LAS VEGAS -- Super Mobility Week -- Smart homes and big brains are mingling in Sin City as the CTIA tries gamely to make its wireless show matter in a 4G World.

The re-branded event got off to a damp start Monday with unexpected flash-flooding across the desert region making driving in the glitter gulch slower than ever. Nonetheless, Light Reading made it to AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T)'s Connected Home event Monday afternoon. (See AT&T & Telefónica Extend Digital Life to Europe.)

Click on the image below to see photos from Monday and Tuesday at Super Mobility Week:

Figure 1: Back in a Nevada Groove The sign that beckons us back to a land of cocktails, late nights and the promise of virtualized networks.

Monday's keynote from Verizon Wireless CEO, Dan Mead, was long on statistics but short on news. The CEO touched on Verizon's LTE multicast plans briefly but didn't reveal anything wasn't already known. (See Verizon's Multicast LTE Video to Arrive in 2015.)

Want to know more about 4G? Check out Light Reading's dedicated LTE channel.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Tom Wheeler did actually shake the tree a touch. More on his keynote later.

Nonetheless, in the face of the Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone 6 announcement, which the CTIA broadcast after the keynote, and other events, there is a palpable sense of the CTIA trying hard to make this show relevant in a way that has slipped away in recent years. (See Apple's New iPhones Have 20 LTE Bands, VoLTE.)

The organization has hired Larry Wilmore, the "senior black correspondent" from the Daily Show to try and bring some laughs to the stage. Oh, and it hired Thomas Dolby for the on-stage house band (relevant!).

Will this bring some sparkle back to the CTIA show? We'll find out more this week.

— Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light Reading