So what's hot this year at Mobile World Congress. It seems a little subdued because of the projections for handsets to decline by about 10% this year but there is always the next big thing coming down the road in technology. There seems to be a fair amount of green technology - mostly solar powered devices, etc. Android has picked up some support from a few applications providers and RFID/payment technologies are taking hold in handsets.

WiMAX was hot last year but this is the year of LTE (even as WiMAX is actually rolling out some implementations). With such a large installed base of infrastructure, LTE will come on strong even though WiMAX has a lead as far as timing is concerned. And Agilent came out strong at the show yesterday with some 9 or 10 news releases. Several of them surrounded LTE test solutions such as a complete end-to-end analysis and troubleshooting solution for LTE networks. The Signaling Analyzer Real Time (SART) for LTE provides comprehensive monitoring and network diagnostics by interpreting, correlating and analyzing protocol signaling messages produced by multiple network technologies at mobile network interfaces. They also announced the first LTE real-time signal generation and channel emulation solution for base station test, new commercial test products for TD-LTE: PC-based software for creating standards-based TD-LTE signals and vector signal analysis (VSA) software with TD-LTE modulation analysis capability plus a MIMO connectivity option and network conformance testing system for mobile WiMAX.

Agilent and Anite plc also announced they will demonstrate 3GPP LTE interoperability showing end-to-end streaming video with LTE UE devices from Signalion and Blue Wonder Communications plus Agilent will demonstrate LTE EVM, Tx power measurements and downlink transmit diversity for mobile device test using the E6620 wireless communications test set at Mobile World Congress so drop by to see them.

That is a large dose of test equipment! What have you seen at Mobile World Congress???