Sector: Telecommunications

Held in Barcelona, February’s Mobile World Congress demonstrated ongoing fast-paced developments in the mobile telephony and technology industry, with the wide array of new BlackBerry-like smartphones on show indicating that the problem of clogged networks is only likely to worsen.

Significantly, this challenge is driving operators to change their charging systems and invest in ‘4G’ (fourth generation) mobile broadband technology, to facilitate faster download speeds and ease network congestion.

Altium Securities’ analysts Jonathan Imlah and Jon Fletcher were in attendance and found the congress ‘awash with new smartphones’, notably from Asian handset manufacturers unveiling their latest iPhone-killer, ‘many of which’, they say, ‘look like they may give Apple a run for its money’. In addition, Microsoft, Samsung, Google, Nokia and Intel all showcased their updated mobile operating systems – such as current leaders Symbian and Android – aimed at the smartphone market.

‘It is also clear that touch-screen devices will no longer be exclusively the domain of the early adopters and are heading for the mass market,’ write Imlah and Fletcher. Chinese phone-maker ZTE for one launched a low-cost touch-screen handset, which will be available in the UK for less than £60 later this year. ‘The proliferation of multifunctional, application-rich devices is only likely to exacerbate the thorny issue of network congestion that so many operators are facing as a result of offering flat-rate unlimited data billing plans to heavy data users,’ the duo add.

However, with 3G becoming congested, 4G or LTE (Long-Term Evolution) looks likely to make a significant impact, and the pair note ‘a preponderance of chipset manufacturers, network equipment vendors and test solutions providers touting their LTE wares’ in Barcelona.

Commercial LTE networks have been launched in Sweden and Oslo and are planned across several US and Japanese cities later this year, meaning that Europe, the US and Asia will all have functioning LTE networks. Altium notes that more than 120 network operators have committed to follow suit in the next couple of years.