Newly promoted Netflix Co-CEO used a public speaking appearance at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week to push back on efforts by the European Union to have Netflix and other ISPs subsidize local internet infrastructure.

Last month, the EU started seeking public input to explore the possibility of having entertainment and tech companies including Netflix assume more of the burden for internet infrastructure upgrades.

"Some of our ISP partners have proposed taxing entertainment companies to subsidize their network infrastructure. As [EU] Commissioner [Thierry] Breton said yesterday, it shouldn’t be a binary choice between 'Big Telco' and entertainment companies," Peters said.

For one, Peters noted, European consumers already pay for the internet infrastructure upgrades needed to stream video through their ISP subscriptions. And Peters doesn't believe the ISPs would necessarily give the money back to their customers should they suddenly be relieved of the burden of technology improvements.

And while the tax is being proposed by the EU as a largely confined to Netflix, which it bills as the biggest driver of internet traffic, broadcasters, too, will soon rely on the same infrastructure just as much.

"As broadcasters continue the shift away from linear to streaming, they will start to generate significant amounts of Internet traffic too -- even more than streamers today based on the current scope and scale of their audiences," Peters said. "Broadband customers, who drive this increased usage, already pay for the development of the network through their subscription fees. Requiring entertainment companies -- both streamers and broadcasters—to pay more on top would mean ISPs effectively charging twice for the same infrastructure."

Peters also said that starting "10 years ago," Netflix started hearing "concerns" that ISP costs would disproportionately rise as Netflix consumption -- and profits -- increased.

"In line with predictions, traffic has consistently increased at around 30 percent a year," he said. "Turns out, the internet is very popular. And ISPs have managed this increased consumer usage efficiently while their costs have remained stable. Regulators have highlighted this too, calling out that infrastructure costs are not sensitive to traffic and that growing consumption will be offset by efficiency gains."

Peters also cited Netflix infrastructure improvements that have already been made.

"We are commercial partners with more than 160 telcos and ISPs across the globe — many of which bundle Netflix directly into their consumer offerings," he said.

"And we’ve spent over $1 billion on Open Connect, our own content delivery network which we offer for free to ISPs," Peters added. "This includes 18,000 servers with Netflix content distributed across 6,000 locations and 175 countries. So when our members press play, instead of the film or TV show being streamed from halfway around the world, it’s streamed from around the corner -- increasing efficiency for operators while also ensuring a high-quality, no-lag experience for consumers."

Count Mobile World Congress as the coronavirus’s latest victim.

The GSM Association today announced that it’s cancelling this year’s version of the global wireless industry’s biggest trade event, which was set to kick off in Barcelona, Spain on February 24, amid growing concerns over the coronavirus pandemic originating out of China.

Cancellations my major constituencies had already become a major issue for GSMA, with AT&T and Sprint jointing Sony, Amazon, Ericsson and host of other major technology companies choosing to eschew the risk of exposing their staffs to the virus.

Related: Amazon, Sony, Amdocs Join Coronavirus Exodus From Mobile World Congress

In a statement, GSMA CEO John Hoffman said the coronavirus outbreak made conducting a global technology event with a huge Chinese constituency not practical:

“With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, the GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event,” Hoffman said. "The Host City Parties respect and understand this decision. The GSMA and the Host City Parties will continue to be working in unison and supporting each other for MWC Barcelona 2021 and future editions. Our sympathies at this time are with those affected in China, and all around the world.”

Globally, coronavirus infections have exceeded 42,000 reported cases, with more than 1,000 reported deaths associated with the illness. 

Count Mobile World Congress as the coronavirus’s latest victim.

The GSM Association today announced that it’s cancelling this year’s version of the global wireless industry’s biggest trade event, which was set to kick off in Barcelona, Spain on Feb. 24, amid growing concerns over the coronavirus pandemic originating out of China. 

Cancellations my major constituencies had already become a major issue for GSMA, with AT&T and Sprint jointing Sony, Amazon, Ericsson and host of other major technology companies choosing to eschew the risk of exposing their staffs to the virus. 

Related: Amazon, Sony, Amdocs Join Coronavirus Exodus From Mobile World Congress

In a statement, GSMA CEO John Hoffman said the coronavirus outbreak made conducting a global technology event with a huge Chinese constituency not practical:

“With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, the GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event,” Hoffman said. "The Host City Parties respect and understand this decision. The GSMA and the Host City Parties will continue to be working in unison and supporting each other for MWC Barcelona 2021 and future editions. Our sympathies at this time are with those affected in China, and all around the world.”

Globally, coronavirus infections have exceeded 42,000 reported cases, with more than 1,000 reported deaths associated with the illness. 

Amazon, Sony and Amdocs have become the latest companies to announce that they will not be sending their personnel to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month, due to concerns about the growing coronavirus pandemic scare originating out of China. 

The new announcements Monday morning follow earlier pullouts by LG, ZTE, Nvidia and Ericsson. 

Mobile World Congress is slated for Feb. 24-27. It is one of the biggest trade events in the wireless communications business, if not the biggest. 

“Sony has been closely monitoring the evolving situation following the novel coronavirus outbreak, which was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization on Jan. 30th, 2020,” Sony said in a statement posted to its website. “As we place the utmost importance on the safety and wellbeing of our customers, partners, media and employees, we have taken the difficult decision to withdraw from exhibiting and participating at MWC 2020 in Barcelona, Spain.”

Added Shuky Sheffer, president and CEO of Amdocs, a major vendor to Comcast and other telecom companies, in his statement: “In the face of the public health concern from the novel coronavirus, we are placing the highest priority on protecting the health of our employees, customers and partners. While we appreciate the precautionary measures put into place by the GSMA, we believe the safest option is not to attend MWC 2020 in Barcelona.”

On Sunday, GSM Association, which organizes MWC, released an updated statement detailing steps its taking against the spread of the corona virus. No travelers from China’s Hubei province, where the outbreak originated, will be permitted access to the event. And anyone who visited other regions of China will need to prove that they have been out of the country for the previous 14 days.

More than 900 people have died in mainland China alone since coronavirus was first detected in late December amid nearly 42,000 confirmed cases.

Mobile World Congress counted around 109,000 attendees last year, with somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 coming from China, according to the GSMA.

Samsung Electronics is using this week’s Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona to trot out “commercial” gear for 5G-powered fixed wireless access services.

Samsung’s 5G FWA portfolio includes 5G home routers for indoor and outdoor use; a 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) comprised of a radio access unit and virtualized RAN; a next-generation core; and “AI-powered”  3D radio frequency planning tools and services.

Samsung noted that its 5G-facing product set has already undergone months of field trials in multiple markets, and announced that the FCC granted authorization of the vendor’s 5G access units on February 23.

Samsung expects its 5G platform to be deployed commercially in 2018 in the U.S.  

Verizon has already announced it will use Samsung gear for commercial 5G-based fixed wireless services, starting with a deployment in Sacramento, Calif., in the second half of the year.

At the event, Samsung said it is also showing off its first 3GPP Release 15-complaint 5G NR products supporting spectrum bands below and above 6GHz.

Ruckus Networks, the wireless-focused tech company acquired late last year by Arris, has introduced a new lineup of LTE-based products, including access points and a spectrum allocation server, aimed at the emerging market for the 3.5 GHz Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS) band.

That portfolio, introduced ahead of the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, is entering the fray as the shared-use CBRS band – a 150 MHz chunk of spectrum in the 3.55 Gigahertz to 3.7 GHz range -- becomes a focal point for traditional mobile carriers, cable operators and neutral-host service providers.

RELATED: CBRS Spectrum to Open Windows of Opportunity for Cable Ops

Ruckus’s CBRS band LTE portfolio includes the Ruckus Q710, a 3.5 GHz indoor access point/small cell with 10,000 square feet of coverage, the Q910, a 3.5 GHz outdoor AP/small cell that can cover a 660-foot city block, and a cloud-based element management system. ts CBRS product suite also includes pro services from Arris (for network planning and deployment, the cEPC (a cloud-based evolved packet core), and the cSAS, a cloud-based spectrum allocation server that is being marketed as an optional subscription service.

The spectrum allocation server is a key product component for the CBRS band's shared spectrum environment, as it ensures that new use cases for licensed and unlicensed capacity in that band do not interfere with incumbent users such as the U.S. Navy. Notably, Arris and one of its top customers, Charter Communications, are investors in Federated Wireless, a startup that specializes in spectrum allocation servers and systems and recently introduced a product interoperability program.

Ruckus said the new CBRS-focused portfolio is in trials today, with availability to come following anticipated FCC certification in the shared-use band.

RELATED: Comcast Wants to Test CBRS in Philly

Ruckus didn’t identify trial partners. In the cable world, Comcast and Charter have either started CBRS trials or have plans underway to test small cells that, for example, might be used to offset some of the network costs for mobile services that lean on MVNO agreements.

RELATED: Small Cells to Play Big Role in Charter’s Mobile Future

The CBRS/LTE access points being announced today are the first two of a larger, more comprehensive product line, as some will be capable of snapping onto existing Ruckus-made access points, according to Mark Davis, Ruckus’s senior director of product marketing.

When combined with the subscription services and other elements, the product suite is shaping up as a “CBRS in a box” solution, he said, estimating that Ruckus has more than 20 trials underway with operators of various shapes and sizes.

Ruckus also introduced a suite of Internet of Things products focused on enterprises and to address the complexities that some IoT solution vendors have created using vertically-integrated systems.

“IoT is an extraordinarily complex beast” as many of today's IoT solutions don’t talk to each other, Davis said.

The idea behind Ruckus’s approach is to consolidate the physical layer access networks into a unified IoT network. Those components include IoT-ready access points, IoT modules (based on standards such as Bluetooth Low Energy, Zigbee and LoRA, and IoT controller that works with the company’s existing SmartZone wireless LAN controller.

The result aims to create a common infrastructure between the wireless local area network and the IoT access network.

Ruckus also announced ecosystem partnerships with several IoT companies, including Assa Abloy Hospitality (smart security), LoRaWAN network specialist Actility, IBM (for its Watson IoT platform), Kontakt.io, TrackR, and Tile, a company that has developed an electronic beacon system that tracks a person’s belongings.

RELATED: Assa Abloy Seals Deal for August Home

Responding to the telecom chaos from Hurricane Irma, the Federal Communications Commission, working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has expanded its Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) data collection area to include 18 counties in Georgia and three counties in Alabama, in addition to its existing request for information from all of Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

In a notice late Monday (Sept. 11), the FCC asked cable, broadcast, wireless and wireline providers to submit daily infrastructure status and situational awareness information until the DIRS is deactivated. Providers must send their information to the FCC's DIRS site, a voluntary, web-based system that collects status reports "during times of crisis."

Meanwhile, the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau moved ahead to gather data from communications providers in the affected areas. The Bureau suspended Network Outage Reporting System obligations in the affected counties where DIRS has been activated. The FCC has set a schedule for filing reports by 10 a.m. every day until DIRS is deactivated.

Senate Adopts SANDY Act
Separately, the Senate adopted the Securing Access to Networks in Disasters (SANDY) Act of 2017 on Monday night.

“In the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, this legislation comes not a moment too soon," newly reinstated Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.

"We know that weather-related emergencies and other disasters can occur anywhere at any time," she said, adding that the legislation "promises to help speed restoration of essential communications in times of disaster."

The Senate's unanimous approval of the SANDY Act on Monday night followed House passage of the companion bill last week.

Pai Cites Disaster Response at Wireless Conference
FCC chair Ajit Pai, in a scheduled address to the first-ever Mobile World Congress Americas in San Francisco on Tuesday (Sept. 12), opened his remarks with an extensive explanation of the FCC's role as part of the federal government’s disaster response efforts. Pai said it will "be a long time before we’ll be able to calculate the total amount of damage inflicted by Harvey and Irma."

Then he complimented the wireless industry.

"We already know one thing: It would have been a lot worse if it weren’t for wireless communications," Pai said.

"We work closely with DHS, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, state public safety officials and private communications providers ... [to] monitor the status of communications networks in affected areas," Pai said, emphasizing the government agencies' efforts to "assist with recovery and restoration efforts" and to "ensure that first responders on the ground can quickly get access to the spectrum they need to communicate."

Pai stressed the value of wireless connections throughout his opening remarks to the San Francisco Conference, the first North American version of the landmark World Mobile Congress held in Barcelona each February.

"In the case of Hurricane Harvey, the one bit of good news is that wireless networks were much more resilient than in some previous disasters," he said, calling it a "lifeline."

"In the initial phase of Harvey, Houston’s main 911 emergency response center received more than 96,000 calls, many of which were from wireless phones," Pai said, drawing on his visit to Texas last week. "Many of the more than 11,000 people rescued by the Coast Guard were found because of wireless calls. That includes one 14-year-old girl who was saved after telling Siri, 'Call the Coast Guard.'

"The past two weeks remind us that for public safety purposes alone, wireless communications during times of emergency are critical," Pai said.

He also acknowledged the launch of Apple's new iPhone 8, which was debuting at an event a few dozen miles away in the Bay Area simultaneously with his speech.

"To me, the more notable coincidence of timing and location is that it was 10 years ago, in this very building complex, that Steve Jobs debuted the very first iPhone," Pai said. He used that example to praise the wireless industry for continuing its innovation.

Related: Apple Intros Apple TV 4K

"We find ourselves nearing another possible hinge moment," he said, using his term for pivotal advances in telecom technology. "We’ve seen remarkable progress, but it feels like we’re still waiting for another huge breakthrough."

"5G could well be what we’re waiting for," he said. "Going from 2G to 3G was the mobile equivalent of switching from dial-up to broadband. Similarly, the transition from 4G to 5G promises to be more than just incremental change — we could see dramatic improvements in network speed, capacity and responsiveness that will make the impossible possible."

Related: Charter, Samsung Team on 5G, 4G LTE Trials

And he used the platform to fret again about the lack of rural wireless broadband capability.

"I personally experienced this last week while driving from Houston to Austin," Pai said. "The personal impact of the 'no service" display in that case was trivial. ... But the wireless aspect of the rural digital divide has serious costs for many people. ... The mobile marketplace is healthy, but we’ve got work to do to close the digital divide and boost network investment, which go hand in hand. And we need to tackle these issues with an eye toward revving the virtuous cycle of faster, better networks that unleash new innovations that drive additional consumer demand."

The occasion of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona seemed a perfect occasion to drop in on the tech talk amongst wireless people. Like that luxuriously short, two-character, highly nebulous umbrella term that is “5G.”

Let’s start with what 5G isn’t. It isn’t 5 GHz (Gigahertz, which is a frequency/spectrum thing).

It isn’t 5 Gbps (Gigabits per second, which is a speed/throughput thing.) The “G” in “5G” is for “generation.” Fifth generation. Of what? Of mobile stuff. So far so good. However! When you ask involved technologists how they explain 5G to their bosses, a bemused exasperation happens. My favorite so far: “I tell them it’s easy — 5G is everything! Let the imagination run wild.”

Here’s a more serious answer to that question, from another batch of notes: “I tell them that 5G means highly distributed, pretty small cells, running a mix of licensed and unlicensed spectrum.”

IS THERE A THERE THERE?
When drawn onto a paper napkin, that highly distributed network, with pretty small cells, sure looks an awful lot like an HFC (hybrid fiber coax) network. And that explains all the wireless tire-kicking. We appear to be well into the “is there a there there?” stage.

Depending on who’s answering the question, for instance, here’s a sample of what 5G will do for us. First, it’ll retool the airwaves into Gigabit spigots, gleefully flinging gobs of throughput to our handhelds, no matter where we are (or whether we need it).

It’ll also be a major source of connective tissue for the things of the Internet of Things.

Heck, let’s throw in a little Machine-to-Machine (M2M) sensor reading, over low-power WANs (Wide Area Networks). Why not? It’s 5G! It’s everything.

A lot of people are talking about 5G. Here’s the observation that happens with the most frequency from my stashes of notes: “5G is both an opportunity and a threat.”

People who consider 5G a threat worry that it could replace “the last mile,” as in, of the plant that connects homes to headends. (These are the same people who tend to worry about what to worry about.)
People who see 5G as an opportunity are the same people who point out that every single wireless thing in the world needs a wire some of the time. Plus, 5G is coming out of the mobile industry, which is already a bestie in the “frenemy” category, because of established relationships with multichannel video programming distributors for cellular backhaul. The point: All those 5G small cells will need backhaul, too.

TALK NERDY TO ME
The good news is, the technology of 5G breathes vast new life into the landscape of Impressively Nerdy Terms: Millimeter wave and Extremely High Frequencies. MU-MIMO, shorthand for “Multi User-Multiple Inputs Multiple Outputs.” Beam forming. Beam bending. Dynamic time-division duplexing. (HOT.)

All fall into the category of “things that make the airwaves work better.” They’re all ways to optimize how our wireless lives work, behind the scenes.

ANATOMY OF A WIRELESS LAST MILE
One way to look at how 5G might intersect with the wired world is to pick a place, and compare the blueprint of its cellular network, with a blueprint of an HFC network in that same area. What would it take for a mobile carrier to light up a 5G small cell overlay?

Step 1: Determine the radius of the 5G radio/the small cell. How small is small? Millimeter wave radios, because they live way up in the Extremely High Frequency (EHF) zone, don’t go very far. Estimates vary (predictably), but somewhere between 100 and 300 meters is conceivable.

Step 2: Figure out how many small cells will be needed, based on how many people/devices are already inside that footprint. Let’s say it’s Denver. Let’s also say that mobile carriers here service the city’s 650,000-ish inhabitants with 100 macro cells (which is a total guess).

The point is that “densifying” that mobile footprint for 5G will likely involve an order of magnitude increase in small cells. Like if it’s 100 macro cells now, for 3G-4G, ballparking 1,000 small cells for 5G is, as they say, close enough for horseshoes.

WHEN: 2020
Here’s the second most frequent observation about 5G, from my notes: “5G is not clearly defined.”

When might you see 5G, like in your hand, working? Standards bodies — plural — are working on 5G, from the traditional mobile side and the WiFi side.

If the standards finalize by mid-2018, plus another 1.5 year-ish margin for silicon development and manufacturing, 5G looks like a 2020 thing. So we have three years to see which of its many tangents win, lose or draw.

Stumped by gibberish? Visit Leslie Ellis at translation-please.com or multichannel.com/blog.

"It's kind of hilarious that MWC and GDC happen at the exact same time. All of these headset makers need some sort of telepresence app to be in both places at once," media guru/author Robert Tercek posted from Barcelona on Tuesday, including a selfie wearing a new HMD.

(For those who cannot await the Leslie Ellis "Translation Please" explanation, those acronyms refer to the simultaneous Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, and lastly to the Head Mounted Display, an integral device for VR, err, Virtual Reality.)

The proliferation of equipment dominated the Barcelona buzz, especially a few Samsung, LG, Huawei and Sony handsets that stood out in an increasingly competitive hardware market (plus a revamped oldie from Nokia). A growing  category of ancillary devices -- such as the VR headsets, robots and IoT (Internet of Things) gizmos -- also attracted plenty of attention about the 120,000 attendees.

But perhaps the most significant output from MWC was the endless enthusiasm about the upcoming role of 5G (Fifth Generation) wireless networks -- although, as the BBC (British Broadcasting Corp.) reported, there was also considerable skepticism about how exactly that will work. Nonetheless, behind the 5G expectations was the growing acceptance that wireless broadband is a global reality that will compete with cable and other wired delivery systems.

Conveniently and coincidentally, Comcast CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Brian Roberts tangentially addressed the wireless issue during his remarks to the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom conference in San Francisco on Monday. Although Roberts' focus was on voice services via its MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) system, it's not hard to speculate on how Comcast's wireless agenda will encompass video delivery beyond the current TV Everywhere availability.

And that brings us back to Barcelona, where FCC (Federal Communications Commission) chairman Ajit Pai assured the world that his Open Internet objectives would pave the way for greater access to content.

During a panel discussion after his speech, Pai repeated his remarks about the value of light touch regulation. He again cited the new unlimited data plans recently introduced by four major U.S. wireless carriers as an immediate "positive result" after he announced plans to eliminate net-neutrality restrictions.

Pai said he believes the market is already responding positively from the previous "climate of uncertainty," although he confessed that "these are business and political issues that are above my pay grade" -- a remark that generated a chuckle from the audience, according to people in the room.  

Netflix Plan
Keynoter Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, a company nearing 100 million subscribers worldwide, carried on the unlimited data narrative, announcing, "A number of pioneering players will start providing unlimited data at lower speeds." He did not specify any details.

"You can enjoy it and not be worried about data caps," said Hastings, according to a Reuters report. He explained that Netflix has been optimizing video for internet delivery to deliver "amazing" pictures at speeds as slow as 300 kilobits per second.

"We are investing at many levels ... to ensure the experience on mobiles, desktops, and the Internet is just instant," Hastings said, although he avoided issues such as net neutrality.

Meanwhile MWC's major buzz centered on the role and timetable for 5G, considered by many to vital to the IoT evolution now in progress.  Still, there were skeptics. The BBC quoted an unnamed mobile carrier executive who asked, "Who's going to pay for it?" and an arms merchant (i.e., equipment vendor) who called the 5G hype comparable to the "irrational exuberance" of nearly 20 years ago during the dot-com bubble and extensive investments in fiber networks.

Related > Liberty Global CEO: 5G ‘At a Crossroads’

And back in San Francisco, the Games Developers continued to promise more visual and interactive breakthroughs, including tools for more immersive mobile games and virtual reality experiences.

Collectively, this week's digital developments -- and promises -- were a converging reminder about the looming competitive intensity for attention, bandwidth and money.

Pouring a bit of cold water on the hype around 5G, Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries questioned whether there’s a big enough of a financial return available to justify the amount of capital that will be required for a major shift to the emerging, next-gen wireless/mobile platform.

“We worry about that leap,” Fries said this week at the Mobile World Congress confab in Barcelona, Spain, noting that Liberty Global is in the mobile game now in nine countries in one way or another.

“We think 5G is actually at a crossroads,” he said, noting that capital requirements should be part of a 5G discussion that has centered on collaboration and cooperation. “It’s not pre-destined,” he said of 5G.

5G, Fries pointed out, will require a massive investment and involves more than “spectrum and chips.”

He fears that such an investment might not be forthcoming, particularly in Europe, if the environment in which Liberty Global and others operate doesn’t become healthier and if the mobile market there does not go through a wave of much needed consolidation.

 “120 operators vying for declining revenues is a difficult place to be in,” he said, noting that a consolidated fixed broadband market does present competition and benefits to the providers and consumers.

The U.S., he said, “has it right in many respects” pertaining to mobile and the number of competitive players.

“It’s going to be a difficult act here in Europe to see this 5G vision come to fruition if we don’t create a more stable competitive environment,” Fries said.

 Though 85% of Liberty Global’s revenues come from fixed broadband and video services, “we are rapidly evolving into a fixed and mobile converged company,” he said. “We’re committed to that.”

However, “if you want investment in 5G, there has to be an opportunity to get a return,” Fries said. “Or else it’s going to be spotty and high profile and not mass scale…There are too many mobile operators in Europe today. it’s very difficult to see a return with that much competition.”

Boiled down, he said the 2020 target being placed on full 5G “is too aggressive,” holding that there’s a lot more room for 4G/LTE growth. “I think it will be an evolution, not a revolution.”

Fries also discussed Liberty Global’s position on owning and controlling the content it makes available through its platforms.

RELATED: AT&T Entertainment Chief Touts Content

Without a Disney or a Time Warner, Europe is more fragmented with respect to content, but that has not stopped Liberty Global from taking a more targeted approach by acquiring sports rights in Holland and Switzerland and investing in production companies. Expect more of that.

“I think the cat’s out of the bag,” he said. “It won’t be long before companies like ours and others are integrating vertically, owning and controlling more content.”

Here’s another batch of news briefs from this week’s Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. Go here to check out our first roun of briefs. 

-Verizon said it has opened the door to thousands of developers to ThingSpace, its Internet of Things platform. Verizon said more than 4,000 developers are using ThingSpace since its launch in October 2015. Noting its global ambitions, Verizon said its IoT footprint now spans more than 120 countries, and expects to raise that total to nearly 200 by year-end. Verizon also said cloud APIs for ThingSpace will soon be available in beta form

-On the heels of a business and tech partnership forged last year, Ericsson and Cisco said they’ve been selected to transform Vodafone’s Portugal IP mobile backhaul platform. The system will feature Cisco Aggregation Services Router 9000 and Ericsson systems integration and global services.

-Expway, a wireless multicast company, introduced FastLane, a content delivery network solution optimized for mobile networks.FastLane, it said, optimizes the link from the network cell to devices using LTE Broadcast, Multicast Dynamic Switching and pre-emptive caching. At the show, Expway is running demos with Akamai and Huawei. Expway also announced that MediaTek will integrate the Expway middlware on its “helio” smartphone SoC family.

-Ovum issued a forecast that the number of m-commerce users worldwide will grow from 452.78 million in 2014, to 2.07 billion in 2019 amid the surge in adoption of person-to-person mobile transfer and mobile proximity payment technologies and the use of powerful smartphones with larger screens. The firm also expects the global transaction value of m-commerce to grow from $50.92 billion in 2014, to $693.36 billion in 2019.

-Chipmaker Marvell is showing a suite of silicon and software for the Internet of Things, wireless and smart home ecosystems, including demos running on Google Weave and Brillo and advancements in its Kinoma suite of products, modular virtual system on chips, and its Andromeda Box platform, which is made for Brillo.

As Mobile World Congress gets rolling, here’s a snapshot of what’s making news in Barcelona.

-Ericsson launched OTT Cloud Connect (OCC), an “open” cloud service that enables mobile operators to link up with multiple over-the-top players to deliver services. Ericsson said OCC “strives to fill the gap” between operator networks and OTT services by  “exposing” the OSS and BSS capabilities of players on both sides of the equation. Ericsson said Google/YouTube is among the first partners to get on-boarded on the OCC platform.

-Casa Systems, a company known for making cable modem termination systems and converged cable access platforms, is pushing deeper into wireless with the launch of the Axyom “virtualized” edge platform and Apex, a multi-standard, low-power small cell solution.  Casa said Axyom a virtualized multi-access solution for 3G/4G and trusted/untrusted WiFi access.

-Cisco Systems said it will work with  Ericsson and Intel to develop and trial what’s it’s billing as the industry’s first 5G router, claiming it will achieve faster speeds, lower latency and be able to handle “exponentially more Internet-connected devices.” As members of the Verizon 5G Technology Forum, Cisco, Ericsson and Intel are partnering with the carrier on an ecosystem aimed at accelerating the pace of 5G innovations.

-Ericsson said a 5G trial held with Verizon of new radio prototypes earlier this month achieved multi-gigabit speeds. The field trials of those prototypes used a mix of advanced beam forming, beam tracking,  new antenna designs (128 antenna elements and 64 radio chains in each prototype), and Multi-User MIMO technologies to enable speeds of more than 10 Gbps, the vendor said. 5G signals an evolution of today’s LTE technology, plus new radio access technologies that are often operating in higher frequency ranges.

-Elsewhere on the 5G front, T-Mobile and Ericsson said they’ll team on field and lab trials in the U.S., expecting them to get underway in the second half of 2016. Ericsson said it has already notched more than 20 memorandums of understanding to test 5G with operators worldwide.

-AT&T said it is growing its Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem by integrating tools and developer solutions with Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft. AT&T said, for example, that its developer tools, including AT&T Flow Designer and AT&T M2X, will now work with Cisco’s Fog agent, Fog apps, and Fog analytics systems, Intel’s IoT Developer Kit, and with Microsoft's cloud, analytics, and visualization tools.

-Adobe has added MPEG-DASH support and dynamic ad insertion to Adobe Primetime, its multiscreen TV platform, noting that the implantation will use the same workflows and business rules used to insert ads into HLS streams. The resulting work will enable streams with stitched ads to reach devices and browsers that support MPEG-DASH, including HTML5-complaint browsers, Adobe said.