Analysis, Conferences, Exhibitions, ITU, Hong Kong, Global: Several themes emerged from ITU Telecom World 2006. In this section of our review we identify developments at the event more focused to the emerging markets. ITU itself did in fact use the event to announce some important relevant news.

Spending just one full day at ITU Telecom World is not enough to form a comprehensive view of the event. Matt Walker, senior analyst from Ovum RHK in Thailand did just that, touring exhibitors’ booths and talking to company officials. As he notes, even the attendance figure is disputed, as some estimated the actual attendance to be 20,000 while ITU’s target was 50,000.

From the very first day certain themes were pre-eminent. There was Alcatel-Lucent’s first public appearance as a merged company. For Matt Walker this is a two-edged sword. He can compliment the new company on its exhibition stand plastered with the new name, brand image and logo, but he can also raise the criticism that the company’s actual products were notably absent from the booth, as it will take some time to pare down and integrate product lines, redesign as needed, and then re-brand. There were, however, and impressive number of Alcatel-Lucent executives at ITU World, in contrast to Nortel, hardly visible, but instead focusing its marketing energy on the 3G World Congress being held simultaneously in the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, downtown.

This is not in fact just a question of competition. ITU Telecom World was held at the new Expo centre on Lantau. This is not the most accessible of venues even in a relatively small area like Hong Kong. Getting to the venue required a 40 minute express train ride from most delegates hotels. And then having to do the same in reverse in the evening.

One tale that has emerged is of a glorious evening event comprising a trip around the southern bay of Hong Kong in a traditional craft - but only one person was able to make it. Quite simply, to be at the event in question required leaving the show at around 4pm, i.e., missing out the last hour-and-a-half of the day. One can see the money accruing from lost business flying out the window.

Was the balance right for ITU’s first holding of its premier event outside Europe? That is to say, did ITU learn from its previous Telecom Asia events in Hong Kong and Pusan? The decision for a global event was taken to highlight the growing importance of Asia, and also to highlight the billions of people – many in turn in Asia – who still lack basic telephony access.

As a result, intentional or otherwise, this year’s show was to some degree dominated by Chinese attendees and companies – from the large Huawei (with a four-storey booth complete with lift!) to countless small PRC-based suppliers of various component parts used in building networks or handsets (this bias towards China was also identified by our own Developing Telecoms publisher Alec Barton).

In fact, Matt Walker is of the opinion that, to a lesser extent than for China, Japanese, Korean, and other Asian companies were also more exposed at ITU World than they had been at previous events.

Comprehensive coverage - ITU’s strength

ITU as an event organiser has the major task of struggling to compete with the many other private and consortium/industry association-driven events held around Asia, Europe and North America. ITU has one key strength. Its events bring together a wide range of exhibitor types, from the manufacturing of network piece parts such as coaxial cable and climate-controlled huts, to developers of mobile software, not to mention country/regional-focused exhibitors providing educational and networking opportunities. Matt Walker points out that the Iran pavilion was within shouting distance of mobile phone giant Motorola, a power conditioning supplier from India, and a Korean research institute developing reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers.

At present, two buzzwords keep on recurring almost ad nauseam in the world of communication - IPTV and HSDPA. Why should ITU Telecom World be any exception? 3GSM earlier in the year certainly wasn’t in the case of HSDPA. It was possible to lose count of the number of exhibitors talking up and hyping not only the push that both IPTV and HSDPA will give to IP at the edge of the network but also the extra equipment which will, surprise, surprise, require new architectures, box designs and gear, available for a small sum from – the exhibitors in question…

Matt Walker turned his attention to presentation: “Glitz matters – even those charged with making multi-million dollar decisions – such as telco network execs – can be swayed by the superficial trappings present throughout the AsiaWorld Expo: free booth giveaways (from cheap plastic pens, tote bags, and candy, to handy drives, cocktails, and more), unique design features (such as UTStarcom’s airplane-shaped booth layout, supplemented by a Hummer on the side), dance shows, confetti, loud music, and – last, but far from least – attractive, young, scantily clad, female ‘attention-getters’ (also known colloquially as ‘booth babes’ in the west).

“Lots of well-staffed, serious looking booths demonstrating real products and presenting real news were empty today, while their more glitzy neighbours were mobbed. Naturally the camera phones carried by nearly all ITU World attendees were put to good use when encountering the latter. For a technology show, with exhibitors showing a wide range of products – from easily understood mobile phones to more arcane products such as fibre-optic cable splice enclosures, FTTH test equipment, WiMax radios, and core routers, a little entertainment is appreciated by all.”

Mobile at ITU

CW Cheung (“CW”) is a Consulting Director of Ovum Consulting. Like Matt Walker he assessed ITU Telecom World, although from a more specialist stance. There was, for CW, and increasing and promising trend demonstrated on the ITU stands for the exploration of further seamless mobile applications at mobile device level. Such devices encompass every form of consumer electronics or personal electronic appliance equipped with wireless connectivity capability (eg, WiFi, UMA, 2.5G/3G/3.5G). Microsoft, in this respect, announced the introduction onto the China market of low-cost smartphones with Windows mobile capability, as well as collaboration with Chinese mobile operators in developing messaging services.

China, continues CW, is a hot-spot of world attention for ITU. Her immense market potential has long been a focal point for service operators and vendors. Speakers at the show came from governments, service providers and vendors, not to mention ITU’s own Head of Strategy and Policy, Dr Tim Kelly. He used the Digital Opportunity Index (DOI) to demonstrate and compare some of the successes which China is currently enjoying over other Asia-Pacific economies. In fact, China has demonstrated consistent improvement over the last five years, although it is India that actually tops the DOI and has enjoyed the largest single leap in the Index.

CW Cheung notes ITU’s forecast that China, India and certain other emerging countries will contribute significantly to signing up the world’s four billionth telecoms customer. How China will position herself to grasp this huge economic opportunity will dictate her future development.

more info:

• www.itu.int/partners/telecom2006/index.html
• www.ovum.com