La Fira Barcelona, the site of the Mobile World Congress, sits expansively across Placa Espanya, an enormous traffic circle, from the old Barcelona Arena. It’s comprised of eight halls, with a T-shaped courtyard packed with vendor tents. It’s huge and old world. Organizers refer to the site as The Village. It figures it took me an hour circling the area to actually find it. (Apparently, you good give me a ticket to Union Station in downtown Toronto, park a small hamlet — let’s say, Calgary — across the street where the Royal York is now, and I’d still never find the thing. I have many qualities; an internal GPS is not one of my specs.)

Barcelona has an effective subway web that covers the whole city. It’s clean and efficient, well-policed and well-travelled. This does not change the fact that traffic at Placa Espanya during rush hour is something like that film footage of the evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War — if there were helicopters, people would be hanging from the landing gear. Drivers, cyclists, scooter operators and pedestrians all do unconscionable things at the intersections, yet you never hear a siren. Either no one’s getting hurt, or they’re making do on their own.

I’m here for the above-mentioned World Mobile Conference, 55,000-strong with wireless movers and shakers. I’ve just sat through a session on ubiquity of the network, and its given me pause.

I have a loaner GSM phone for use over here. I have not succeeded one whit in using it. I don’t know what the network problem is, but it’s my mother’s birthday today and if I don’t call … well, come on, how long would you hear about it from your mom? The wireless access in my hotel room doesn’t work, so I’m ensconsed in the lobby to work — si, por favor, una cerveza mas — where was I?

The loaner’s because my own cell phone is CDMA, which essentially means use only in Canada. I am isolated, communications-wise, at the show — if I can’t get a PC at the packed-to-the-rafters media centre (where there are no wireline phones, but it IS a wireless conference), I’ve got a 10-minute subway ride back to the Hotel Rey Juan Carlos I, where the technology is so sophisticated it took me two days to figure out how to keep the lights on for more than 30 seconds at a time. (Hint: Leave your key card in the slot near the door; this apparently tells the system you’re in, whereas repeatedly flicking the light switches does not.) I could use the Wi-Fi (they call it whiffy here) at La Fira, I suppose, but that means lugging an eight-pound laptop back and forth across town, and frankly, a laptop bag and name tag pretty much certify you in a foreign city as shark bait.

Forgive me if I don’t feel the ubiquitous network — which isn’t just about access points and cell towers, but the whole wireless communications ecosystem — is imminent. But I’m loving Barcelona.

Happy Birthday, Mom. Sorry I couldn’t call.