The Hindu Business Line : Telecom meet to focus on market challenges

THE single largest telecommunication exhibition and conference, ITU Telecom World 2003 gets under way at the lakeside city of Geneva tomorrow. Organised by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the inter-governmental specialised agency of the United Nations for telecom, this event is held once in four years.

This weeklong event from October 12-18 is intended to bring global telecom players, policymakers, regulators and investors under one roof. The official opening ceremony for the event was held today.

Since the last event held in 1999, the global telecom industry has changed dramatically. Four years ago, the industry was euphoric about its prospects.

`Convergence of the information technology, telecom and entertainment/content', `mobility, with promise of high speed Internet access on smart devices' and `connecting the world through fibre optic cable', `satellite and other mediums' were the buzzwords at the event.

These were expected to transform the dynamics of the industry. But these prospects have turned sour, with the industry passing through challenging times since late 2000/early 2001. Since then, the industry has been on the rationalisation and restructuring mode.

As Mr Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary General of ITU, said, "This event will provide the platform to discuss market challenges and to forge a common view on how our industries can rebuild confidence and identify new sources of growth."

This will be particularly relevant, since technology and innovation have taken a backseat in recent times.

In the key technology areas such as mobility and broadband, telecom players have been attempting to reinvent themselves through new business models and creating new sources of revenue.

The focus will be on these aspects in both the forum meetings addressed by senior decision-makers and administrators and exhibitor offerings.

This year's Forum Programme has been segmented into five themes for each day of the event:

`Environments in Transition' which will address issues such as whether market liberalisation is working, can technology deliver;

`Customer focus' which will focus on managing customer expectations, satisfying the customer and innovation through partnerships;

`Partnerships of the future' which will examine new sources of revenue for the industry, what business models will work and addressing the skill shortages in the industry through e-learning;

`Threats and opportunities' which include learnings from other industries, building consumer confidence through better security and privacy; and

`Information Society' focused on workshops on remedies for telecom recovery.

Over 1,00,000 participants and about 750 exhibitors are expected to attend this event.

Chief executive officers and senior executives from high profile companies such as HP, Nortel Networks, NTT DoCoMo, BT, IBM, Vodafone, NEC, Microsoft, Samsung and Sun Microsystems among others are expected to participate and interact through the week.

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