Mobile World Congress (MWC) kicks off today in Barcelona. You can expect to read a stream of product announcements mixed with a few significant business moves.

To wit, last year MWC opened with RFMD and TriQuint announcing their merger. Yesterday, NXP announced it is acquiring Freescale for some $11.8 billion. The most interesting aspect of the deal for those of us in the RF and microwave industry: NXP will divest its high performance RF business and retain Freescale's RF segment.

Listen to Rick Clemmer, NXP CEO, speak to this in this morning's call with investors.

You can also peruse the slide deck prepared for the investor call.

Other Company and Product News

NXP completed the acquisition of Quintic, adding Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE) to their portfolio for Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

Avago reported fiscal Q1 financials. Driven by cellular, the wireless segment posted revenue of $664 million, up 5.7 percent sequentially and 90 percent above Q1 of last year.

Continuing its diversification, Avago announced it will buy Emulex for $609 million, strengthening its position in networks.

TI introduced a multi-standard, low power wireless microcontroller platform for IoT applications.

Raytheon's new GaN-based phased array radar for Patriot was approved for export. Tim Glaeser, vice president at Integrated Defense Systems, says GaN is game changing.

Mercury Systems opened a second innovation center, this one featuring the company's embedded and high-performance sensor processing and thermal cooling capabilities.

Markets and Applications

In a three-to-two vote on Thursday, the FCC classified broadband internet as a “public utility.” This will likely spur various lawsuits contesting the decision.

On the eve of MWC, Ericsson updated their Mobility Report with the latest subscriber data and forecasts to 2020. One of the interesting factoids in the update, the top five mobile apps in the U.S. by traffic volume: Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Reuters reports that FDD LTE licenses have finally been awarded to China Telecom and Unicom. Meanwhile, early approval of China Mobile's TD-LTE license allowed them to amass quite a lead. They reported 106.8 million 4G (TD-LTE) customers at the end of January.

Verizon defines the IoT as being “aware, autonomous, actionable.” Their new IoT report dives into the emerging applications and growth forecasts.

Will Google or Apple own the dashboard in your new car? Probably both.

I'm sorry to see dailywireless.org ending a 12-year run providing timely and comprehensive wireless news. Godspeed, Sam, as you pursue other interests.

Other companies or markets that you'd like me to follow? Leave a comment, and I'll add them to my list.