The president of Telefónica and the GSMA, José María Álvarez-Pallete, has welcomed one more year to the Mobile World Congress (MWC) that started this Monday in Barcelona. The telco industry is one of the active creators of the new digital era, so The president of Telefónica has insisted on the need for the sector to have a “much more balanced” ecosystem and regulation typical of the 21st century that leaves the old regulatory models behind. “Collaboration embodies the power of what can be done when we come together. And that's what the GSMA is doing. That's Open Gateway. And I'm proud to be a member of the GSMA. Vision and reality merge in a new world of diversity , curiosity, intelligence, innovation, progress, sustainability, well-being and humanity. We are proud of what we have created,” the director of the telecommunications company said during his inaugural speech.
Likewise, Pallete has emphasized that models focused on APIs (lines of information exchange code) are already “essential.” That is why, twelve months after the launch of Open Gateway, This initiative already has 47 operators in six countriesand with a total of 239 networks which represent more than 65% of global mobile connections. A total of six countries – Spain, Brazil, Germany, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and South Africa – have already launched their first APIs with the most relevant operators. In this way, a total of 40 networks have commercially launched at least one API, responding to needs such as increasing security, monitoring cameras or drones in order to detect anomalies, or improving security to help banks combat fraud. “The future is already here. It is happening. Incredible new products and services are already flowing through our networks,” she said.
In this edition of the MWC, the president of Telefónica also wanted to highlight that the capabilities of telecoms are not only found in communications, but go “much further.” Therefore, in the coming months they will put “availability of developers and companies several generations of APIs for new functionalities. “We are right at the beginning of a new era,” he explained. In this scenario he stressed that a “global partnership” between all industry players and “fair governance” to create the digital future together and offer a sustainable and beneficial value chain.
“It's time for collaboration, not from abusive positioning. It's time to make responsible use of shared resources“, asserts the director of the telecommunications company. Thus, he has appealed to the demand of the main European telecommunications companies regarding the “fair share”, a measure in which they request that, in the face of large investments in networks, technology giants such as Amazon, Meta, Netflix, Google, Apple or Microsoft pay telecom companies to face the rise of different technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI). “Currently, six actors consume more than 50% of the network capacity. It is essential that we encourage them to make responsible use of network capacity and energy consumption,” she stressed.
José María Álvarez-Pallete has assured that operators are going to continue evolving their networks, since none of the services are going to settle for “less speed, capacity or latency”: “This is an unstoppable process in which it is so important to embrace the new like bid farewell to technologies such as 2G, 3G or copper“.
However, the manager of the telecommunications company is aware that this new vision presents a series of challenges, therefore, The sector is promoting the responsible use of networks and innovation in new investment models that promote sustainability. Along these lines, in the last eight years, Telefónica has managed to multiply its traffic by nine and reduce energy consumption by 9%, since this company believes that the responsible use of networks should be the “leitmotif” of any technological development. .
“A company only turns one hundred years old if it has the purpose of serving society and adapts to continue achieving it, as is the case of Telefónica. The fact that several companies in our sector are centenarians is proof of this. We are a relevant sector because we care about people“, Pallete stated.