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It’s become an annual neXt Curve tradition. A brutally honest recap and reflections on Mobile World Congress with Earl Lum of EJL Wireless Research, and Marc Pous of Edge Impulse, over amazing food, amazing wine, at a hidden, lesser-known culinary gems in the beautiful city of Barcelona - Oido.

This year, the GenAI bulldozer continues to plow through the halls of Fira Gran Via affecting every layer of the mobile industry and ecosystem. Leonard, Earl and Marc test the hype and realities of AI-RAN, network APIs, sovereign telco neocloud, and oldie but goodies, 5G monetization, NTN, and the path to 6G.

In this episode, Leonard, Earl, and Marc talk about some of the top topics of Mobile World Congress 2026. 

➡️ Humanoid robots were the biggest distraction of MWC 2026.
➡️ The evolution of "sovereign" infused with defense and national security. 
➡️ Is the mobile industry drifting rudderless?
➡️ Will MWC become a physical AI conference?
➡️ The killer AI for the telco/mobile industry!
➡️ rApps and SMO have an agentic heyday!
➡️ 3-years later: The flop that was Copilot for telco.
➡️ The value of simple and boring AI.
➡️ What is 6G? Has anyone figured it out?
➡️ The physical AI for the mobile/telco industry unveiled!
➡️ Uplink steals the 6G and 5G Advanced show at MWC 2026.
➡️ Why is 5G monetization still a mystery?
➡️ What was hot in IoT at MWC 2026?
➡️ The state of telco neocloud. Is it just another Metaverse?
➡️ The brutal reality of connecting the middle of nowhere and weapons guidance.
➡️ Is the data center in space the new "Pigs in Space"?
➡️ What do we expect will be the key themes and topics of MWC 2027?

Hit Leonard, Marc, and Earl up on LinkedIn and take part in their industry and tech insights.

Check out Earl and his research at EJL Wireless Research at www.ejlwireless.com.
Check out Marc at IoT Stars at www.iotstars.com.

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NOTE: The transcript is AI-generated and will contain errors.

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only.