Report: 7th Annual EEBC Telecom & Broadcasting Eastern Europe exhibition & conference

Wednesday, 18 November 2009 11:19  |  James Barton

The recent EEBC Conference in Kyiv provides an opportunity to review ICT development in Ukraine, with a number of trends becoming apparent.

The International scientific-practical conference "Technologies of Satellite Communication and Broadcasting" aroused the most interest among the EEBC 2009 audience. Onno Zonneveld, SES SIRIUS AB CEE Vice President, spoke on the topic "The Growth of Opportunities in the Ukrainian Market", detailing the capabilities of the new satellite ASTRA at 31.5?E. The satellite will provide new HDTV services across the country.

Nikolay Orlov, CIS Regional Director of Eutelsat Communications, continued this theme with the announcement that his company is preparing to launch the W7 satellite as part of its 2009-2011 satellite constellation. The W7 satellite will provide new broadcasting opportunities across CIS countries.

Meanwhile, UNIIRT State Enterprise Head of Satellite Communications Anatoly Melnik described the problems encountered in implementing the National Satellite Communication System, stressing that additional research would be required for the project’s completion. He also explained the advantages of adopting the  DVB-S2 signal format as standard.

Another theme addressed at EEBC was “New Services in Broadband Networks”. Markus Fritz, SES ASTRA Vice President and Marketing CEO, addressed the process of digitisation in Europe in a talk entitled “Partnership for Digital Technology Development”, and made several arguments in favour of using satellite technology to build a nationwide network of digital terrestrial broadcasting.

Evgeny Lisitsyn, Director General of Ukrainian Modern Telecommunications, provided details of the launch of the first Ukrainian Mobile WiMAX-based network, and noted that by November 2009 the network - under the brand FreshTel - would cover all of Kyiv and its suburbs. He also added that 4G services will be available to 10 million Ukrainians by the end of 2010.

Bosco Eduardo Fernandes, UMTS Forum Information and Communication Technologies Manager, addressed the problem of increasing network traffic and the issue of whether this is best addressed through HSPA or LTE technology. He concluded that since Ukraine will not start building LTE networks before 2012, HSPA will provide the immediate solution.

Andrey Gruzdev, Engineer at the Department of Radio Communication Systems, highlighted the trends of broadband wireless access systems and presented the results obtained by UNIIRT research aimed at solving problems that arise in this process. Meanwhile, Sergey Ikonnikov’s report “Key Issues of Advanced Broadband Technologies Implementation” considered the problems of implementing new generation cellular systems in different bands, and identified LTE as the most promising broadband access technology for Ukraine.

EEBC 2009 also featured a roundtable discussion organised by the Ukrainian Internet Association. Attended by major players of the information and communication technology market, the roundtable addressed the implementation of the digital signature in Ukraine, as well as tariff formation and required changes to regulatory legislature – an issue which many roundtable participants agreed has slowed development in the country.

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