Last week, GSMA hosted Mobile World Congress 2021 in Barcelona. Because we are still in a pandemic, it was quite different from previous events. 

But what I want to know is what was the latest news and buzz coming out of MWC. And luckily, I know someone who attended the event in person - so let’s get the lowdown from him. 

Ferry Grikpink is a Senior Partner with McKinsey & Company,  the founder of McKinsey's Center for Advanced Connectivity and McKinsey's Global Lead, Digital & Analytics, for Technology, Media & Telecommunications. 

Show Notes:

03:00 What were the key themes at MWC

07:00 The US (284) has nearly as many cities with 5G coverage as China (376), but it only has 10% of the number of 5G subscribers. What causes this variance?

14:00 The latest on OpenRAN, including the announcements from NTT/NEC, Google Cloud and more

17:00 Data Privacy - has the operator's failure to monetise mobile advertising created a new Value Proposition for them?

20:00 The coolest solutions at MWC, including multi-player AR gaming, creating mesh networks from chipsets and more. 

23:00 Rapid Fire Q's 

- Biggest surprise at MWC

- Biggest disappointment

- Wish List - what wasn't discussed that should have been?