Repent! The ITU Telecom World end is coming — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^Opinion Repent! The ITU Telecom World end is coming

19 Oct 2003 at 13:06 GMT Timo Poropudas

Last week’s ITU Telecom World 2003 was, undoubtedly a major telecom event, but its stature was not anywhere what it has been in the past. The two main features of this year’s expo and confrence were the lack of several major players and the token presence of several others; and the drop in the number of visitors from over 200 000 to 100 000. There is no doubt that the general telecom and IT slump has affected the participation numbers, but that does not explain the fact that the companies that could best afford to attend the event, stayed home. Among them were Alcatel, Ericsson, Lucent, Motorola, Nokia, Siemens, Vodafone and other significant telcos from around the world, especially the US. The companies and state regulators present at Geneva put their best foot forward for the event. But it is not a good sign when the organizer makes a virtue out of neccessity and praises the opportunities for more personal contacts due to the lesser amount of visitors. The major contract announcements in Geneva were not very spectacular. As listed by an ITU press release among the major announcements were those from BT, valued at EUR 100 million, with "3" in Ireland to build and operate its 3G radio access network, ACE*COMM's multi-million dollar contract with Giza Systems to provide a country-wide data collection solution for Telecom Egypt, and Nortel Networks' supply agreement, estimated at USD 30 million over three, years with Israel's Pelephone, to expand its 3G Wireless Data Network In the past, ITU was criticized for arranging the mammoth event in Geneva where facilities were not large enough for it. This year’s event did not suffer from the mammoth disease but that was not by design. It is almost certain that next time around there will be even more major players missing from Telecom World if the event itself does not change. The wide spread respect for the event has been for a large part based on the fact that most of the major companies and regulators were gathered in Geneva. It will be a pity if the major telecom event looses its importance, as seems to be happening. The organizer, the UN’s ITU (International Telecom Union), was at the same time going through an internal schism. The governing board, the secretary general and the staff are at logger heads over the administration of the organization. The staff has even held a public demonstration demanding better administration from the secretary general Yoshio Utsumi. Over the past two decades several major ITC events have lost their grip, their audiences and, naturally, their sponsors. ITU has to put its house together fast if it intends to save the once mighty Telecom World.