Barcelona prepares for worlds biggest gathering on mobile technology

Seeking to escape a cycle of falling prices and tight regulation, big telecom operators from Vimpelcom to Telefonica are set to reinvent themselves as internet players to escape the industry’s straight-jacket of low growth.

Next week’s Mobile World Congress will feature phone companies in various stages of acceptance that the industry’s predictable, decades-old business model based on selling data packages by the millions is running out of steam.

Beneath the facade of shiny new phones and dusty debates over network technical implementations, Europe’s largest annual technology fair will see top phone companies parading far-reaching business makeovers.

Spain’s Telefonica is set to introduce a broad plan it calls the “4th Platform” to help both consumer and business customers keep greater control over their data rather than giving it away to web giants Google, Facebook and Amazon.

Russian and emerging markets operator Vimpelcom is tearing up many parts of the telecom rule book to remake itself as a tech player in the fast-growing world of messaging apps.

U.S. telecom giant AT&T has inked a series of huge deals to diversify by acquiring Direct TV for $67 billion and is awaiting approval to buy Time Warner for another $110 billion.

Dramatic changes in the industry come as telcos brace to offer new networks ready to handle not just spiralling data use on phones but in cars, in factories and offices and even crop fields.

The new generation of 5G networks will provide them new business options but also spells mounting competition from computer, internet and industrial players with digital plans of their own.