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3GSM -The most boring ever? Or just incompetent PR?

I haven't spoken to many people here in Barcelona prepared to dispute the suggestion that this is probably the most dull, irrelevant and uninteresting Congress for years.

In a world where publicity is the lifeblood of every industry, it's hard to imagine why the GSMA would deliberately prevent journalists from writing about the 3GSM show. And yet, that's what they've done.

Is this because they are trying to reduce the bad publicity?

Actually, it would be nice to imagine that there was A Plan, but honestly, I doubt it. It's simple incompetence, coupled with a failure to understand a simple fact:

Journalism involves writing

I know this is hard to understand for many, who seem to think that as long as they persuade you to attend an interview, their job is done... but unless you can sit down after the interview and write the story, what's the point? We certainly do not do the interview for the tea (made of mildly warm water in which some possibly tea-related foliage has been moistened) or the biscuits.

As I grumbled earlier, there are almost twice as many journalists here as last year. Last year, the number of seats available in the press working lounge was about half what was required. That is to say, people with their own laptops would come to the media centre and try to find somewhere to write - and would have to go away.

I ran into one friend, Stephen Wellman, now with CMP, formerly Fierce Wireless, using his laptop. "How long did you have to wait before you found an empty Ethernet cable?" I asked. "I waited an hour," he said. "I sat at the back, and when I saw someone pull the network cable, I ran, and grabbed his chair and almost tipped him out."

Do the sums. You have twice as many people, all looking for a seat and an Ethernet socket. That means, more than twice as many people trying to get work done, standing around with frustrated expressions...

Of course, we all complained to the Media Centre staff.

"Oh, I KNOW!" they sighed. And, behind their hands, they confess that they asked for far more seating area for media, but Richard Keown, head of the Congress business inside the GSMA, refused. We've asked for an interview with Mr Keown. Foolishly, perhaps, the Editor is holding his breath...

In theory, you could sit in the "lounge" area and log onto the free WiFi service.

In reality, I've used faster GPRS links, in a tunnel, the wrong side of a mountain, on a boat, in the Ionian sea. Just logging in took two or three minutes and as for getting your online editor to work...