Standards organizations are essential for making the whole network work across all kinds of equipment and regions, general manager of the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) told Xinhua during the Mobile World Congress (MWC).

"The Open Mobile Alliance is a standards development organization... The industry has to agree on all the protocols and the way the network will work in order for the information from a call or text message to get from your Nokia phone on your 'Vodafone' network to your Samsung phone on your China Mobile network," said Seth Newberry.

The OMA, founded in 2002 by the world's most important mobile operators and network suppliers, is a focal point for helping develop specifications to help support interoperable mobile services across different devices, frontiers, operators and networks.

The organization is like a "technology clearing house," which provides "the railroad tracks for the applications to run on worldwide," he explained.

With the mobile industry expanding into a worldwide phenomenon; something made clear by the fact that 140 different countries are represented in Barcelona by over 1,400 exhibitors, and countries such as China and India becoming major players in the mobile economy, the need to maintain standards has become increasingly important.

"For the countries where the network is growing so quickly, it is important that the underlying technical tracks on which they run on are well defined and agreed between all of the countries," said Newberry, who added companies such as ZTE, China Mobile and Huawei were "central to the technological work that was being carried out," and "very active with standards."

"It really helps emerging markets to apply applications more quickly where the technical underlying parts are agreed throughout the industry," he said.

The OMA will use the MWC to made several demonstrations from companies such as Huawei, which will show its "Smart Life" software, developed to allow users to access information in a 3D mode, using cameras rather than keywords to search for their requirements.

"What we get out of the show is that our members can show what they have done on top of OMA protocols and other people can become familiar with it quickly and deploy their applications using OMA technologies," explained the OMA general manager.

This year's Mobile World Congress started on Monday in the Spanish city of Barcelona and will last till Thursday, showcasing key developments in applications and technology.