Mark Bridge writes:
As the final days before this year’s Mobile World Congress approach, we discover there are two types of scheduled news announcements from the wireless telecoms industry.
There are the announcements delayed until MWC begins because the company wants to be part of the buzz at Barcelona. And there are the announcements made in the fortnight beforehand because they don’t want their story to get lost.
LG’s technique is to do both… and more. Last week it announced that its fifteen-million-selling Optimus L smartphone range is about to be upgraded to the L Series II, with an official launch taking place at Mobile World Congress. If that wasn’t enough, it’s already put one of the new L Series II smartphones on sale in Russia.
Also being revealed pre-MWC is a developer preview of the Ubuntu smartphone operating system, the new social media app from manufacturer-turned-developer Inq and the new Android-powered luxury phone from Vertu. More-than-just-a-browser-company Opera announced that it was acquiring more-than-just-a-browser company Skyfire. Oh, and the new Mobile World Centre opened in the Mobile World Capital of Barcelona. That’s quite enough MWCs for the moment.
Finally, research revealed that almost a third of the UK's web page views now come from mobile devices, almost a third of network revenue is expected to come from 4G services in 2017 and mobile broadband customers want more value-added services to choose from.
Right, it’s time I started preparing for Mobile World Congress myself. This time next week we’ll be reporting from Barcelona.
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