In 2006, five years after the introduction of 3G infrastructures, which had promised so much, it was fair to say that the nascent mobile TV was still embryonic. As seen at the first Mobile World Congress (MWC) that year, only a handful of video and TV-capable mobile devices were available and even in the major economies, mobile TV services were almost non-existent, with networks barely capable of supporting broadcast-quality output.
Fast forward 20 years and every device on show supported 4K video at a minimum over a variety of mobile infrastructures, but broadcast-quality experience and service availability are still very much relevant. Service providers are now considering how to optimise content network delivery and how best to monetise this choice.
Samsung was clearly demonstrating how devices have evolved with its new Galaxy S26. The phones offer advanced immersive video capabilities, such as cinematic stability with consistent framing. The S26 Ultra also supports the new APV video codec, designed to deliver efficient compression for high-quality production workflows and power has been optimised for video with up to 31 hours of playback.
Looking at the infrastructure such devices would connect to, telco Orange took to MWC 2026 with the dual aim of “reinventing” and “going beyond” connectivity. It showcased work in designing intelligent, orchestrated and resilient infrastructures that were “practical human-centred digital solutions”. As pointed out by Orange Group CTO and EVP of networks, Laurent Leboucher, the nature of networks is changing rapidly with AI “altering the balance” between uplink and downlink. That is, the former will account for much more traffic running through networks—such as the TV and video infrastructures Orange delivered for the Paris Olympics in 2024.
Very much at the sharp end of dealing with such issues is YouTube. At MWC, Michael Smouh, director of YouTube Video delivery, noted that among his key challenges is balancing video quality with network efficiency and using AI to gain “super-resolution” of distributed content. Outlining the scale of the task in front of him, Smouh remarked that YouTube has upwards of 3 billion users overall and its live NFL broadcasts can reach more than 20 million viewers, all of whom expect the highest in quality no matter what screen they are using. This is changing network dynamics considerably.
“In the past we had general network demand and now we have giant spikes. Having peaks in your domain [means] that once you provision your capacity, almost everything else is free, and so that gives you really interesting product choices,” said Smouh. “Another interesting challenge is that we can look at network level loads and infer [patterns].”
AI is a fundamental part of this management process and super-resolution is deployed to upscale video to create content according to end user demands and devices used.
Renuka Bhalerao, who leads ecosystem efforts within Meta’s Net Infrastructure group, made a similar point regarding managing network video loads and, perhaps most importantly, where mobile video businesses may be missing out.
“Video accounts for 70-80 per cent of network traffic. The question is, how can we make sure the ways in which we consume video are optimised? We’re leaving a lot of money on the table because there is so much room for improvement [in how to boost] the efficiency of how we deliver video. I believe we do have the technology, but do we have the business models to do that?”
To Bhalerao, that comes down to how people consume content, not how much. Quality of experience is key, she stressed, but there has to be a balance between this and network efficiencies.
But the general feeling surrounding MWC 2026 was that such issues can be managed. The show also gave a glimpse of what could be a future model for mobile video in the form of the CircuitX, a three-year initiative designed to champion mobile technology across motorsports and transform the circuit experience with connectivity. This presents the tangible application of 5G mobile connectivity. Among its core pillars is delivering optimised mobile video experiences containing personalised content, live broadcast and immersive augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).
And so this was MWC 2026. Future visions of mobile video, covering devices, networks, video content and deployment, but what was on offer at this year’s show was very much grounded in the reality of maximising business for video. Who knows what the next 20 years will bring?
