The future
Other form-factors
This year's MWC is happening in the shadow of the Apple iPad. Many members of the ARM ecosystem, as well as Intel, are looking as much at tablets and mini-notebooks as smartphones for future growth.
We expect to see novel offerings from HP and Dell and would be surprised not to see other far-Eastern OEMs - especially Acer - join the party.
Qualcomm
The world's biggest fabless semiconductor company has been busy diversifying its offering to grab as big a piece of the mobile Internet pie as possible. So while we expect to hear more about the next generation of Snapdragon - and possibly see some more devices based on the current one - we expect Qualcomm to focus as much on some of its other technologies.
These include the Mirasol e-reader display, which has the potential to bring LCD-like colour and adaptability to a non-backlit display. We'll also hear more about FLO - it's mobile TV technology - mobile commerce platforms like Plaza and Xiam, and its plans for LTE, which is looking like the default 4G wireless technology.
LTE
3G is only just nearing ubiquity in mobile phones and already there are fears it provides insufficient bandwidth. With everyone being urged to consume more and more of their media on wireless devices we will soon need fatter pipes.
LTE (long term evolution) looks like it has won the race to become the 4G technology of choice - certainly in Europe - and a number of operators, handset makers and infrastructure companies will be showing how close they are to delivering consumer LTE products.
Femtocells, etc
There are other ways of dealing with exponential growth in wireless data traffic. Femtocells are mini base stations placed in the home or office to boost the wireless signal as well as facilitating fixed-mobile convergence.
Qualcomm's FLO technology is vying with DVB-H to be the parallel network used for broadcasting mobile TV, while Intel hasn't given up on WiMAX yet. Also,the industry has yet to establish the best pricing model for wireless broadband to best attract consumers and perhaps new technologies will facilited uncapped mobile broadband tariffs.
