The Essential Components of PR and Marketing for Wireless Mobile Technologies in 2025
By Peggy Tierney Galvin, Force4 Technology Communications
Wireless mobile technologies don’t always carry the same sex appeal as the latest generative AI chatbot or consumer gadget. This can sometimes make it seem harder to raise awareness and visibility with external audiences in the same way as other types of technology.
But as we just saw with this year’s Mobile World Congress, there is so much happening (sometimes behind the scenes) in this space that is exciting and innovative – from 5G to 6G to AI and chip innovations. For example, the rise of 5G slicing over the past few years gives far richer data to telcos and users alike, such as location-based services, insights into consumer spending habits and smart city infrastructure. The parallel explosion of LLM AI tools like agentic AI and AI workflows offers a way to extract even more helpful insights off of this deeper, richer and more contextualized data set from 5G sources.
It’s an exciting time, but it can sometimes seem challenging to highlight and promote the exciting developments in a meaningful way. For companies in this space, getting the right message out to the public and building hype can feel like an uphill battle, given all the noise. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
Rising above the fray requires clearly showing how your technology makes an impact, the problems it solves and how you do it better than anyone else. While this approach is hardly unique to this sector, it does require certain nuances in execution.
The brass tacks
John Byrne, an analyst with IDC, noted that four of the top six U.S. telecom operators will increase their capital expenditure – most by single digits and Lumen by 30%. This spending uptick aligns with the massive AI investments coming from Big Tech.
Investment in AI and next-gen semiconductors is creating new opportunities. The current arms race to create ever more powerful chips for AI applications is pouring billions of dollars into hardware improvements and semiconductor research, including novel methods for wireless AI computing using edge devices and 5G connectivity. The market is at the precipice of a new acceleration of data collection, analysis and automation by bringing these powerful new tools together and applying them to business challenges. This race will have a significant impact on telcos, as training AI models requires rapid communication between huge data centers.
Other opportunities are arising from the wireless/service provider/telco infrastructure advancements that deliver lower costs, more efficient delivery, lower latency, faster performance and more to the networks and data centers themselves. These advancements allow more of these tools to be used by more customers. Companies in this space are already seizing upon these opportunities; now it’s time to ensure that others know about them.
This is where PR and marketing fit in, as their role is to showcase the use cases and greenfield opportunities to build awareness of your services and products. The elements of PR and marketing for telecom tech is the same as for any good B2B campaign: highlight real-world applications, address industry pain points and show how your company does it best.
A nuanced approach for a nuanced industry
There are many changes happening behind the scenes that can be harder to notice for would-be customers right away. Skepticism that “this new round” of technology advancements is any different from old hype about edge computing, for instance, is an issue. As always, examples, use cases, case studies, etc. that “show vs. tell” how customers are using these tools today to make or save money are where the winning wireless/mobility/service provider tech vendor will get ahead.
Understand your target market and audience. If you’re a B2C company, CNET might make sense as a publication to focus on, but if you’re a B2B company, that’s not necessarily the audience that is going to be making purchasing decisions about your company. Your marketing/PR partner can help make sure you’re targeting the right places for your product – and not just getting swayed by hype.
Have clear examples and use cases. Again, it comes down to being able to show how your technology can benefit specific use cases in a real-world, meaningful way. You need to be able to articulate how prospective customers would use your product or service. Marketers also need to explain the best practices for using that product or service and provide examples of business benefits.
Toward successful PR and marketing for wireless mobile
As wireless mobile technologies evolve, AI and chip innovations are driving major shifts in connectivity and enterprise solutions. B2B mobility and wireless tech providers need to implement key PR and marketing strategies that will enable them to navigate these changes. By highlighting real-world applications, addressing industry pain points and leveraging success stories, wireless technology vendors can effectively communicate their value and stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving market.
