Mobile World Congress, Day 1: Putting the End-User Experience Front and Centre

Today marked the long-awaited start of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Earlier this month, the GSMA predicted that the mobile industry trade show would be its biggest and best ever—and that’s certainly proving to be the case for Comptel. We had well over pre-set 100 meetings with customers, prospects, partners and media and industry analysts, and are very much anticipating this to be a successful event.

After walking around the Fira Barcelona for only a few minutes, it became clear to me that Google’s Android was everywhere! That little, green robot (which surprisingly resembles our own Comptel Control and Charge Franken-Network) covered everything from Huawei’s and Samsung’s expo hall booths to t-shirts and other giveaway goodies and more. It definitely lived up to its status as the current, high profile smartphone operating system in the world.

What the prominence of Android demonstrates is how much the customer experience has taken centre stage—and the Nokia / Microsoft tie-up can be very much seen in that context. As our research demonstrated, consumers see quality of experience (QoE) as a key driver that will influence their allegiance to their communications service provider, handset manufacturer, operating system, etc. And of course, looking at it from our own OSS perspective, it is clear that policy and charging control provide key levers to deliver that QoE.

What have you thought about Mobile World Congress so far? What other key themes do you see emerging throughout the week?