Live from 3GSM in Barcelona

This is Brian reporting live from the jam-packed 3GSM conference in Barcelona. As the show gets situated in its new home (no longer the balmy Cannes of yesteryear), the chaotic environment is nonetheless charged with much positive energy and a fire hose-like spray of unending news. Here's a short wrap-up of my day.

IMS, IMS, IMS is on everyone's lips at the show today with the fixed/mobile convergence (FMC) bandwagon driving the network overhaul initiative. Along those lines, Nokia spearheaded the IMS trend with a UMA-enabled handset that allows end users to make calls via the Internet when in range of a WiFi hotspot and switch over to carriers' cellular networks where WiFi is not available.

Since the Nor'easter that slammed the U.S. prevented my luggage from joining me here in the Mediterranean clime, Nortel was kind enough to provide me with a dress shirt. On a completely unrelated note, Nortel is making some big announcements here in Spain with live demos of their commercial HSDPA services at 3.6 Mbps; unveiling their lobbying efforts here in Europe to grant carriers deploying HSDPA and UMTS spectrum on the 900 Mhz band; demos of HSUPA and HSDA calls; and a push for "HSODA," a broadband mobility solution that brings MIMO and OFDM as the underlying technology for UMTS, CDMA and WiMax.

The folks at Glenayre gave me a look at their active messaging solution, which brings impressive ease of use mobile content apps, enabling end users to receive carrier sent and approved video teasers for music videos, songs, films, etc. Glenayre's messaging muscle should push the feature onto handsets in the near future. They were also skeptical of claims that ad-supported mobile content will gain traction moving forward. It will be a slow transition into a tiny section of the market. More on that later. Slated for tonight is the Sony Ericsson party at Danzarama along with the Mobile Entertainment Forum party at Carpe Diem. Stay tuned for more news from the front lines tomorrow. - Brian [1]