Barcelona is ready to host, once again, the Mobile World Congress (MWC), a meeting place for mobile technology professionals. From large companies to emerging ones, The entire telecommunications ecosystem will be represented at the Fira de Gran Via venue to present news, do business and discuss issues of concern to the sector. Media attention tends to focus on the latest developments; It is said without exaggeration that the MWC is the world showcase of what is to come and of what we already have here. This edition will attract interest in everything related to artificial intelligence. ChatGPT, the chatbot that writes texts and holds conversations that is causing a sensation, is a sample of what can be developed in this field. Another area of interest will be green technologies, in which the climate emergency pushes us forward. And they will continue trends that already emerged last year, such as the metaverse.
Beyond the news the purpose of doing business It is what makes Mobile one of the great economic events. Establish contacts that will give rise to commercial contracts or investments. Some 80,000 attendees will come (more than the 60,000 visitors in 2022), and this effervescence will leave an economic impact of 350 million euros in the Barcelona and L’Hospitalet area. We know that the effect is greater, because the fair contributes to positioning Barcelona as a technological ‘hub’. Catalonia is home to almost a hundred multinational development centers foreign, according to a study by the Mobile World Capital Foundation, the public agency Acció and the city council of the Catalan capital. The alliance that ensures the MWC until the year 2030, With the aim of making it permanent, it will consolidate these synergies that are so beneficial for the local economy.
Mobile is also, as we have said, a forum for debate. After the announcement this week by the European Commission that it will open a public consultation so that giants like Google, Amazon or Meta (Facebook) pay a toll for using the networks, we will have to pay close attention to what they say at the inaugural conference the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, and representatives of large operators such as José María Álvarez-Pallete, from Telefónica, and Christel Heydemann, from Orange. It fully touches one of the foundations of the Internet, net neutrality, and a historical claim of those who maintain them, the operators. In its beginnings, it wanted to protect everyone’s access to the Internet to prevent telephone companies from prioritizing services according to their interests, leaving out small creators. What has ended up happening is that business giants have emerged, digital platforms that earn millions in profits using networks that do not pay. With the addition that each time the use of this structure is more intensive and requires greater investments (the deployment of 5G) by the operators. It is fair to consider that companies like Amazon pay a toll to contribute to the construction of these networks that use and that does not endanger neutrality, because these companies are now the ones that are in a position of dominance. In the same way that it is also fair, as publishers defend, that companies like Google compensate them for making huge profits from some content that is not produced by these platforms, but by the media.