4 Wireless Carriers Making Waves At Mobile World Congress 2018

What To Expect

Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 kicked off this week in Barcelona, featuring cutting-edge telecommunications, mobility, and IoT technologies from more than 900 exhibitors from all over the globe. U.S.-based wireless leaders AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon made their presence known, with news of impending services and solutions, and new partnerships to reveal.

Here's what the four U.S. carrier giants are unveiling this week at MWC 2018.

AT&T Reveals Connected Health Solutions

AT&T took to MWC 2018 to show off the power of connected health. The Dallas-based carrier highlighted several new telemedicine and medication management use cases that are being powered by A&T wireless connectivity and IoT solutions.

AT&T is currently working with WaveGuide, the creator of a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) platform for testing and remote health monitoring, and mobile telemedicine technology provider swyMed to provide connectivity for its telemedicine platform that connects doctors and patients. The carrier is also working with Softbox, a U.K.-based specialist in temperature control packaging for the pharmaceutical industry that is enabled by AT&T's Global SIM card and AT&T Control Center.

Sprint Taking Wireless To The Skies

Sprint, along with Delta and in-flight broadband Internet service provider GoGo, have teamed up to evolve the in-flight Internet experience with faster, easier connections for airline passengers. At MCO 2018 the providers said they are striving to develop ’uniform hardware and operating standards’ for airlines.

The new group, which is calling itself the Seamless Air Alliance, wants to rely on satellites to connect passengers with faster 5G or broadband-level connections in the air. In addition to Overland Park, Kan.-based Sprint, satellite company OneWeb is also a part of the Seamless Air Alliance.

Verizon Names Samsung An LTE Network Supplier

Heading into MWC 2018, Verizon announced plans to work with Samsung to advance its 4G LTE open RAN initiative. Via the new partnership, Samsung will give Verizon's LTE advanced capabilities a boost.

Specifically, Samsung will supply networking equipment to support Verizon’s Open RAN initiative and increase network efficiencies. The equipment will let Verizon's 4G LTE network work with other ecosystem providers. All Samsung equipment will continue to enable Verizon’s LTE Advanced capabilities, as well as current CAT-M and future Narrow Band IoT platforms, according to the two companies.

Ericsson Injects Analytics Into T-Mobile Services

In Barcelona this week, Swedish telecom company Ericsson revealed that the first customer of its Ericsson Expert Analytics (EEA) solution in North America is U.S.-based wireless giant T-Mobile.

The EEA solution will give T-Mobile better insight into how its customers are experiencing its services, including VoLTE (video calling over LTE), rich communication services and mobile broadband, according to the two companies. Using EEA, T-Mobile will also be able to more proactively identify and resolve customer-impacting issues in their multi-vendor network in real-time, said Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile.