Most People Will Use Mobile Phones First to Access Metaverse, Experts Say

Smart glasses are coming, “but until then it’s going to be the phone,” Lazzaro said. “Customers are changing as we all know, and this is an opportunity to grab them … with new kinds of designs, new kinds of services,” she said.

“As we all know, games drive mobile phone use and adoption,” Lazzaro said. She sees no reason the metaverse should spark controversy. “The metaverse simply merges the digital and physical world," allowing people “to collaborate, build and play,” she said. Lazzaro urged a focus on what people want, rather than technology like 5G or blockchain. “Without people, what’s the point,” she asked: “Why are we building the metaverse at all?”

Lazzarro said the first virtual-world game she worked on was Myst, which premiered in 1993. “It’s a great example of how games drive technology forward,” she said. Myst drove hardware and CD-ROM sales, she said. “This game trained a generation on how to point, how to click and use a computer,” she said.

“How do we enter the metaverse, and more importantly why?” asked Marcus Ko, president of metaverse company Dimple. “These questions are critical,” he said. Until metaverse-focused devices become more affordable “with enough content to support everyday use, mass adoption” won’t happen, he said. Ko also sees the mobile phone as the first device most will use to access the metaverse.

Ko demonstrated uses of the metaverse, including a virtual concert and a fan meet-and-greet with professional athletes. Companies can use the metaverse as a new marketing and advertising channel, he said. “Click and you go inside,” he said. Many challenges remain to get to mass adoption, Ko said. “No one company can do it,” he said.

More than half of the world’s population was born in the “digital age,” said Sebastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox, a virtual gaming company. These “digital natives” are “consuming differently” and “connecting with each other differently than what we've seen before,” he said. They don’t want to be passive gamers, “they want to be creative, they want to be engaged,” he said. Most see themselves as content creators, he said.

“This is a real market,” Borget said, noting there was a $40 billion NFT market in 2022. His company offers a virtual world “where anyone can make 3D content and experiences, truly own them, monetize them,” he said: “For the first time in human history we can choose our identity. We can really choose who we are, how we look -- man, woman or even non-human creature.” Borget predicted 99% of the metaverse will be built by users, not as part of a brand: “That’s the only we can scale content production massively.”

Another big topic at MWC has been the growth of open radio access networks. The O-RAN Alliance has 32 mobile operators with 5.2 billion customers worldwide, said Chairman Alex Jinsung Choi, also a senior vice president at Deutsche Telekom, during a presentation by the group. ORAN technology is already being “trialed and deployed by many of them,” he said. The alliance has also authorized 11 labs to do ORAN certifications, he said.

As a result of “hard work and support by the O-Ran Alliance, there is a broad offering of products on the market,” Choi said. Visitors to MWC can see 67 ORAN demonstrations, he said. A top priority of the alliance is working with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project on standards, he said: “We would like to intensify the cooperation ... and make it smoother and more efficient.”

The alliance hopes to improve ORAN releases and planning “providing proactive guidance to the industry for productive development,” Choi said. “We want to boost the ORAN certification and vetting program,” he said. “We also want to improve the ORAN Plugfest by introducing themes and validation” of alliance testing, he said, and the alliance also hopes to improve outreach to various industries.

The alliance is working with standards groups around the world, including ATIS in the U.S., toward making ORAN technology and specifications “globally available,” said Stefan Engel-Flechsig, alliance chief operating officer. He noted more than 4,200 technical experts are working on 14 alliance working groups.

Mobile World Congress Notebook

GSMA said it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), agreeing to work together on HealthConnect Africa, which aims to connect all health facilities in Africa to the internet by 2030. “The initiative will start with a small group of pioneer African Union Member States and communities, which will see their health facilities connected to the internet and health workers equipped with smart devices, allowing them to improve the quality of care provided to their clients through access to vital online resources,” GSMA said.

T-Mobile has aggregated four channels of mid-band spectrum on its 5G stand-alone (SA) network with the Samsung Galaxy S23, working with Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm Technologies and Samsung, the carrier said Wednesday. T-Mobile also expanded voice over new radio (VoNR) to four additional cities: Cincinnati, New Orleans, New York and Seattle. “5G SA is the future of wireless, delivering a whole new level of performance -- faster speeds and lower latency,” T-Mobile said: “5G carrier aggregation allows T-Mobile to turbo-charge 5G SA speeds, giving T-Mobile customers a game-changing performance boost while VoNR ensures a seamless 5G SA connection.”