I think MWC continues to be a springboard for device manufacturers,” Wang said. “A lot of clients we work with are looking to kind of diversify and bifurcate their portfolios.”
Wang pointed to high-end announcements like the newly unveiled Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Edge.
“But,” he said, “you’re starting to see a lot of other pretty big name manufacturers look and focus on mid-tier and low-tier.”
