Over the past several years, wireless and telecom businesses have looked forward to CTIA as the sign that summer is officially over and business is back in full swing.  This year, CTIA 2016 will in many ways give its last independent hurrah before moving its tent from Las Vegas to San Francisco in 2017, with the help of the GSMA.

Announced several weeks ago, CTIA will be joining forces in 2017 and beyond with the GSMA to form a new event named “GSMA Mobile World Congress Americas, in partnership with CTIA”. Reportedly, both organizations will have an equal part to play.

It seems that the aim of this newly formed alliance will be to bring the type of scale and visibility to the wireless industry that events like Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress tend to do in early spring each year. The last Mobile World Congress event held in Barcelona is said to have attracted more than 100,000 guests.; whereas, CTIA 2016 is expected to see less than half of that total.

While this isn’t the first merger involving CTIA in the last few years, this one does seem to have a clearer path to an eventual eclipse, and ultimate dismissal, of the CTIA namesake.