What should you expect at this year’s biggest mobile event?

We’re just a few days away from this year’s Mobile World Congress, the most important mobile event in the world, and VentureBeat has put together a list of the rends we should expect to see at the conference in Barcelona. Such things as the rise of mobile payments and the coming of 5G networks are among the topics that will undoubtedly be discussed in length at the conference, as well as Samsung’s return to dominance and expansion into less developed nations. 

Mobile World Congress has emerged as the premiere event in the mobile telephony space. It’s not the biggest event for app makers, but most of the handset makers, infrastructure companies, and wireless carriers will be represented there in some way. VentureBeat will be represented there, too, by me and my esteemed colleague Chris O’Brien. We’ve already received a boatload of email from companies big and small that will be there hyping their wares. And a few themes have emerged. Here they are. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg will be giving one of the keynotes at the event. This is significant because Zuck has been working on his Internet.org initiative that seeks to bring Internet service to the 4.7 billion people around the world who currently don’t have it. Internet.org is a Facebook-led initiative in which tech leaders, nonprofits, and local communities are working together to connect the unconnected.