Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

Barcelona, the Catalonian capital was host to the largest GSM conference which witnessed a record participation of  50,000 telecom professionals from across the world. Several announcements and product and services launch by vendors and service providers took place during the four-day event.  The highlight of the event was the heightened enthusiasm of services providers, vendors, and content players towards the wide range of 3G services including music, videos, and live TV on mobile. Most of the operators and vendors felt that high-speed transfers and instant messaging would be the key driver for the success of 3G services.

Wang Jianzhou, chairman and CEO of China Mobile, said the total revenue from mobile music in China was larger than the total revenue of the traditional music industry. He informed that whereas 1 mn copies of a CD might sell in China in six months, 15 mn copies of a single song were recently bought by mobile phone users over the same period of time.

In all, 962 companies showcased their wares at the conference. Software and content companies outnumbered the traditional telecom exhibitors with their innovative products. There were high-profile keynote addresses by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Motorola CEO Ed Zander, Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila, Ericsson president and CEO, Carl-Henric Svanberg among others. 

For Ballmer, it was time to put aside desktop for a while and concentrate on mobile phones and embedded devices and specifically recently launched Windows Mobile version 5.0.  On the other hand, Motorola's presence at the event was overwhelming.  In fact the entire city of Barcelona was plastered with Motorola advertisements. Orange, Vodafone, and other wireless operators also displayed their new products and services.

A large number of visitors from India including the Union Communications minister Dayanidhi Maran were also present.  Sunil Mittal of Bharti also spoke at the event. He said, “Mobile phones are a way to bridge the digital divide and a fantastic opportunity for India to exploit its full potential as a knowledge-based society.” Mittal also pointed out that around 500 mn people in India are under the age of 25 and the demand for affordable digital communication is set to increase.   

Some companies from India who displayed their latest products and services included Flextronics Sofware Systems, Bharti Telesoft, Jatayu Software, and ACL Wireless.  Idea Cellular got the distinction of becoming the first Indian company to win a GSM Award for 'Best Billing or Customer Care Solution' in a stiff competition with other International nominees like Orange Communications (SA), Bitfone (California), MegaFon (Moscow) and T-Mobile (UK). The application named 'Bill Flash' allows customer to dial a five digit string (eg *111# in Delhi) to get his 'unbilled amount and billing information' as a flash on his handset screen within 30 seconds, even while roaming.  

The event also saw a consensus emerging amongst a large number of operators on two important issue of spam and IM. The GSM Association and some of the world's leading mobile phone operators will sign a code of practice committing them to work together to minimize spam sent  via text and picture messages.  Another significant development was the coming together of 15 mobile phone operators (including Bharti, Hutchison Essar, Idea, MTNL, Aircel) to roll out interoperable instant messaging (IM) services that will build on the text messaging.

Sudesh Prasad in Barcelona  
sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in