Hakom - Croatian Post and Electronic Communications Agency

ZAGREB, February 27, 2017 – Following the invitation of the organizer, GSM Association – GSMA   Barcelona hosted the Mobile World Congress - MWC 2017. HAKOM’s representatives in Barcelona were  Dražen Lučić, President of the Council at HAKOM, Mario Weber, Executive Director and Damir Sušanj, Senior Information Technology .They held bilateral meetings with the representatives of regulators, operators and industry. Following the invitation of the organizer Mr. Dražen Lučić participated in the Ministerial VIP programme of the Ericsson Company. Mr. Lučić also took part in BEREC and GSMA roundtables as the member of the Management Board of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications.
 
This year’s topic was “Will the acquisitions and mergers have positive/good or negative/bad impact on the market and the end-users?". The increasing demands of end-users and necessity to invest in the network with ever growing competition from OTT (Over The Top) providers of various Internet services make the operators consider acquisition and merger processes in order to strengthen or save their position on the market.

Aside from the issues related to the mergers and acquisitions, a very important topic was discussed referring to the regulation of the Internet of Things (Internet of Things - IOT). This year’s prominent topic  was the safety of  Internet of Things and the transformation of traditional telecom operators and their role in the global IOT offer as well as the  allocation of radio spectrum for different usage. The Internet of Things represents a big progress for citizens, consumers, business customers and eventually the Government. IOT offers a range  of possibilities  such as: reduced health care costs, carbon emissions, better approach to education, improvement in  the transport safety  of  passengers and goods  and many other special measures aimed to enhance  efficiency in  different fields of society. According to the reports, there were around 250 million M2M (Machine-to-Machine) connections at the end of 2014 with the annual growth rate of 40%. In recent years the demands for the Internet have drastically changed which brings us to the issue  how to properly replan and allocate radio frequency spectrum due to the fact that customers’ needs have changed as well.