Soaring through Spanish skies: Vodafone at MWC 2023

photo of a man holding a miniature 5G base station built around a modified Raspberry Pi mini desktop PC

From remotely piloting drones to detecting forest fires using IoT, Vodafone showed off the powerful potential of its technology at the Mobile World Congress is Spain.

Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the world’s biggest and most important telecommunications industry conference and trade show, taking place annually in Barcelona.

At the 2023 MWC, Vodafone showed how valuable and useful its network can be in some unusual scenarios, as well as how it’s helping to lead the industry in the development and usage of critical technology.

As the Congress comes to an end, we give you the Vodafone ‘news in brief’ highlights.

Pilots in Barcelona flew a drone in Seville….1,000km away. Signals were sent between the drone and the pilot’s controls and VR headset over Vodafone’s network. The headset enabled the pilots to see the airspace around the drone.
Vodafone built a miniature 5G base station, using a modified Raspberry Pi mini desktop PC as the foundation. Such units could be used to bring 5G Mobile Private Networks to many more small and medium-sized businesses.
Authorities in Sardinia are trialling IoT sensors to see if they can predict forest fires by monitoring temperature, humidity and air pressure.
Vodafone and Orange will work together to improve mobile signal in rural areas across Europe, starting with a pilot in Romania using OpenRAN.
Vodafone and Intel unveiled a prototype radio unit (a crucial part of every mast) built using OpenRAN technology.
The Lenovo Connect IoT service is now using Vodafone’s network.
Vodafone has worked with Orange, Telefonica and Ericsson to develop APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to make it easier for software developers to use 5G network features in their programs and apps.