Mobile World Congress: past, present and future

Tuesday, 01 September 2020

Barcelona has been, historically, a fair city. Fairs of the most important sectors of the economy have been held in the Catalan capital year after year. The Construmat, Alimentaria, Graphispak, etc. have always placed Barcelona at the forefront of the map of the world's trade fairs. But in 2006 a very special fair arrived in Barcelona . That fair was, so to speak, the jewel in the crown in the universe of sector fairs. We are talking about the Mobile World Congress or, in the popular way, the mobile fair .

The Mobile World Congress is a world-class economic event. The main technological brands of tablets, smartphones, etc. meet there. to present your news. The figures that move around the mobile fair are stratospheric: 2,400 exhibitors, about 5,000 professionals and CEOs, 3,800 journalists, more than 100,000 visitors, 381 private flights, about 29,000 rooms reserved in hotels in the city and its surroundings ... In total, the economic impact of the Mobile World Congress is estimated to be around 460 million euros.

Seeing these figures, then, it is understood the economic earthquake that led to the cancellation of the Mobile World Congress 2020. The fear of the Coronavirus and the alarming figures on infections that were becoming known caused that a few weeks before the scheduled date for its inauguration a incessant trickle of cancellations. Leading firms in the world of technology announced that they were canceling their presence at the event for fear of COVID-19. Among these companies we can highlight names such as Vodafone, SONY, Rakuten, Orange, Nokia, LG, Intel, Ericson, Deutsche Telekom or Amazon. Faced with this cataract of cancellations, the organizing company of the Mobile World Congress decided not to celebrate it.

In this article we want to review a little the history of the Mobile World Congress and take a look at the future from this present absolutely marked by the COVID pandemic.

Origins of the Mobile World Congress

The first celebration of the mobile fair took place in 1987. That event served to introduce the world to a new technology: that of mobile telephony. At that time, this technology fair had the name of GSM World Congress and served to bring together the main professionals in the sector. That initial fair was still a long way from becoming what it is today.

It was in 2008 when the mobile fair, and to give importance to the then newly born 3G network, was renamed 3GSM Congress. Currently, the fair maintains the initials GSM in its name. Not surprisingly, GSMA is the company in charge of organizing the (this is its full name) GSM Mobile World Congress.

Barcelona fair

GSM (Groupe Speciale Mobile) was created by the European Communications Confederation in 1982 and was created to create a standard for mobile calls at the European level. The fact that Europe was the main driving force behind this new technology meant that the different mobile fairs were always held in European cities. The main drivers of this new technology were, in 1986, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, which signed an agreement among themselves. Just a year later, 13 countries have already agreed to use the same standard for their mobile calls. In 1989, finally, all the countries of the world joined the GSM project and it was agreed that GSM would be the world telephony standard.

The mobile fair has been held, uninterruptedly, in cities such as Nice (this French city was where it was held for the first time), Berlin, Lisbon, Athens, Madrid (where it was held in 1995, the year in which SMS ) or Cannes. 2005 was the last year the mobile congress was held in the glamorous French city. From the years that the mobile congress was held in Cannes, an image remains for history: that of the Siemens cruise ship. This ship was a large yellow boat that, docked in the port of Cannes, hosted presentations, events, meetings, etc. every year.

The Barcelona Trade Fair and the escorts

Everyone knows that any important fair that there is, attracts prostitution. And Barcelona is no exception. At the time of the Real Estate Bubble, the queen was Construmat since the professionals dedicated to Construction were the ones who handled the most money at that time and especially "Black" money. This was spent on luxuries and one of those luxuries were the escorts who at that time quietly charged between 300 and 400 euros per hour. Anthological escort agencies such as Standing Models , Madame Cristina and Desire Vips shared the luxury prostitution market but little by little GirlsBCN had more and more repercussion and independent escorts managed to "hunt" more wealthy and generous men to share moments of luxury and passion. But the best times of construction are past and the queen of all the Barcelona fairs today is the one we are dealing with today. Unlike Construmat, this is an international fair which makes the language versions of Girls BCN go up in visits during that week in exorbitant amounts. Moreover, prestigious newspapers such as "La Vanguardia" and "El Periódico" have written several articles about it. And certainly, the girls tell us that like these days, Barcelona does not move money. We hope that soon we can enjoy this fair again and businessmen and escorts can have torrid encounters after the hard day. And beware, some of the congress hostesses also act as escorts ... do not miss any detail.

Congress hostesses and escorts