Lighter, faster and even smarter smartphones will premiere at the world's biggest mobile fair this week, sparking a race for ways to prevent network overload from rendering the phones “dumb”.

We are likely to see a number of high-end Android phones with very fast, light, quad core processors

Mobile phone giants Nokia, LG and Sony are among a long list of manufacturers which will show off their latest offers during the four-day Mobile World Congress, which opens in Spain's Barcelona today.

“We are likely to see a number of high-end Android phones with very fast, light, quad core processors,” IHS Global Insight analyst Ian Fogg said.

“There will be an innovation towards the high-end, with larger screens, they'll be very fast, enabling gaming,” he added.

Most smartphones run on dual core at the moment but quad core would essentially make them run at least twice as quickly. But even though smartphones are getting even smarter, with 3-D screens or higher resolution cameras, analysts warn that their potential can hardly be unleashed as network infrastructure is not keeping pace.

“Quad core is useful when it comes to mobile gaming, but in reality it is just hype because the bottleneck at the moment is data usage,” said Loo Wee Teck, Euromonitor's head of consumer electronics research.

“If you don't have the supporting bandwidth, then it is just academic.”

Magnus Rehle, managing director of Greenwich Consulting, also pointed to network overload as an “increasing problem, not just on data caused by smartphones but also by the applications on the phones”.

With mobile data traffic estimated by Digiworld Institute to grow 33 times between 2010 and 2020, all eyes will be on telcom executives attending the congress to detail plans on rolling out or popularising the ultra-fast fourth generation (4G) network.

Beyond a data crunch provoked by insufficient bandwidth, Mr Rehle said the functions of numerous phones were also being deliberately turned off by travelling consumers for fear of overly high roaming charges.