With over 93,000 visitors from 200 countries, the Mobile World Congress 2015 has again beaten all records, in its 10th year in Barcelona. The event counted, once again, with a strong presence from Latin America, particularly in the Ministerial Programme 2015 where the presence of 140 delegates from 17 countries in the region was recorded. Clearly, this event was the main meeting and discussion point for regional telecom leaders including Ministers, regulators and executives from leading mobile operators.
The Latin American Summit held within the exclusive Ministerial Programme 2015 –the only event within the MWC15 carried in Spanish (or Spanish/Portuguese)– was dedicated to debate on public policy challenges that enables the connected future demanded by Latin American users.
The Regional Summit began with a presentation by Sebastian Cabello, Head of Latin America, GSMA, who highlighted the socio-economic contribution of mobile operators in the region who are investing heavily in deploying 4G networks across the continent. He also save some updated results and estimates of the industry for 2020 published in The Mobile Economy Latin America 2014 report edited by GSMA Intelligence. In turn, he presented the achievements of the We Care campaign, which in the last year reached six countries in the region, promoting industry commitments to help solve the problems affecting Latin American mobile users.
Then Mario Zanotti, Senior Executive Vice President Millicom Latin America, delivered a presentation on “What makes a healthy mobile ecosystem” and stressed that regulatory frameworks that promote investment and competition are essential for the development of the mobile ecosystem and the democratization broadband. “All production and consumption sectors are now part of the mobile ecosystem and we need to work closely with all areas of the economy to foster and speed up innovation,” Zanotti said.
After that, Norberto Berner, the Argentinian Communications Secretary, provided a great lecture focused on “The Role of Government in harnessing the full potential of mobile telecommunications” where he highlighted: “Telecommunications is what the railways in the nineteenth century used to be and governments and industry must work together to create an environment where users get what they need, inclusion”.
Immediately after a high level panel debated on “Regulatory policies to support an increasingly connected society through the mobile”. Jorge Negrete, General Director of Mediatelecom, moderated the panel that was composed by. Walter Pinheiro, Brazilian Senator with extensive experience in ICT, Mario Girasole, Chief Regulatory Officer of TIM Brazil, José Juan Haro, Director Regulatory Affairs of Telefónica LatAm, Karim Lesina, Vice President for International Affairs, AT&T, and Juan Manuel Wilches, Executive Director the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) of Colombia. The panel discuss about current regional economic context, and regulatory challenges to sustain investments in infrastructure in order to support industry and national economies growth.
The Summit concluded with a dabte panel on Mobile Money developments in the region, moderated by Mireya Almazan, Director of Mobile Money Program for Latin America. The panellists were: Xavier Faz, Regional Manager for Latin America of CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), Diego Gutierrez, General Manager for Mobile Financial Services in Millicom Latin America, Jaime Grau Ullastres, Director of Mobile Payments and Digital Commerce of Telefonica, and Gonzalo Ruiz Diaz, president of Osiptel Peru.
The 2015 Ministerial Programme GSMA again beat all attendance records with 161 delegates representing 136 countries and 25 international organizations, including 69 ministers and 76 leaders from regulatory authorities.