BARCELONA -- LTE World Summit -- The annual gathering for next-generation mobile networks wrapped up in Barcelona last week and Light Reading Mobile was there with its camera to record the goings-on.

As Informa UK Ltd. announced there were now 50 million Long Term Evolution (LTE) connections worldwide, this year's event showed how the technology has become a commercial reality.

But some of the discussions at the event revealed that many practical networking issues have yet to be resolved for LTE to reach its full potential, such as the challenges around small-cell rollouts, delivering voice and messaging services, and network sharing, as well as the feasibility of wholesale models.

These were some of the news highlights from the show:

Click on the image below to see what else was going on last week.



The photos are captions are entirely our fault.

— Michelle Donegan, European Editor, Light Reading Mobile

Hola, Barcelona!It was difficult to stay inside all day as the Barcelona sunshine lured attendees outside.View From the TopHere's the bird's-eye view of the exhibition at this year's LTE World Summit.Asian PresenceEquipment vendors Huawei, Samsung and ZTE had the biggest booths by far on the show floor. Western vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks were at the event too, but they didn't take up any show floor space.4G on a Sunny DayDid we mention it was sunny in Barcelona? These attendees had the right idea for the best place to check emails and return phone calls.Telco InnovatorsIs that an oxymoron? These guys don't think so (from left to right): Eskil Dahlen, VP and head of Internet and corporate development at Telenor; Philip Arkcoll, VP of product at Tuenti; and Shay Cohen, VP of research and development at Jajah. On a panel they discussed how the new digital divisions at Telenor and Telefonica are helping the operators to create more innovative services.Hey There, HuaweiHuawei clearly couldn't resist the sunshine either, as it had its demo truck parked up outside the conference center in Barcelona.Talkin' LTEThe networking areas were buzzing between conference sessions.PrestoRAD Data Communications' "magic box" did a disappearing act at the show. That is, the actual equipment wasn't there ... but company reps were on hand to talk us through the new Grandmaster timing capabilities it has added to its Carrier Ethernet service aggregation platform for 4G backhaul.Soft TouchAw, this little guy helped Anritsu with some network analysis.