The Future Networks Guide to MWC18
This year’s Mobile World Congress is a particularly significant one for the GSMA’s Future Networks Programme. It marks a turning point in the road to commercial reality for two transformative technologies: Rich Communications Services, or RCS, and 5G.
RCS and the Future of Messaging at Mobile World Congress
Rich Communications Services (RCS) is an upgrade to SMS on a global scale, bringing the messaging services of the future to over 4 billion mobile phone users worldwide. RCS is an operator service that will work on any smart device or network, and will give customers the experience they’ve come to expect from OTTs, natively in their handset.
5G at Mobile World Congress
5G could account for as many as 1.2 billion connections by 2025. By then, 5G networks are likely to cover one third of the world’s population. The impact on the mobile industry and its customers will be profound. 5G could bring an evolution in VR (and AR), an area where we have seen growth in devices and applications over the last two years. They have so far been seen as somewhat dispensable functions due to latency and/or low quality of virtual images, but trials such as these could very well showcase the improvements made with 5G.
Download our free Future Networks Event Guide, where you will find a comprehensive list of RCS and 5G seminars, demonstrations and activities at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.