Telecom Lead @ GSMA MOBILE ASIA EXPO 2012: The mobile
industry is about to enter a period of innovation that will require investment
to achieve the necessary economies of scale, according to chairman and CEO of
Telecom Italia and GSMA chairman Franco Bernabe.
We are at the verge of a new wave of innovation and its enablement requires
significant investments. Asia and China in particular is well placed to play a
major role in this innovation due to its human potential,” said Bernabe in his
keynote presentation at Mobile Asia Expo 2012.
Bernabe said the exact form of innovation is yet to be defined. At this moment
in time, we can only enable it, ensuring investments to increase speeds,
creating suitable regulation for healthy competition, and passionately
defending the core elements that ensured the previous wave’s success such as
security and interoperability.
Investment needs to be made in a predictable and fair regulatory environment
aimed at creating healthy competition for growth rather than penalizing the
industry for government profit as has and could happen,” Bernabe added.
If the mobile industry is able to address the issue, by 2015 it should see 9.1
billion mobile connections, 4.6 billion subscribers, 3.2 billion mobile
broadband connections and 350 million LTE connections, generating US$1.9
trillion and providing close to 10 million jobs.
Bernabe cited GSMA initiatives supporting innovation, including support for
mobile broadband and LTE convergence, reducing regulatory uncertainty and undue
costs associated with spectrum and driving the development of mobile NFC and
M2M technology.
