GSMA Connected City To Open At Mobile World Congress

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LONDON, Feb. 17, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The GSMA will unveil the Connected City at Mobile World Congress with its most ambitious and inspiring showcase yet, inviting visitors to explore a realistic city environment and experience first-hand how cutting-edge mobile products and services are improving our increasingly connected lives.

The Connected City, which attracted 15,000 visitors last year and was one of the most popular attractions at Mobile World Congress, is being brought to life by the GSMA's partners, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, KT and Vodafone. It aims to demonstrate through interactive exhibits how intelligent mobile connections are making services in Smart Cities, education, health, transport, retail and identity and security much richer, smarter experiences. The City will also feature solutions from Accenture, Ericsson, General Motors, IBM, Huawei, Samsung and Synchronoss Technologies amongst many others.

"Mobile connectivity is shaping the world around us, enabling a wealth of valuable context-aware services that are delivered immediately to consumers and businesses," said Michael O'Hara, Chief Marketing Officer, GSMA. "The progress of connected devices and machine-to-machine communications continues unabated. This year, the Connected City is our biggest, most ambitious and most inspiring showcase yet and we invite visitors to experience how mobile technology is impacting our lives now and in the near future."

Showcasing a Range of New Experiences 
The GSMA Connected City will showcase the latest mobile innovations to visitors including:

• Smart Sensing Shirts – See a team of connected basketball players from PABA (Pay d'Aix Basket) wearing the latest smart sensing sportswear to monitor and optimise performance.
• Future of the Connected Car – Explore the possibilities of automotive services through the use of augmented reality.
• Security - See how mobile devices can be the access tool for all aspects of your journey to work, including opening the doors of a concept car, the lock on your house and access to office buildings.
• Home control and monitoring - Experience unified home control and monitoring through Rich Communication Services (RCS), allowing your alarm system, thermostat and security cameras to work together.
• Healthcare - Witness how RCS can enable virtual healthcare visits, improve patient follow up and keep patient data secure, as well as enable monitoring devices to be used in the context of HD video calls.
• NFC - The Connected City will also demonstrate a range of NFC-based digital commerce solutions, highlighting applications in payment, retail, transport, mobile identity and access, among others.

GSMA Partner experiences on display in the Connected City include:

AT&T

• The AT&T Drive Studio will showcase AT&T Drive, an end-to-end solution that AT&T and its contributors can provide manufacturers around the world, replicating the U.S. based Drive Studio recently opened in Atlanta. AT&T Drive is a modular global platform to help auto manufacturers deliver connected car innovations.
  •  Within the AT&T Drive Studio area, General Motors will display a 2014 Opel Insignia and a 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, each showcasing some of the brands' upcoming connected vehicle technologies and features.
  • Among the connected car innovations featured is the Sensus Connect system powered by Ericsson, which combines infotainment, navigation, and audio for a safer, more efficient driving experience.
  • VoiceBox will demo conversational voice and natural language technology through navigation, media, infotainment, messaging and social features of the connected car.
• AT&T Digital Life will showcase an end-to-end solution for home automation and energy management enabling global service providers to offer a white-labeled solution. AT&T Digital Life is an all-IP, all-wireless platform solution.  Digital Life International B2B Solution employs AT&T's software-as-a-service model, enabling flexibility and customization to deliver turnkey capabilities to Service Providers, allowing them to implement to serve the needs of their business.
• Clear Channel will showcase iHeartRadio, its all-in-one digital radio app, inside the connect car display. The streaming music app provides instant access to more than 1,500 live stations, create-your-own custom stations and more, right from the dashboard.
• Throughout the AT&T space Samsung will display several products including the Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy Tab2 10.1", Galaxy Tab3 7", Samsung Zoom, Accessories, and Home Sync.
• As part of the Connected City ecosystem, Synchronoss Technologies will showcase and demo technology solutions that power the connected lifestyle with Synchronoss Integrated Life™ and Synchronoss Personal Cloud™.  Synchronoss Integrated Life is a cloud platform solution enabling any device to simply and quickly activate on the network and empower end users to engage with devices and network in new ways. Synchronoss Personal Cloud is an industry-leading white-labeled personal cloud solution allows mobile carriers to provide subscribers branded out-of-the-box storage and sync capabilities.

DEUTSCHE TELEKOM
Jointly with its partner IBM, Deutsche Telekom will showcase smart solutions for M2M and the Internet of Things, including:

• Smarter Stadium: Fans can look forward to an even more exciting experience during games and concerts through better management of traffic and crowd congestion, improved safety measures and enhanced facilities.
• Smarter Retail / Food Tracing: Consumers can gain more transparency by checking the source of food, including the location of fresh produce and its route to the supermarket aisle.

KT

• g-Manual: This medical mobile application provides personalized information about suitable medicines, possible diseases and other helpful information based on a user's personal genome data inputted into a user's smartphone.
• Smart Home@Cloud: An intuitive digital home control solution providing intelligent security and smart metering services using just a home hub and cloud services.
• NFC Media Pole: Intelligent media poles that combine NFC with digital signage providing films, coupons, tickets, music and advertisements on NFC enabled smartphones. There will be 65 KT NFC Media Poles deployed at MWC 2014 on the Fira Gran Via.
• Pushing the telephone wire to its limits: The world's first internet solution that uses existing telephone wires to provide bi-directional transfer speeds over 200Mbp.

VODAFONE 
Together with its partners Accenture, Huawei and BMW, Vodafone M2M will demonstrate some of its key products and solutions:

• Smart Retail – See how M2M technology can create intelligent retail cabinets, enable targeted digital advertising and reduce energy cost and consumption.
• Smart City – Experience how remote surveillance, remotely controlled street lighting and water storage monitoring are enabling the Smart City.
• Automotive – Understand how M2M is shaping the future of the automotive industry with solutions for the connected car.
• Health – see How mHealth solutions are training health workers in Kenya and improving communication between patients, healthcare professionals and medical devices.

Take a City Tour
This year, the GSMA has further enhanced the Connected City experience with the introduction of a series of "Journeys through the Connected Life", themed tours through the City catering to individual interests including Smart Cities, Health, Education, Retail, Transport and Identity and Security. Through these journeys, attendees can use Connected City Guides downloaded to their smartphone or tablet to take in the experiences most relevant to them. The Connected City Guides can also be downloaded at the many NFC (Near Field Communication) Tap-n-Go Points located across Fira Gran Via. 

The GSMA Connected City will be located at Stands 3A11 and 3A31 in Hall 3, Fira Gran Via and will be open during Mobile World Congress exhibition hours from Monday 24^th through Thursday 27^th February 2014. Please note that the City will close at 16:00 on Tuesday for a private reception.   

Get Involved at Mobile World Congress 2014
Mobile World Congress will be held 24-27 February at Fira Gran Via in Barcelona. For more information on the 2014 Mobile World Congress including how to attend, exhibit or sponsor, visit www.mobileworldcongress.com. Follow developments and updates on Mobile World Congress (#MWC14) on Twitter @GSMA #Connectedcity or on Facebook www.facebook.com/mobileworldcongress.

About the GSMA
The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide. Spanning more than 220 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world's mobile operators with 250 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset and device makers, software companies, equipment providers and Internet companies, as well as organisations in industry sectors such as financial services, healthcare, media, transport and utilities. The GSMA also produces industry-leading events such as Mobile World Congress and Mobile Asia Expo. 

SOURCE GSMA