The GSMA held its most recent Board meeting this week at Telecom Italia’s Future Centre in Venice. The world’s leading mobile operators converged in the Italian city to explore the key issues and challenges facing the mobile industry today, as well as the opportunities which will spur innovation and growth across the ecosystem.
“We are focused on driving activities where collective action can deliver significant benefits to the mobile industry’s customers, far above those that individual operators could achieve through their own pursuits,” commented Franco Bernabè, GSMA Chairman and Chairman and CEO of Telecom Italia Group. “Together, we are working to prioritise the customer experience, interoperability, quality of service and security which have been the hallmarks of the mobile industry since its inception, and which continue to be the foundation of our respective businesses.”
The Board sets the strategic direction of the GSMA, ensuring its work is fully aligned with the needs of mobile operators and their customers across the world. Comprised of Group CEOs, CEOs and C-level representatives from the 25 of the world’s leading mobile operator groups, as well as the CEO of the GSMA, the Board prioritises and oversees the GSMA’s strategic, commercial, public policy and technical initiatives. In this way, the Board ensures that everything the organisation does is anchored by an overriding objective to increase the value the mobile industry contributes to societies and economies worldwide.
At the meeting, the second of Mr. Bernabè’s term as GSMA Chairman, the Board reviewed the progress of the GSMA’s strategic initiatives, which focus on the areas of Mobile Broadband and Spectrum; Embedded Mobile; Mobile NFC; Mobile Advertising; and Rich Communications Ecosystem. The GSMA’s Strategy Committee (SC), Executive Management Committee (EMC) and Public Policy Committee (PPC) also met to discuss critical issues in the technological and regulatory realms.
“We are making very strong progress across these strategic initiatives,” continued Mr. Bernabè. “For instance, the world’s operators are making significant investment in Mobile Broadband, and particularly LTE, to create a truly ‘connected life’. In fact, this month we are reaching an important milestone in the development of the Mobile Broadband market – we will hit 500 million HSPA connections and as we are adding 19 million new connections each month, we expect to reach 1 billion by the end of 2012.”
Venice, 6 June 2011
