Special Report, Part One: Mobile World Congress & Exponential Change - Dan Hodges

There were a record 70000 people attending Mobile World Congress this past week MWC is a gathering of operators and the ecosystem players supporting them including handset manufacturers equipment manufacturers and software and services providersIn a much bigger sense MWC is a snapshot of the most dramatic inflection point and disruptive event in human history The mobile wave is washing over the entire world and by 2018 ninetytwo percent of the world will be covered by mobile Nokia says quotall you need is a phone number and a mobile device to participate in the information economyquotThe last five years have seen the fastest technology wave moving from 2G ampamp 3G to 4G with ATampampT seeing a 30000 increase in mobile data traffic growth in the last six yearsThis trend has already impacted our personal and professional lives Telefonica offers interesting statistics to support these statementsamp183 70 of people check their phones at least once per houramp183 66 of people sleep close to their phonesamp183 26 of people check their phones at the dinner tableThe Speed of ChangeIt took 22 years to reach two billion connections and it will take six years to reach the next two billion connections The GSMA projects that data revenues will surpass voice revenue by 2018 Internet usage will double by 2015 The doubling of Internet access will create 64000000 jobs according to the CEO of Qtel He points out that quotmobile broadband is not just economic it has social and political impact as wellquot Qtel is one of the largest operators in the Arab worldGDP growth is proportionally correlated to broadband penetration A ten percent increase in mobile data penetration increases GDP between 121 and 138 Mobile is set to impact the masses in Africa Only onethird of the African population has a mobile phone Africa39s wireless usage is the lowest in the world and thus has the greatest growth potential Innovative mobile programs such as Nokia Life Tool have the potential to address low literacy levels in the MENA area which is only 23 literateThe mobile world is moving at breakneck speed toward the mobile economy according to the GSMA in 2013 there are 68 billion global connections projected to grow to 97 billion connections by 2017 Broadband connections are growing to 52 billion connections in 2017 from 16 billion connections in 2013 LTE or Long Term Evolution will grow from 62000000 connections to 920000000 connections by 2017 There will be more data usage in 2013 than all combined data usage up to 2012 according to ATampampT It says the cloud and LTE are the two most important forces that will shape mobile going forward We are rapidly moving from the smartphone to the cloudcomputing era What is coming next will change every industryThe Rise of New IndustriesThere are several areas of mobile transformation that will touch every part of the economy and society Here are the industries1 Security Mobile security will be an increasing issue The average user has 26 accounts and 5 passwords Secure authenticated services are critical to the future of mobile Business banking commerce government health care education and much more will flow through the mobile pipe The ability for secure and privacy compliant communications will be critical for mass adaption2 Connected Cars according to JD Power the majority of new car consumers will not consider a new car unless it can accommodate their phone Last year Bill Ford Chairman of Ford projected 4 billion cars by 2050 This year Steve Grisky General Motor39s Vice Chairman said that GM will offer LTE connectivity for cars in 2014 He said quotno one will do this as quickly as usquot Ford had an entire booth dedicated to its connected car at MWC3 Mobile Wallet Visa MasterCard dozens of startups and operators showed their ideas for mcommerce MasterCard announced Masterpass which pulls together cash payments and those made with a mobile device The trials will start in Australia and Canada4 Mobile Health Many experts predict billions in savings with innovations in compliance remote treatment health monitoring elder care The cloud is an area of opportunity for mobile operators NTT DoCoMo has embraced mobile health and is changing its business model away from being platform focused toward a company providing mobile services The new business will focus on media commerce M2M financepayments and health5 Mobile ampamp Cloud Based Business Cloud computing will replace mobile on device computing by 2015 The cloud is an area of opportunity for mobile operators Joachim Horn CTIO of Tele2 described the cloud as quotone of the few hypes that has real substancequot He said the benefit of the cloud is that it offers economies of scale accelerated time to market The network build out to support the cloud will be a boom to companies like Ericsson and Nokia Siemens6 Machine to Machine M2M Machine to Machine will bring enormous productivity gains There will be an estimated 50 billion M2M connections by 2020 according to TMobile M2M will play a big role in five industries over the coming years1 Energy2 Automobiles3 Health4 Transportation5 Home ManagementRead Part Two of Dan39s Special Report Mobile World Congress ampamp The Mobile Consumer tomorrow Read Shelly Palmer39s thoughts of the Mobile World Congress hereDan Hodges is President of ChaCha Search Inc Dan can be reached at danhodgeschachacomRead all Dan39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at MediaBizBloggers Guest BlogCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

Special Report, Part One: Mobile World Congress & Exponential Change - Dan Hodges

Author

Publish date

Channel

Daniel Hodges

Hispanic Leadership Roundtable: Inclusion, Mentorship, and Building the Next Generation (Video) - By Juan Ayala

More Videos:

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

Special Report, Part One: Mobile World Congress & Exponential Change - Dan Hodges

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Daniel Hodges

Hispanic Leadership Roundtable: Inclusion, Mentorship, and Building the Next Generation (Video) - By Juan Ayala

The payment was successful

Cookies