Mobile World Congress: Connectivity Backed by Network Optimization

We are here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, among the world's leaders and innovators in the mobile industry!

As GSMA Chairman and Telenor Group CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas introduced in his keynote on Monday, the mobile world has rapidly accelerated in the last two decades, and today, there are close to seven billion SIM connections in the world. It's clear that the next generation of mobile innovation will serve to expand that number, explained Jon, but huge investments need to be made in high-speed mobile broadband and LTE networks to get there.

We also had the opportunity to attend some of yesterday's action-packed, keynote presentations to discuss in greater detail where the industry is headed.

For instance, we heard from Ahmad Julfar, CEO of Etisalat, who talked about the high penetration of mobile usage in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), currently at 75 percent. Ahmad firmly believes that mobile connectivity is a necessity for business growth, and is optimistic for the growth of mobile networks.

Daniel Hajj, CEO of America Movil, gave a bit of a different perspective when speaking on the development and deployment of mobile connections in emerging markets, specifically Latin America. Digital services are not always commercially available, especially where dispersed populations have led to high infrastructure costs with low revenue potential. However, demand for machine-to-machine connectivity and other big data services may create sufficient revenue streams, so that such areas are worthwhile for mobile operators to invest in.

In line with that prediction, we also heard from the co-founder and CEO of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, as well as Mark Zuckerberg, the famed Facebook CEO. These two social platforms (which could soon consolidate, should Facebook's acquisition offer go through) demonstrate the trajectory of the mobile market in that both companies are driven by the desire to help people all around the world connect and have access to necessary resources. In the end, that's what all our mobile investments, network optimization and growth are supporting: connecting person one with person two, or with a service.

There are many interesting demos on the show floor of products and services that will help support that network evolution — be sure to stop by the Infovista booth (#7G40) this week to learn how Infovista's mobile network optimization and network coverage reporting solutions are helping operators around the world improve the impact of their infrastructure investments on the world's next billion mobile connections.