If anyone was paying attention to something other than 'HSDPA', an acronym that seems to get the telco trade overly excited, attendees to Barcelona's 3GSM conference last week will have noticed a swathe of celebrities breeze past their doorway.

Pop star Craig David, British royalty Prince Andrew, star CEOs such as Richard Branson or Steve Ballmer all appeared, in some form or other, at the telecommunications festival.

For those of you who have not been to a 3GSM before, think Gitex Dubai, one the Middle East's largest events, after a course of steroids. 40,000 suited professionals take every opportunity they can to block doorways in an evangelical orgy of techno-love.

Even soulful Craig David, a singer-songwriter more used to talking about bandwidth in romantic terms, got on stage and waxed lyrical about his mobile phone.

Apparently he can SMS home with the word "chill" and a computer will dim the lights, play the right tunes, and send back the message, "House now chilling'" to let David know it is safe to go in.

This brazen techno-love tells us three things. First, some people have more money than sense. Second, telecommunications has gone beyond the mainstream and become huge business.

Prince Andrew only drums up business for UK companies when it gets very serious. And finally, it shows that everything is indeed converging something IT and telecommunications professionals have been talking about since the coming of IP.

For brevity's sake we shall skip past complicated questions regarding distribution of wealth, or what IP means, and focus on the notion of 'convergence'.

What it means

Conveniently, the word can mean different things to different people, but at 3GSM the most common usage referred to the ability to turn the mobile phone into an entertainment device.

The mobile industry is hoping the handheld replaces the Xbox, PSX, TV and the iPod all at the same time.

What the mobile industry frets about most is being cut from the gravy train. Rolando Balsinde from McKinsey got on stage to make sure everyone understood "our job is to make the pie grow from being the $5 billion industry it is today to something much bigger. If we do not do this we have failed."

The general sense is that the industry is underachieving. "There are twice as many mobile phone users as there are PC users but this [mobile entertainment] industry is tiny," continued Balsinde. Tricks are being missed, he said, scolding his audience. "If we could just crack the code, advertising alone could add $10 billion to our bottom line."

For the outsider attending 3GSM for the first time, it was difficult to understand the angst. It is clear that the industry is employing an awful lot of very bright people who are slowly working out how to make everything fit on a mobile phone (film, music or spreadsheet) and then how to bill you for the privilege of downloading it.

In fact, oddly, analyst after analyst told Gulf News that one of the most exciting things coming was single billing. Every telecommunications move we make can be recorded on a single statement fixed, mobile or internet related. Like we care.

While telecoms analysts sometimes seem to miss the point as to what makes users excited, it is clear that the technology is coming into its own.

In the Middle East we just need to hope that our providers are paying attention to what's going on, and are getting ready to harness the technology for our digital delight.

Gulf News had its eyes open for either of the UAE's two telcos. We were told they were out there roaming, but despite our best efforts we failed to spy either one of them.