BARCELONA — The four day journey of this year’s biggest tech event, the World Mobile Congress, wrapped up on Thursday, attracting 110,000 visitors from around the world to see the latest technologies and solutions presented by 2,200 companies.
This year’s MWC in Barcelona, Spain, showed how companies have moved forward from a year ago, and gave a clearer shape to 5G-enabled devices. While the MWC in 2016 focused on the speed of 5G, this week’s event showcased how new services can be realized based on the 5G network.
Mats Granryd, director general of the GSMA, which hosted MWC, said in describing the event, “We will move away from being vague on the prospects of 5G this year to concrete proposals.”
At the event, the most prominent technology of 5G-enabled services applied to daily lives was connected automobiles.
With 5G expected to be realized within two years, automakers, telecom companies and chipmakers have partnered to show off their connected car technologies — communications among cars and infrastructure, real-time navigation, remote-controlled vehicles and autonomous driving.
German automaker BMW and US chipmaker Intel partnered to present their future autonomous car driving technologies. BMW grabbed attention by demonstrating its autonomous car parking technology outside the main hall. Intel also envisioned its 5G-enabled connected car platform in partnership with BMW and Israeli tech firm Mobileye.
French car manufacturer Peugeot unveiled the self-driving concept car Instinct that uses Samsung Electronics’ Internet of Things platform Arctic. Mercedes-Benz showcased its online connectivity and navigation tools in the Mercedes-Benz E Class Coupe.
| (Yonhap) |
Meanwhile, home appliance companies also showcased their 5G-enabled smart home appliance technologies.
Dutch technology company Philips unveiled its smart lighting that figures out a user’s location to automatically turn on and off lighting. It can be controlled from outside the home through voice commands via the smart speaker Amazon Echo.
German tech firm eQ-3 showcased a smart home technology that can control temperature, security, alarms and lighting in partnership with Amazon Alexa.
Korean telecom operator SK Telecom also offered its AI-powered speaker NUGU that controls home appliances while KT showcased its voice command TV Giga Gini platform.
In terms of realizing a 5G network, Korea’s two telecom operators KT and SKT vowed to commercialize 5G by 2019.
KT CEO Hwang Chang-gyu said the company will “commercialize a 5G network by 2019” during the keynote speech on the first day of the tech congress, showcasing how 5G can change the world by citing the pilot services for the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics.
SK Telecom’s CEO Park Jung-ho also said in its press conference Tuesday, “We will commercialize 5G as early as possible by closely cooperating with relevant companies.”
Tech companies aiming to take leadership have partnered to advance the 5G standardization during the event. A total of 22 companies, including AT&T, NTT Docomo, Vodafone, Ericsson, Intel, SKT, KT, LG Uplus and LG Electronics, have partnered to hasten the standardization of 5G.
By Shin Ji-hye
Korea Herald correspondent ([email protected])
