Photo Credit: GSMA

And so it begins, Mobile World Congress 2016, the annual confab in Barcelona where the telecommunications industry goes to beach themselves for a week.

As with any big event, day one kicks off with a flurry of announcements. Announced today are a bevy of new smartphones, 5G networks as the new frontier, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg making a surprise appearance to talk about virtual reality at Samsung’s event where they showed off Samsung Gear 360 which allows you to make your own virtual reality video with a 360 degree camera.

But what of IoT?  Here’s a rundown:

• In a sign of the future and the importance of the subject, the organizers of MWC introduced for the first time this year the Internet of Things (IoT) Pavilion.

• The organizing body of the show, GSMA, is introducing the Mobile IoT Initiative which has the first live demonstrations of Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) solutions in licensed spectrum. Visitors will experience a diverse range of solutions underpinned by three complementary technology standards known as Narrow Band IoT (NB-IoT), Extended Coverage EGPRS (EC-EGPRS) and LTE Machine Type Communication (Cat-M). The Mobile IoT Initiative is supported by 30 of the world’s leading mobile operators, OEMs, chipset, module and infrastructure companies.

• The organizing body will also showcase several IOT innovations including a “Mobile IoT Vineyard” that shows how mobile technology is helping to keep grapevines and wine stocks at optimum levels.

• Global M2M Association (GMA) - The GMA will showcase a live demonstration of its Multi-Domestic Service, an innovative global M2M connectivity management solution that significantly simplifies the global deployment, management and operations of M2M and IoT services for large enterprises.

• Continuing it’s march on leading IoT, Samsung moved forward on advancing their Open IoT Ecosystem with a new partner program and commercial availability of the SAMSUNG ARTIK™ Platform. Samsung’s new Certified ARTIK Partner Program is designed to help developers and companies jump start their development and take their ideas to market faster by working with carefully selected professional service providers and design houses.

• GE also made an announcement to grow its partner base and expand its Predix platform footprint with the GE Digital Alliance Program. The company says that this is the first ever program dedicated to growing the digital industrial ecosystem. This new alliance program is designed to connect systems integrators, telecommunications service providers, independent software vendors, technology providers and resellers with the technology and digital industrial expertise of GE. GE alliance members will be able to train and certify their developers and begin building industrial apps with Predix, GE’s cloud platform for the Industrial Internet.

• Visa Inc. announced that it is expanding its Visa Ready program to include Internet of Things (IoT) companies, such as manufacturers of wearables, automobiles, appliances, public transportation services, clothing and almost any other connected device. The Visa Ready Program for IoT will allow emerging IoT companies to join with mobile device manufacturers to evaluate, develop and potentially adopt new payment methods that are already approved by Visa, and can help financial institutions and merchants drive growth by expanding the use and acceptance of electronic payments globally.

• AT&T will showcase its capabilities as a global integrated provider helping millions around the world connect with leading entertainment, mobile, high-speed Internet and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. Inside the GSMA Innovation City, visitors will be guided around AT&T solutions that connect consumers and businesses, including AT&T IoT solutions such as connected car, smart cities and real-life industrial IoT use cases.

• Recently acquired Jasper will be demonstrating how leading enterprises are using its global IoT service platform to drive real-time business transformation, add value for customers and secure their share of the multi-billion dollar IoT market.

• Sierra Wireless, with partners Axis, Parkeon and Valeo, will showcase its latest innovative solutions in scenarios including how connected parking meters can become multi-service kiosks and enable services such as couponing, city news updates and payment of parking fines.

If you’re at #MWC2016, leave us a comment and let us know what we missed in the IoT buzz.

Photo Credit: GSMA