Barcelona in late February is a hunting ground for pickpockets, for it is there that members of the telecoms industry annually convene to show off their latest wares, some of which still have yet to be announced.
About 100,000 people will attend Mobile World Congress this year. Delegates will come from all sectors of the industry, including makers of the base stations that transmit phone signals, producers of the mobile devices that receive them and developers who make the apps that phones depend on.
High on the industry agenda is 5G, a network technology that aims to make data communication speeds significantly faster than its predecessor, 4G. Mats Granryd, director-general of the industry body GSMA, which organises the conference, says: “We will move away from being vague on the prospects of 5G this year to concrete proposals.”