Research Note

Abstract

Although a substantial crowd flocked to La Fira this year, the absence of fanfare and extravaganza was noticeable. According to the GSMA, more than 88,500 persons attended the event, up 45% YoY, mainly driven by the return of Asian delegates after a 3-year COVID-19 triggered hiatus. But unlike the 2 previous years and the pre-pandemic era, no one stole the show this time around. Instead, it was all about wisdom and good judgement among well informed professionals trying to check their own facts about their specific field of interest. For us, most of our discussions outside—yes there is a lot going on a la Playa de la Barceloneta for instance—and inside of La Fira from Friday 2/24 to Friday 3/1 centered around the 3 following topics:

• Open RAN
• Energy savings
• Private wireless networks

And before we dive into the 3 above areas, one MWC23 observation we want to share was the visible split between the West, geopolitically defined as the U.S. and its allies, and the East led by China and its allies. Clearly, the 2 spheres of influence had very different agendas: the 3 above topics for the West and non-enhanced mobile broadband use cases and 5.5G and beyond 5G for the East. Fascinating, isn’t it? Note that we analyze the 2 spheres of influence every quarter in our Wireless Infrastructure market report.

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Companies covered include AirHop Communications, Baicells Technologies, Benetel, Cohere Technologies, Comba Telecom, Dell Technologies, Deutsche Telekom, DISH, Fujitsu, JMA Wireless, Juniper Networks, Mavenir, Microsoft Azure for Operators, NEC, Nokia, Orange, P.I. Works, and Rimedo Labs.