Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo is to be one of the star speakers at the three-day Mobile World Congress which opens in Barcelona later today.

Sol will be part of a keynote "power panel" tackling the subject "Ubiquitous Networks" tomorrow afternoon.

Also on the panel is Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO of Ericsson, an old mate and business partner. The last time Sol shared a stage with Carl-Henric was at the 2006 launch of the Next G network in Sydney, for which Ericsson had provided most of the gear.

Other members of the Barcelona panel are Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, Manoj Kohli, boss of India's biggest telco Bharti Airtel (with 50 million customers), and Andrew Parker, a Financial Times journalist.

Previously known as the GSM World Congress or 3GSM, the Mobile World Congress is the world's biggest communications industry event. It's expected to draw around 50,000 visitors this year. The reason for the change in moniker is a growing trend to embrace other technologies beside GSM and 3G ­ including a big emphasis expected this year on WiMax.

Ultimate star attendee looks likely to be Hollywood legend Robert Redford.
At a special one-day Mobile Entertainment event, he'll be discussing the potential of mobile screens as a medium for independent filmmakers to reach new audiences.

Telstra's wireless engineering and operations director, Mike Wright, is also speaking in Barcelona at a high-speed packet access (HSPA) workshop.