MWC Day 1: AI wants to make mobile apps obsolete
Talent Arena, a success
The last day of the MWC always has a different character. With the top executives already gone, the exhibition welcomes a new type of visitor. This Thursday, thousands of people have gained access with the free pass included in the registration to the Talent Arena, the programmers' congress organised by the Mobile World Capital Foundation from Monday to Wednesday at the Montjuïc venue. Combining media presentations, motivational talks and technical sessions, the Talent Arena completes the virtuous circle of technocapitalism: it stimulates vocations that generate start-ups, which will then seek investors at 4YFN and perhaps end up being acquired by major MWC exhibitors. The success of this event could be the seed of a strong local community of developers, very different from that of entrepreneurs. I suspect that in a few years the GSMA will absorb the Talent Arena and integrate it into the MWC, repeating the strategy applied with 4YFN.
There will be classes in connectivity
Beyond artificial intelligence, this MWC has revolved around advanced 5G (5G-A), on which operators have placed all their hopes to make their networks profitable. 5G-A not only opens the door to new business models aimed at industrial companies, but also promises to transform their rates for consumers. The current system of "so many GB for so many euros per month" will evolve towards basic standard connection rates, complemented by supplements for specific features: low latency for playing video games or preferential service in congested areas such as the metro or stadiums. SingTel illustrates this perfectly: on a plane, all passengers make the same journey, but the experience varies depending on the class – economy, business or first–. This trend is confirmed by seeing that the most requested interface of the GSMA Open Gateway program is precisely the "quality of service on demand" one.
Call me wherever you want and I will answer you wherever I can.
Vodafone's stand featured displays of the new Ambient IoT system, which connects devices with sensors that run without batteries. But I found particularly interesting a system that integrates phone calls and WhatsApp messages directly into your Microsoft Teams account while you're connected, eliminating the need to switch between multiple apps. If the future of communication is to be multi-channel, at least make it easy to use.
MWC Day 3: DeepSeek and Huawei are your new personal trainers
Mobile phones or cameras?
With AI-powered phones now becoming the norm rather than the exception, photography capabilities are once again the key differentiating factor. At MWC we saw a number of innovations in this area. Xiaomi and Realme have both showcased prototype phones that support interchangeable professional lenses. modular optical system The first is much cleaner and more advanced, with a lens - independent of the built-in cameras - that attaches magnetically, captures images with the highest quality and transmits them to the phone by laser for processing. The same brand boasts of its alliance with Leica in the 15 Ultra model, with a 4.3x periscope telephoto lens and an optional grip with shutter release and battery that is very reminiscent of the Nokia Lumia 1020 from 2016. ZTE's nubia Focus 2 Ultra places the cameras , to achieve the perfect blur.
Non-terrestrial networks
The suspension of US arms supplies to Ukraine goes beyond missiles, aircraft and armoured vehicles. The continuation of Elon Musk's Starlink satellite telecommunications service, which has so far helped Ukrainians resist the Russian attack, is also threatened. That is why negotiations between the Franco-British Eutelsat and the European Union have accelerated at the MWC to provide Zelensky with an alternative to Starlink, which would be the OneWeb constellation of low-orbit satellites that Eutelsat bought two years ago. In the same area but without war involved, the telecom Japanese company NTT DoCoMo is showing off its HAPS (High Altitude Platform Station) system at MWC, which provides direct mobile connectivity to smartphones from a fleet of 25-meter-wide solar gliders flying at an altitude of 20 kilometers. The first are expected to be deployed over Japan and its territorial waters by the end of the year - which are one of the most important use cases for non-terrestrial networks.
DeepSeek in the Forbidden City
The Chinese AI that caused a stir around the world a few months ago is now competing in the global market with those of OpenAI and Google. Logically, local brands such as Huawei and Honor have been the first to adopt it in their smartphones. But in Huawei's case, the link is even closer: although DeepSeek was trained with Nvidia chips, the responses - the so-called inference - are now generated by Huawei's Ascend chips. In addition, most of the AI demonstrations in the restricted-access area of the Chinese giant's stand in Hall 1 specify that they use DeepSeek. Two examples: a virtual mobile tariff advisor who asks you how many GB you need, draws up the contract and gives you the SIM card right there; and the virtual trainer who watches you do push-ups and jumping jacks in front of the TV and recommends how to improve your movements.
MWC day 2: ultra-thin phones, who offers more?
The ultra-thin mobiles that no one asked for
In addition to AI, a notable trend at MWC is the reduction in the thickness of phones, as if brands had forgotten the dented iPhone 6s of a decade ago. Ahead of the possible iPhone 17 Air, Samsung is showing the Galaxy S25 Edge, which we can look at but not touch. Oppo is presenting the Find N5, 8.93 mm folded and just 4.21 mm unfolded. Huawei is showing the Mate XT triptych, with three 3.6 mm panels that together measure 12.8 mm. Even generic brands are getting in on the act: Tecno Mobile is showing the 5.75 mm Spark Slim and the Phantom Ultimate 2 triptych, 11 mm in total. It is worth noting that foldables are no longer exclusive: the new ZTE Nubia Flip 2 costs 699 euros, well below the 1,000 euros that marked entry into the category just a couple of years ago.
An MWC the same, but different
For the less experienced visitor, the eight exhibition halls at MWC are just as overwhelming as in previous editions. But there are some significant changes: China's ZTE has doubled its space at the most visible intersection of the congress, which has forced Cisco to be relocated to the back of Hall 3 and the position of Nokia's networking stand to be changed. Xiaomi has expanded its surface area to display two electric cars. Ericsson, in Hall 2, has followed the example of its rival Huawei - Hall 1 - and has left an area open to all visitors at the front of the stand, before reaching the area with restricted access to customers. In general, this MWC is more about business, with fewer spectacular attractions in the exhibition area and more specialized conferences, without media hype.
Technology for the elderly and clueless
There are many examples of technology for the elderly at the MWC. I'll choose two very different ones. Many elderly people with reduced mobility often do not remember that they are not in a condition to get up from their armchair or wheelchair. With them in mind, the Eurecat centre in collaboration with a nursing home in Artés has created the Sit2Stand, a small device that is attached to the back of the shirt collar and when it specifically detects this inadvisable movement, it emits an audible warning and notifies the carer's mobile phone so that they can intervene. On the other hand, there are the low-cost stickers that the CalmTag company exhibits in Hall 8, equipped with a QR code and NFC antenna that allow missing elderly people to be identified and located when someone scans the sticker with their mobile phone.
MWC day 1: AI wants to make mobile phones obsolete
AI that replaces mobile applications
Artificial intelligence (AI) is omnipresent at this edition of the MWC. Operators are adopting it in all areas, from optimizing traffic on their networks to detecting fraud, not to mention the use of the generative variant in customer service. And there is no phone brand that does not boast about the AI functions of its new models: Samsung was a pioneer with the high-end Galaxy S and has now extended it to the mid-range Galaxy A; Honor, Xiaomi and TCL also have mobile phones with AI. They all use Gemini, Google's AI, although tuned by each manufacturer: TCL is the only one that can write synthetic texts in Catalan. But they are still smartphones conventional phones with a grid of application icons. The next step will be to do without it. Deutsche Telekom (DT) already announced this last year: you tell it on your mobile what you need, it searches for the appropriate services, makes the relevant arrangements and confirms the result. Yesterday, the German operator made it official: it assures that before the end of the year it will have a phone that uses Perplexity's AI and next year it will already be selling it in Europe for less than 1,000 euros.
Change in the line-up of the four European musketeers
Marc Murtra, the new executive president of Telefónica, has replaced José María Álvarez Pallete in the debate between the CEOs of the Big Four telecoms The European companies, with De La Valle from Vodafone, Heydemann from Orange and Hottges from the aforementioned DT, are in the same boat. But the joint discourse remains: to demand from the EU authorities a more favourable treatment in terms of mergers within each state and between states, in order to achieve economies of scale at the level of the markets in China, the USA and South Korea, where only three operators share the pie, and supposedly the rates are lower. Hottges was again the most radical: he is reluctant because his company must deal in Europe with 275 different regulatory bodies. He is the one who can best compare while Telefónica gets rid of its subsidiaries in Latin America and DT does 80% of its business outside Germany and 65% of its turnover comes from the USA.
The 6G, in birches
At the Ericsson stand you can once again see a prototype of a 6G mobile phone. I call it mobile because it's on a wheeled cart, but it's the size of an industrial washing machine. Exactly the same as last year. It's very significant that it hasn't shrunk because it indicates that the industry isn't investing much in the next generation of telecommunications. They're still focused on cashing in on the huge investments they've made to roll out 5G networks.
Day 0: May Saint Mobile preserve your sight
Glasses to see what is not there
Technology brands have set out to put images just a few millimetres from our eyes. Beyond virtual and mixed reality viewers, this year the trend is for conventional frames, although they are considerably thicker to accommodate all the necessary electronics. TCL Mobile has three: ones with augmented reality (1,500 euros) that superimpose digital information on the visual field; ones for 300 euros to watch mobile videos on a 200-inch virtual screen, and others of the same price with cameras to record the world around us, direct rivals of the Ray-Ban Meta. BleeqUp offers its own to cyclists, with a battery in the helmet that allows you to shoot five hours of video, and the mobile application is responsible for summarising the highlights in a short clip using AI. Finally, ActiveLook believes that someone will want to see the weather forecast or physical exercise data in real time at a corner of the visual field, ignoring the failure of Google Glass.
The entire field is a HMD
HMD's new Amped Buds wireless earbuds change the reverse battery charging. Usually it is the phone that provides backup power to accessories, such as the earphone case. In this case it is the case that gives charge to the phone. At the same event at Camp Nou, the Finnish brand also presented the Fusion X1, a phone for children with parental control functions that costs 4.99 euros per month, and two mobile phones for Barça fans: the Barça 3210, an edition of the classic Nokia model with the club's colours, and thesmartphone Barça Fusion, signed by eleven players from the men's first team, some of whom have also provided voices for alarm tones so that waking up is less hard if it's Lewandowski or Lamine Yamal who greet you.
Partnerships around AI
The international character of the MWC is evident in events such as yesterday's, when Nokia announced that it will combine its telecommunications equipment with Nvidia chips and Softbank software to test the use of AI to optimise the performance of radio networks serving mobile phones from operators KDDI and T-Mobil. Everyone is rushing to establish alliances and this will not be the last one we will see this week in Barcelona.