The event at Romaan Lounge featured interactive demonstrations, discussions, and success stories highlighting MTN’s commitment to digital empowerment.

Gbenga Ogunmekan, MTN head of Delegation, explained the campaign’s purpose:

“Go M.A.D is a call to action. It’s about inspiring Nigerians to stand out in what they do. It’s about MTN providing an enabling environment for all our customers to go make a difference in their different life endeavours.”

The event showcased “icons” who embody the Go M.A.D message.

Dr. E Osim, a childcare practitioner and techpreneur, shared how MTN’s connectivity enabled his UNICEF volunteer work:

“Having my MTN router was one of the best things that happened to me. It allowed us to take our mission to the hinterlands.”

Entrepreneur Joseph “La’Shakara” Edet recounted his journey from a small fashion stand to owning multiple businesses: “We’re in a digital age, and even then, I understood the power of the internet and social media in reaching people. Blackberry phones were reigning at the time, and MTN was the number one network that could help expand my reach.”

DJ 007 described how data helped scale his DJ career: “I’ve been able to work with different brands like Budweiser and Hennesy and even mentor aspiring DJs.”

The event concluded with prizes for participants and a message from Chibuzor Akuchie, manager, Sales and Trade Development at MTN: “I’m sure we’ve all learned something, hearing from the people who have been able to make a difference using the MTN data network. I’m sure as we all go home, we’ll all do things differently and we’ll go M.A.D in our various endeavours.”

The MTN Go M.A.D campaign continues to inspire Nigerians across the country, showcasing the transformative power of 5G connectivity.

Through these partnerships, the GSMA will work on behalf of the mobile industry to better understand the connectivity needs of these sectors and support the development of advanced connectivity solutions that enhance safety, efficiency, and customer experience.

The organisations partnering with the GSMA on these collaborations include the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), Japan Automotive Software Platform and Architecture (JASPAR), Outsight, Safran Passenger Innovations and Seamless Air Alliance. 

This builds on a similar cooperation partnership signed with the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium in October, last year.

Within the GSMA, these activities will be led by GSMA Fusion, the organisation’s recently formed initiative, established to listen directly to the voice of enterprises at an industry level and to identify unmet needs which today’s advanced networks can provide. 

As part of the GSMA Open Gateway, Fusion works with industries such as automotive, aviation, financial services, manufacturing, media and others in order to accelerate demand for 5G API-based and other solutions and to deliver transformative new services for enterprises. 

Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA, said:

“The partnerships we’re announcing today, through GSMA Fusion, provide strong direction from these industries to ours, helping the mobile ecosystem truly meet the needs of the automotive and aviation sectors and harness the power of mobile connectivity to create innovative solutions that enhance safety, efficiency, and customer experience. When we launched the GSMA Open Gateway initiative at MWC Barcelona two years ago we stated our ambition to unlock the full potential of 5G networks for all industries through universal access and open APIs and the partnership just announced is a step in that direction.”

Aviation Industry: Collaborations with Seamless Air Alliance, Outsight and Safran Passenger Innovations will aim to improve efficiency, safety, and customer satisfaction in the aviation sector. These partnerships will explore the potential of 5G technology to enable in-flight connectivity, real-time aircraft diagnostics, predictive maintenance, and improved flight path optimization. Additional focus areas will be seamless in-flight connectivity and smarter airports with full passenger journey monitoring, with automated check-ins, AR navigation, and better baggage tracking.

Automotive Industry: The GSMA partnerships with 5GAA and JASPAR, in addition to the partnership with AECC, will focus on integrating advanced connectivity to drive innovation in autonomous driving, smart cities, and mobility solutions. By leveraging 5G technology, the automotive sector can enhance safety, efficiency, and sustainability, paving the way for the future of transportation.

According to research by McKinsey, GSMA Open Gateway and other network API initiatives can unlock significant value for the telecommunications industry, and businesses using 5G networks over the next five years. It’s forecast that, if operators can expose more of their network APIs and innovations to enterprise developer and cloud provider communities, then they can unlock up to an additional $25 billion market opportunity from the automotive sector and up to $30bn from the travel, transport and logistics sectors by 2030.

GSMA Open Gateway Initiative Accelerates Into 2025

Launched two years ago, the GSMA Open Gateway is an initiative which ensures mobile operators can provide enterprise developers standardised access to a range of network functions used to create applications and services. 

By bringing together operators from around the world, the initiative facilitates the design of digital products that can function seamlessly across all devices, regardless of country or operator. 

This is achieved through unique access points, known as APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), which serve as gateways to information about network capabilities. These APIs are available through the CAMARA repository, an open-source project by GSMA and the Linux Foundation.

More than 72 mobile operator groups, representing 284 networks and almost 80% of mobile connections across the world have already signed up to participate in the GSMA Open Gateway initiative, with 52 commercial launches taking place.

In addition to reaching enterprise developers through GSMA Fusion, the organisation has also built a large ecosystem of channel partners and ecosystem partners to help mobile operators commercialise their APIs and reach new sectors. 

More than 35 partners including Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Bridge Alliance, Glide, Infobip, Microsoft, Nokia, Shush and ZTE are now actively working with operators and enterprise developers to launch new digital services.

In the past year, operators around the world from Argentina to China, France and the United Kingdom to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, have commercialised and launched API services to help online banks, fintechs and retailers improve security and tackle online fraud. 

In addition, the mobile industry is now turning its attention to a whole array of new services and innovations, including Quality-on-Demand APIs to enable safe drone flight, robotics, extended reality and immersive online gaming services over 5G networks. 

The roadmap includes further development in connectivity for network slicing, cybersecurity and cloud enablement.

The GSMA will also be showcasing further GSMA Open Gateway and Fusion activity at MWC Barcelona 2025, including the GSMA Open Gateway DevCon on Tuesday March 4th, where Isaac Bess – Global Head of Distribution at TikTok, Mark Smith, Strategic Advisor to IBC and Nick Venezia and Founder of Centillion.ai will be discussing how the telecoms and media industries can work better on identity and verification. 

The GSMA Open Gateway DevCon will take place at Talent Arena, along with the Open Gateway hackathon. Developers will test their projects under realistic conditions on live networks, with access to the latest network APIs. Mobile World Capital is also bringing 180 developers from Paris on a charter flight with Vueling, and 70 developers on a dedicated high-speed train from Madrid with Iryo.

The GSMA will also be showcasing network APIs in practice at the GSMA Open Gateway Zone in Hall 4 demonstrating a range of examples, including a demo from Nokia and Elmo Cars showing how to remotely drive a car in Finland using APIs.

Dr. Maxime Flament, 5GAA CTO, said:

“We are delighted to enter into partnership with GSMA. It will further strengthen our efforts to develop end-to-end solutions for future automotive services. In this respect, we believe GSMA is the best partner to work on global availability of advanced network features for the automotive industry, among which include global APIs, MEC- and QoS-enabled services as well as cross-MNO MEC solutions. We look forward to working closely with GSMA Fusion to make this a reality.”

Kazuhiro Funai, JASPAR Connectivity WG Chair, said:

“With this agreement we believe GSMA will be a great partner for JASPAR’s members and will provide a valuable bridge between the mobility sector and the mobile operators. We believe there are significant opportunities for operators to provide advanced connectivity services to the automotive sector, thereby enabling future services for our industry.”

Raul Bravo, president and founder, Outsight, said:

“At Outsight, we are shaping the future of transportation and mobility by providing real-time spatial intelligence through our 3D Spatial AI solutions. As the global leader in this field, our partnership with the GSMA allows us to seamlessly combine our LiDAR-based software expertise with the power of 5G connectivity. Together, we are unlocking new possibilities for smarter, safer, and more efficient operations in the aviation and automotive sectors, paving the way for transformative innovations that will redefine customer experiences and operational excellence.”John Andrews, VP Connectivity, Safran Passenger Innovations, said: “As a leader in the In-Flight Entertainment and Connectivity sector we are excited to be working with GSMA to identify new innovations that can be enabled by advanced mobile networks.” 

Jack Mandala, CEO of the Seamless Air Alliance, said:

“Seamless Air Alliance is excited to strengthen our collaboration with the GSMA as we drive the convergence of satellite and terrestrial services to unlock new levels of convenience for consumers while creating new sources of value for mobile network operators.”

Seventh annual “The State of 5G” from VIAVI also reveals:

• US displaces China to top the 5G cities leaderboard
• Manufacturing sector emerges as clear leader in Private 5G
• Standalone 5G gains momentum with 45 operator networks
• Diverse and widespread interest in mmWave across the globe 
• But, report didn’t reveal much about Africa

In its seventh annual “The State of 5G”, VIAVI revealed that there are 2,497 cities globally with commercial 5G networks, across 92 countries. A further 23 countries have pre-commercial 5G trials underway and 32 countries have announced their 5G intentions.

This leaves just 48 countries, many of which are smaller island nations, that have not publicly announced plans for 5G.

A total of 18 countries announced their first 5G deployments in 2022. The new 5G countries include two of the largest developing economies, India and Mexico, as well as other emerging economies such as Angola, Ethiopia, and Guatemala. The data also revealed several other major trends relating to 5G deployments:

US displaces China to top the 5G cities leaderboard for the first time

The United States has topped the 5G cities leaderboard for the first time, displacing China, which was the leader in previous VIAVI State of 5G updates since 2021.

In the U.S., the number of cities with 5G networks has grown significantly to 503, compared with just 297 in May 2022, a 69 percent increase.

In contrast, the number of 5G cities in China has remained static at 356 since the June 2021 update.

The number of 5G cities is just one aspect of the relative success of the two nations’ 5G evolution, with China ahead in other key metrics.

The United States’ breadth of 5G coverage contrasts with China’s depth of 5G coverage, with China remaining ahead in data speeds, 5G subscribers and base stations deployed.

Manufacturing sector emerges as clear leader in Private 5G

The manufacturing sector has emerged as the clear leader for private 5G networks globally, with 44 percent of the publicly announced deployments, followed by logistics, education, transport, sports, utilities, and mining.

This trend appears to suggest a clear pragmatism about how the business world is tackling private 5G, where organizations with the biggest connectivity pain points and greatest opportunities for smart applications are naturally emerging as the Private 5G front-runners.

Businesses within these sectors often operate in challenging environments where high-speed connectivity may not be a given.

These verticals also cross over with the sectors where IoT applications have evolved most strongly, leading to discussions of smart factories, smart cities and so on.

The close relationship between private 5G and IoT opportunities also coincides with a new realism among telecom operators about IoT being an almost entirely vertically-focused revenue opportunity.

Standalone 5G gains momentum with 45 operator networks

5G Standalone (SA) networks, meaning networks that have been built using a new 5G core and which operate independently of existing 4G infrastructure, are rapidly gaining momentum around the world. As of January 2023, there were 45 5G SA networks in place, across 23 countries. This contrasts with January of 2022, when there were just 24 NSA networks globally.

Often considered to be “true” 5G, 5G SA networks offer a wider array of use cases and monetization models compared to non-standalone networks (NSA), which are relatively limited in their applications beyond enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), meaning faster data speeds.

With a near doubling of 5G SA networks, more operators will start to realize more of the long-promised commercial benefits of 5G, while consumers and businesses in those countries may start to notice improved network speeds.

Diverse and widespread interest in mmWave across the globe

Spectrum for 5G in the millimeter wave (mmWave) band, generally considered to be 24 GHz and above, has garnered a lot of interest from diverse countries.

The spectrum range offers significant benefits with the highest speeds, lowest latency and highest capacity. However, it also comes with downsides such as lower ranges, higher equipment costs and the need for dense deployments.

Countries that have made mmWave spectrum available span every continent and represent an extremely diverse mix of population sizes, economies, and levels of technological advancement. Several of the largest mobile markets in the world, including China, India, and the United States have made mmWave available as well as those with tiny populations such as Seychelles and Guam.

The same pattern of diversity holds true across developed markets such as Germany and Japan through to emerging economies like Indonesia and Vietnam.

The diversity of countries licensing mmWave shows that there is a clear appeal from regulators combined with a natural interest from spectrum-hungry operators. Nonetheless, with clear benefits and drawbacks, the mmWave story is likely to have many twists and turns over the coming years.

“2022 was 5G’s graduation year,” commented Sameh Yamany, CTO at VIAVI Solutions. “It evolved from being a developed markets phenomenon into a global phenomenon. On a technical level too, with a near doubling of Standalone 5G networks, the capabilities of 5G have expanded significantly and we can look forward to more sophisticated network and business capabilities from operators. In the coming year, a major focus will be network quality and the further development of Open RAN technologies – and we’ll be playing our part in ensuring those are as successful as possible.”