Mobile World Congress 2008 preview: part two

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There is a plethora of mobile industry players exhibiting, speaking and attending next week's Mobile World Congress (MWC, formerly 3GSM) in Barcelona. News announcements and technical sessions are likely to be fast and furious with a danger of missing something if you stand still to blink.

IT PRO will be attending the congress to bring you the news as it happens, but to whet your appetite and ensure you don't miss anything, we contacted those making an appearance and asked them for a sneak peek into what we can expect.

We asked them: "Without giving away too many secrets, what can people expect from you at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress (formerly 3GSM) and why should business and IT decision makers be interested?"

Here's what they had to say.

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Mobile WiMAX Acceleration Group

"The Mobile WiMAX Acceleration Group (M-WAG), a collaboration of companies aiming to prove the business case for mobile WiMAX, will announce the location and nature of the first ever UK mobile WiMAX user trials, over 2.5 GHZ," said Kerl Haslam, the group's chair. "The trial will look to establish the capabilities and business case of the wireless technology, using the wireless spectrum originally set aside for 3G network expansion, and set to be auctioned later this year by Ofcom."

Haslam added: "Mobile WiMAX vs LTE will certainly be a hot topic for discussion at this year's show. Mobile WiMAX will be first to market and promises to deliver robust, resilient and secure data transmission at a much lower cost than fixed line alternatives, making it exciting for consumers and businesses alike. [It] will help avoid the pitfalls that hampered the profitability of 3G networks after the auctions of almost 10 years ago. The technology is now ready and presents a great opportunity to operators, service providers, businesses and consumers alike."

Movial

"When you think about social networking today - sharing and communicating about social content doesn't happen in real-time. In fact, social networking to date is anti-social and passive in nature....Movial is launching a brand new software application that enables instant social communication on any device. Carriers will be very interested in this as Movial's application is the glue between mobile operators and internet companies, helping mobile operators increase their ARPU - and capitalise on a truly integrated user experience," said Victor Donselaar, president of Movial.

"I think we are going to see more and more applications bridge social media with the capability to instantly talk and communicate to any device with the same user experience."

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NewStep

"NewStep is seeing a shift in the convergence market, away from a focus on the underlying network and technology, to more of a consideration of what makes converged services compelling for consumer and enterprise users. NewStep is planning a series of announcements over the coming weeks in the lead up to MWC that will introduce our access-agnostic approach to FMC, which enables us to move beyond a discussion of VCC vs UMA vs Femtocell and provide a more user-centric approach to convergence," said Shannon Bell, NewStep's vice president of product management.

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