MWC 2024 wraps up

February 29, 2024 was the last day at The Mobile World Congress 2024 at Barcelona. With the focus on 5G and Beyond, Connecting Everything, Humanizing AI, Manufacturing DX, Game Changers and Our Digital DNA, MWC continues to be a center that spurs innovation and future development.

Some major highlights at the telco’s end were, Telefónica explained why the industry needs to position Open RAN for the evolution of 5G, SK Telecom believed telcos need to collaborate on large language models and AI, Deutsche Telekom detailed its cloud strategy for its 5G core, and BT looked toward quantum safe networking.

At the vendor end, Ericsson and Turkcell announced R&D collaboration for 6G, Mastercard and MTN signed a new fintech deal and AWS is set to work on gen AI with Malaysian operators CelcomDigi and Maxis.

The GSMA announced the return of the M360 MENA. Hosted by the GSMA in partnership with Ooredoo, will take place in Doha, Qatar on November 18-19, 2024. The 2024 edition of M360 MENA will convene industry leaders from mobile and adjacent industries and policymakers for two days of discussion and debate.

Open radio access networks have been a major theme at MWC. Not only was an O-RAN Alliance meeting held in conjunction with MWC, but a number of announcements indicate the continued development of the ecosystem.

More than 40 demonstrations of the latest improvements to Open RAN, from security and proving out energy efficiency, to showcases of O-RAN integration and testing of the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) as well as O-RAN test automation were made. Among the most significant announcements was one from ATIS that might be overlooked among the news about Telecom Egypt testing the first successful O-RAN LTE call in North Africa, supported by Rakuten Symphony, or NTT DoCoMo choosing AWS to deploy 5G O-RAN—but it has broader market implications than any single test or proof-of-concept.

The next Mobile World Congress will be held in the vibrant city of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain from  Feb 24-27 2025.

CT Bureau