Meta is calling for better networks at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona today, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying that the metaverse needs more than just smart headsets.
Meta (formerly Facebook) has announced the Metaverse Innovation Hub, a research and center in Madrid to be set up with Spanish telco Telefónica, intended to help operators and partners get ready for metaverse applications. At MWC today, the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), an open source group sponsored by Facebook, will hold a session with Telefónica in the Fira Gran Via conference center to start setting up working groups and projects for metaverse telecoms.
MWC 2022, which opened on 28 February, will be close to pre-pandemic levels of attendance, according to organizer the GSMA- although the Russian pavilion has been swiftly cancelled.
Help us build our virtual world
“Creating a true sense of presence in virtual worlds delivered to smart glasses and VR headsets will require massive advances in connectivity, bigger than any of the step changes we’ve seen before,” Facebook founder and Meta CEO Zuckerberg said in a statement before the opening of MWC.
To build an immersive virtual environment and share it with people in real time will require the ability to process data quickly in ways which are not widely supported right now. Zuckerberg’s statement says the metaverse needs infrastructure that can evolve quickly, and it can’t deliver this without partners.
The Metaverse Innovation Hub set up by Telefónica and Meta plan will provide startups and developers with a metaverse testbed in a 5G laboratory, and access to Telefónica’s partners and resources, as well as Meta engineering support.
Source: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/mwc-meta-asks-for-better-networks-to-support-the-metaverse/