GSMA & Telecom Italia chairman Franco Bernabe said spectrum allocation and privacy must be high on the agenda as the mobile industry undergoes unprecedented change.

Mobile connections are forecast to reach 9.7 billion by the  end of 2017, compared to nearly seven billion today, with mobile subscribers growing from 3.2 billion to 4 billion. Mobile broadband connections are forecast to rise from 1.6 billion to 5.1 billion.

“The challenges this exponential growth entails are enormous. Our industry as a whole has to dedicate responsibility to addressing them in order to maximise the potential of the opportunity ahead of us,” Bernabe told Congress delegates.

Turning to spectrum, Bernabe noted that LTE requires more bandwidth than earlier technologies, meaning economically viable allocation of spectrum will be increasingly important.

The availability of spectrum must also be harmonised to generate cost efficiencies: “It’s not only critical that we acquire additional spectrum but we must focus on reducing the fragmentation across technologies,” Bernabe said.

The role operators must play in safeguarding user privacy and identity was also emphasised. “As we move towards digitalisation of everyday tools such as money, keys, identities, tickets and so on the safeguarding to digital information becomes increasingly important.”

Bernabe said the increasing importance of privacy is “a substantial opportunity” for operators as they can provide secure access to data, financial and e-government services and support NFC transactions, digital voting and “life event registration such as births and weddings”.

“By offering their customers more direct control over the management of their identity, by giving other service providers the opportunity to enrich their offerings to consumers, mobile operators can become central players in the management of safe transactions and secure identity verification,” Bernabe said.