Canadian tech firms connect in Spain
Mobile World Congress features 5G application, new AI developments
Brian Simon, director of sales at NRT Technology, values the annual Mobile World Congress because it allows direct contact with his major customers in one stop.
“This show attracts more than 110,000 people, but I’m really only interested in seeing about 15,” he said in an interview this week from Barcelona, where the world’s largest gathering of mobile industry is once again being held.
Simon’s firm is a Toronto-based provider of services such as electronic ticket redemption, cash access and payment kiosks that has exhibited at Mobile World Congress (MWC) for several years. His firm, which exports services to prepaid telecom customers, has a large footprint in the Caribbean and eastern Europe.
Brian Boychuk, sales and marketing vice-president at Toronto-based BeWhere Inc., said the firm, which designs asset tracking technology, is represented at MWC as it pursues a shift from a traditional reliance on the U.S. export market to business with European carriers.
“This show is where you find them,” said Boychuk in an email.
BeWhere and NRT, along with Sierra Wireless and Vancouver-based social media platform Hootsuite, are among the more than 100 Canadian organizations at the show. The annual event brandishes the latest devices from manufacturers, along with gear from telecom suppliers, has drawn more than 2,300 exhibitors from around the globe.
Major themes at this year’s MWC, which runs through Thursday, included plans for super-fast 5G wireless networks as phone traffic carriers work to overcome the operational challenges of rolling out the next generation of mobile infrastructure and services.
MWC kicked off Monday just after the 2018 Winter Olympics, which gave 5G its worldwide debut when mobile operator KT offered a 5G autonomous bus, as well as virtual reality views of the games.
Sharing centre stage at MWC is artificial intelligence, as vendors demonstrate technology that can improve the way te- lecom networks are managed.
Developments in the so-called Internet of Things — which refers to the billions of devices interconnected over the web — feature heavily at this year’s MWC with a special focus on 5G applications. Richmond, B.C.-based Sierra Wireless, for example, says it is showcasing Internet of Things innovations in Barcelona in areas such as “connected agriculture.”
Combining with Bosch Software on a greenhouse designed to optimize harvest via sensors that monitor various growing conditions.
The MWC show, as usual, also included smartphone launches with new virtual-reality, security and biometrics applications appearing on handsets from companies including Samsung, Nokia and Sony.
BlackBerry Mobile is the name used by Chinese consumer electronics maker TCL to sell devices with the iconic smartphone brand as part of a licensing deal with Waterloobased BlackBerry Ltd.
It’s said that it has at least two more handsets planned for 2018 — though it’s unclear if a launch will take place at MWC.
BlackBerry Mobile released the KEYOne at MWC 2017, with a “KEYTwo” possibly in the offing and observers say it may revive the Priv phone with a sequel titled Uni. TCL registered the trademark just before the mobile exhibition.
BlackBerry aims to increase its presence in the high-end smartphone market and has been talking up the brand in interviews at MWC as it seeks to build up direct sales channels as well as relationships with carriers.
For Canadian companies, attending the wireless industry’s biggest trade show is also an exercise in collaboration.
“We are working very closely with both provincial and federal partners along with the Trade Commissioners Service,” said Clara Buelow, marketing manager of Winnipeg based non-profit ICT West, which supports companies from western provinces at international trade exhibitions.
The organization is buttressing the networking efforts of the 46 companies from the provinces at MWC, the biggest-ever presence at the show, with the firms in addition to delegations from regions including Ontario and Quebec.
Buelow said the dynamic is similar to the approach at the CES tech trade show in Las Vegas in January, but with even more trade commissioners providing matchmaking assistance for companies.
NRT Technology’s Simon said at least 20 federal trade commissioners in addition to provincial counterparts “are all working very hard on the show floor.”
He said the assistance has been a benefit in terms of facilitating meetings with the right high-powered executives, and in government support to defray some of the cost of setting up and staffing NRT’s display booth in the Canadian pavilion area of the massive exhibition space.
The show included smartphone launches with new virtual-reality, security and biometrics functions