MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2026, BARCELONA – Wind warnings are up here in Barcelona as a big storm is expected to move inland starting Thursday. None-the-less, the Fira de Barcelona was crowded as ever - and our feet are really sore.
Here are our step counts from Monday, March 2 through press time today, Wednesday, March 4:
The author: 54,356 steps (this seems way to low compared to the pain-level. LOL)
Monica Alleven estimates 75,000 steps
Dan Jones: 74,605
What is our written coverage from Day 3?
MWC 2026: Can Elon Musk’s Starlink Mobile defy physics?
MWC 2026: For 5G and 6G the network core is the key
MWC 2026: US outspends Europe on wireless, CTIA says
MWC 2026: Red Hat drives toward cloud-native and AI-ready telcos
MWC 2026: Oracle positions communications as core AI infrastructure
MWC 2026: 6G talk heats up, but standards timelines remain cautious
What are our key tech quotes for the day?
Waiting for 6G: “There’s a lot of room left in 5G,” Ultan Mulligan, Chief Services Officer at ETSI, told us, warning that pausing investment in existing networks while waiting for 6G would be disastrous. “The industry’s dead if that happens.”
Read the full story here: MWC 2026: 6G talk heats up, but standards timelines remain cautious
What is the tech buzzword for the day? Agentic Core
I moderated a session on 6G today and Dr. Tong Wan of Huawei, who is widely considered to be the father of 5G, delivered a presentation on what he called the "Agentic Core." He said he imagined a future where the core of the network was an AI agent that could determine when to update itself and just make the changes itself without software subscriptions or vendors.
What is a key telecom fact we learned?
The number of tokens is skyrocketing, growing from 480 trillion in May 2025 to 1.3 quadrillion in August 2025, according to Dr. Tong.
"Token" was our buzzword way back on Day 1 of the show. It's still buzzy.
What is our MWC oddity for the day?
The KDDI booth had the most realistic robot of the show. Kudos to them. We were a bit freaked out; it was way too realistic. Fierce Network, for one, welcomes our new robot overlords.
Why do we love MWC?
More old friends! Here's Fierce Network's Monica Alleven and Ulf Ewaldsson at Nokia’s media event on Sunday, March 1. Ewaldsson exited as president of Technology at T-Mobile last year, shortly before newly installed CEO Srini Gopalan took over. Ewaldsson is currently working as an advisor to several firms.
Read all of our coverage from Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona here.