Discover insight from our team of highly experienced specialists as they share what you can expect from MWC 2022 and who the key players to watch are. While some trends informing the tapestry of our industry’s discourse remain familiar, others will take on evolved forms, and new threads will be woven in.
Mobile World Congress will run in a context of great uncertainty: most in our industry are keen to reengage in person, but even just weeks out from what we all hope will be another great gathering in Barcelona, it is difficult to divine whether 2022 will more closely resemble 2019 or 2021.
Some predictions, however, are easier to make—at least for Omdia’s service provider, AI, IoT, enterprise, cybersecurity, and entertainment analysts.
In this report, we’ve gathered insight from our team of highly experienced specialists to share what you can expect from MWC 2022 and who the key players to watch are.
Cloud dominated last year’s MWC. It’s clearer than ever that for traditional telcos, cloud providers are the suitors they dare not ignore, and equally the competitors they should fear. With Amazon’s announcements of its Private 5G service and its cloud WAN service, what telcos used to think was safe territory is being eaten by others. Look out for a big presence from AWS, but also for Microsoft and Google, as the webscalers reshape traditional telco business models, and from the likes of Amdocs, which is positioning as a partner for cloudification. Coopetition will be the name of the game.
Purpose is the corporate trend of our decade. MWC will certainly feature bombastic claims that connectivity innovations will transform the world for good. This year, however, expect a twist: although “mobile” is the name of the game at MWC, look out for messaging about fiber, FWA, and other forms of fixed access, especially cast in the light of narrowing the digital divide.
Edge is the new black. Proximity-based computing for latency-dependent apps is in style, with the major cloud providers, major vendors such as Dell, and some ISVs such as Oracle striking partnerships to place their kit or platforms in the network or customer edge, but also offering to codevelop new edge services for both consumers and enterprises with service providers as partners. Get skeptical if telcos and vendors start talking about edge as a tech rather than a means to deliver holistic industry-specific managed solutions.
The same holds true for private networks and IoT. We expect telcos, having lost ground, to use MWC as an opportunity to flesh out their generally unconvincing business vertical strategies, casting PN and IoT through an industry lens. Looking for good examples of industry approaches? Make sure to visit with Orange and DT while at the show.
Of course, 5G will feature prominently. B2B 5G is the next great hope for some, as real demand from business materializes. Omdia’s own research has found that businesses are keen for the benefits of slicing, so we are hoping for discussion of billable metrics to gauge the maturity of putative service provider offers. In consumer, will the pitch have shifted from cost-savings to incremental revenue gains? Our monetization research shows it has in some markets, at least.
The halls and meeting rooms will be abuzz as delegates and exhibitors share their views on the evolution and value of open RAN and next-generation 5G core, but this year you can expect two developments.
First, and rather obviously, the volume of chatter will increase as major providers test multi-vendor O-RAN solutions and telcos beyond the tier ones begin to dip their toes in the water. Second, more attendees will question the ROI of O-RAN. The assumption that vendor choice leads to increased value should be challenged. All eyes and ears will be on Rakuten, but also take the opportunity to learn from the pilot experiences of euro telcos such as Telefónica and Vodafone.
Running smarter, agile service creation and management, and integrated billing and digital customer experience are all more critical than ever when providers are operating through a chain of partners. We also expect AI discussions to move from CX to the network itself—from RAN to core network function automation and orchestration.
The battle for the home continues. Vendors that support consumer services delivery will focus on service provider opportunities to control the home network and entertainment experience via their set-top boxes or smart Wi-Fi routers, while software vendors will focus on how telcos can support their content super-aggregation strategies by helping them overcome integration and billing challenges.
We would be remiss not to acknowledge that the term metaverse is likely to be uttered hundreds of thousands of times by the MWC collective in a spirit of speculative musing, rather than grounded reality. We are sure there will be an eager audience for panels and talks given by attending Meta execs. Look for concrete examples of commercialized immersive experiences today, with many gaming vendors showcasing their wares on the show floor.
Finally, no MWC would be complete without a panoply of senior service provider executives pleading for regulatory relief, or at least parity with the global tech giants. This year, look out for a more conciliatory tone, as European, US, and other regulators coalesce around the requirement to ensure Big Tech’s increasing domination of our digital economies does not undermine market or societal goals.
Our analysts will be at MWC in force, along with editors from our sister publications Light Reading and Telecoms.com. We look forward to seeing you there.
Evan Kirchheimer - Vice President, Service Provider Research
Dario Talmesio - Research Director, Service Provider Strategy
