Representatives from three of the world’s largest network vendors urged operators to press ahead with next-generation network deployments, and called for governments to encourage investments in infrastructure to drive GDP growth. Speaking at a special Mobile World Live keynote session at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Hong Kong, NSN’s Tommi Uitto, Alcatel-Lucent’s Jyoti Mahurkar-Thombre and Ericsson’s Ulf Ewaldsson pointed to areas such as smart cities, m-healthcare and public safety networks that will require operators to become more than just consumer-facing businesses.