This year’s MWC Barcelona event was technically the mobile telecommunication industry’s annual halo gathering, bringing together people from all over the world to talk about, drink about, and hypothesize about the latest and greatest in the world of mobile telecom. A real “Kum Ba Yah” moment.

But, I am here to tell you that is all a lie.

This year’s MWC Barcelona event might have technically been the annual, halo MWC event, but it in no way represented what every annual MWC event is supposed to be, which is a collective asking of “what’s next?”

(I will admit upfront that I make this acquisition not actually having been on site at this year’s event. But I also think that perspective is clearer as I am not operating in the usual jet-lagged fog I typically exist in during and for at least a week after the event.)

Numbers don't mean success

By the numbers, this year’s event attracted more than 100,000 people, and according to folks on site appeared to be back at pre-COVID levels of attendance and subway density. That sounds great and all, but all I can deduce from this information is that a lot of people were involved in a failed event.

My accusation is based on how casually the term “5G” was used at the event.

5G?

5G!

What year is this? 2015?

Was everyone actually comfortable with the fact that a term that was being used enthusiastically nearly a decade ago was still being used at this year’s event?

We are nearly a quarter-way through the 21st Century, people, and one of the world’s most forward-looking and technologically advanced industries is comfortable using a term that is more than 17 seconds old?

What happened to us? Where did our short-attention spans go? Are we not the same people that have worn scrolling grooves into our smartphone screens?

I understand that 5G is a reality today and something that is actually tangible. Heck, MWC Barcelona organizer GSMA was happily touting that 5G technology was supporting 1.6 billion connections worldwide. That’s great everyone. Good job. Way to go. We did it!

But when did this industry ever start resting on its laurels because something was successful or worked?

Aren’t we supposed to have dedicated professionals specifically tasked with coming up with the next new thing before we even had a chance to realize there was a stable, operational, money generating old thing?

When did the real world start getting in the way?

I know some at the event attempted to gain momentum around terms like 5G-Advanced or the even the cooler 6G, but where was the needed marketing/hype/fireworks of support? I don’t want to hear anything about how there are no official 5G-Advanced specifications or that 6G is still years away.

Am I living in crazy town here? When did this industry ever start letting the real world dictate our reality?

I know there were some attempts to smooth over this travesty by infusing the term “artificial intelligence” into as many new items as possible so we would think there was progress being made, but that’s just being lazy. These folks thought they could bedazzle our attention away from the fact that nothing was really new.

All I can hope is that MWC Barcelona 2024 was an aberration and that we forget what happened last week as quickly as possible.

Better yet, let’s all focus on making up for this obvious mistake, take a mulligan and make sure we make up for this at “MWC Barcelona 2025: The Year of 7G!”