T-Mobile last year crashed CES with a splashy Uncarrier event. T-Mobile CEO John Legere also managed to generate some buzz when he got caught crashing AT&T’s party.
This year’s CES is looking to be a much less contentious affair for the Tier 1 carriers. T-Mobile is fresh off unveiling Data Stash data rollover at Uncarrier 8.0 and likely won’t make much noise at CES. Verizon Wireless also won’t be there and Sprint hasn’t revealed much in the way of plans for Las Vegas.
AT&T, however, will be all hands on-deck for its annual developer summit and conference, which takes place prior to the CES kickoff on Tuesday. We’ll be there expecting news and several chances to speak with AT&T executives on everything from VoLTE to Digital Life.
Ericsson could also potentially have some big news about next-generation network technology that we’ll keep our ears to the ground for.
But any service provider and network vendor needs consumer devices to chew through the bandwidth and CES will hopefully deliver myriad new connected technology.
Sony is teasing an Xperia device with the tagline “Welcome to the New World.” The Xperia Z3 is only a few months old but as some reports have pointed out, the company could be prepping that device for an update and a wider U.S. release.
Samsung will host another huge keynote and this year connected home startup SmartThings, which Samsung recently bought, will play a large role in the presentation.
Lenovo has a barrage planned for CES with over 12 new connected devices launching during the event. With the company’s acquisition of Motorola official it could mean the start of a new wave of interesting connected devices from Lenovo.
ZTE is promising a new device lineup with a renewed focus on mobile internet. “We are making significant improvements in user experiences through our Consumer Experience Unit and consumer interests will be at the heart of everything we imagine, build and deliver in 2015,” Lixin Cheng, chairman and CEO of ZTE USA, said in a statement.
It’s not totally clear what Qualcomm will be showing off this year but early rumors have suggested that the company’s new 64-bit Snapdragon 810 chipset could show up in the LG G Flex 2. Along with a possible new flagship, LG could already be launching the sequel to its G Watch R.
If the G Watch R 2 shows up it will likely outshine watches from smaller vendors like Cogito. Apart from watches, the wearables field at CES will be wide open with connected products for fitness, child, and pet tracking as well as anything else that needs tracking. We’ll be looking for new entrants in the space like Adidas and L’Oreal, as well as checking out everything else on the floor.
