Mobile World Congress is the focal point of the industry, but then most of the major trendsetters head back to the US or Asia, argues a Deutsche Telekom board member calling for Europe to compete better in the digital economy.

Claudia Nemat (pictured), a member of Deutsche Telekom’s management board responsible for Europe and Technology, writes in a blog that Europe can feel like the focal point of the industry during congress – “at least for a week”.

The continent needs companies that can compete globally “Otherwise, our only place in this global competition will be as a location for others to sell their services,” she writes.

European companies must back local initiatives and standards, particularly for the issues that will be central to this year’s congress. She identifies three issues: 5G, embedded SIMs and fixed-mobile integration.

On 5G, Nemat says it is vital for Europe to be “deeply involved”. She points out that NGMN has ambitious plans and China’s Huawei is talking about the first 5G networks in cities starting in 2018. The vendor presented a test device at the start of this year. “Yes it’s still the size of a fridge, but don’t let that fool you.”

Huawei is pushing hard for a global 5G standard, predicting it for 2016 or 2017. Others are more sanguine, forecasting its arrival in 2020 or later. “But whether or not the industry meets these deadlines spot-on, we as Deutsche Telekom and Europeans are involved,” she concludes. Here is an area where the continent is at the forefront; NGMN will present its 5G whitepaper in Barcelona.

The second issue is eSIM, or embedded SIM cards, which are built directly into phones. She argues this approach will increasingly become the standard in the future. Device manufacturers such as Apple want to embed SIMs right in devices. Technical data from users’ operators is then delivered over the air to devices.

Deutsche Telekom sees this area as an opportunity and backs an open eSIM standard. Nemat argues such SIMs will take off because more and more devices will be connected to the internet in the future via wearables and M2M. The easiest approach is to have one contract with a single service environment that users can activate on all their devices.

“All this will only be possible if we as an industry work together on interoperable solutions and don’t get lost producing competing island solutions,” she writes.

The final issue is fixed-mobile integration. The industry needs to invest not only in access technology, but also in new architectures for the backbone networks, the network’s central nervous system. And Europe must breakdown national borders. Deutsche Telekom is building a single, pan-European infrastructure.

“The trendsetters from the United States and Asia have the financial means and the market power. If we can break down borders in Europe, we can give them a run for their money,” she concludes.