NXTcomm Day Three Keynotes

Dr. Richard R. Green, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cable Television Laboratories Inc. kicked off the final day of NXTcomm with a keynote focused on convergence, interoperability and the importance of openness in networking.

“No longer are we telephone people and cable people,” Green said. “We are all basically in the same kind of business competing with each other to the benefit of the consumer.”

Green highlighted Cable Television Laboratories’ adoption of True2way as an example of industry collaboration and adoption of open standards. Time Warner Cable has deployed nearly two million True2way boxes and CE manufacturers including Panasonic and Sony are incorporating the technology into their television sets.

“Greater openness and open platforms in the access network are fundamental to attracting innovators,” Green said.

Jagdeep Singh, President, CEO and Founder, Infinera spoke on the importance of innovation broadband network deployment.

“Are we up to the challenge of overcoming and innovating around a dangerous bandwidth bottleneck?” Singh asked.   “The current pace of innovation in the optical core network is insufficient to meet future demand.”

Singh urged the industry to move away from creating similar products that compete on price in favor of differentiating themselves through innovation.  “Go after unsolved problems and deliver significant value.”  Singh recognizes that, “It is difficult to invest in research and development if the company isn’t healthy,” but believes in-house R&D is a key factor in developing innovative products.

Singh cautioned against reliance on off the shelf components and suggested that companies focus on developing key components themselves.  Further, Singh urged service providers, carriers and venture to get over their reluctance to invest in and buy from young innovative companies and to demand and reward innovation from vendors.

Phil Asmindson, Vice Chairman and National Manager Partner - Technology, Media and Telecommunications, Deloitte LLP and Jay Samit, CEO, Long Beach Studio followed with a lively discussion on mobile entertainment.

“Every new media starts by repackaging a previous product for a new medium,” Samit explained.  “All the different screens make things very complex.”

Samit said that the entertainment industry was reevaluating the difference between marketing and entertainment content and suggested that consumer desire is relative equation. “In entertainment you have to start with what are their expectations, how much control they want over it and how long is their attention span,” Samit explained.  He used celebrity chatbot site www.spleak.com as an example.  Samit said the site plans to engage an entirely different demographic by applying their celebrity gossip model to fantasy football. “If you can find the entertainment they are passionate about, they will consume it.”

Mark Burnett, Hollywood Producer and Creator of “Survivor” and “The Apprentice” wrapped up NXTcomm’s keynotes with his take on content creation and technology.  Burnett used entertaining stories from his life and rise to fame to illustrate the importance of entrepreneurship and creativity.  Burnett’s success has been based largely on his ability to take inspiration from nature or personal experience and apply it to something completely different.

For example, the idea for The Apprentice came to him while he watched ants working on the rain forest floor.  He later pitched the idea to Donald Trump who liked it and asked that he work with his contact at a talent agency to develop it.  When Trump discovered that the agency had dismissed Burnett and his idea, the agency contact was summarily dismissed himself with Trump delivering the now signature line, “You’re fired!”

Burnett was quick to point out however that while inspiration can be found in many places, it takes more than simple adaptation to generate compelling content for new mediums.  As with all the keynoters at NXTcomm08, Burnett was clear that this era of mobile broadband and multiple screens is an entirely new ball game and must be treated as such.  A fitting end for an excellent event!

During Tuesday morning’s keynote, Randall L. Stephenson, Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer, AT&T Inc. described his vision for the future of telecom.  In
short, there isn’t on.  Rather than simple wired and wireless voice and
data, Stephenson envisions a future of voice, video, data and other services
served over IP networks at unimaginable speeds.

“We are in the very early stages of a major shift in telecomm that will have
a major impact of the way we live,” Stephenson explained. “We are doing
things with technology today that we couldn’t have imagined a few years
ago.”

Stephenson illustrated his point by pointing out that eighty percent of the
world’s population lives within range of a cell tower, wireless voice minute
use is growing ten percent year over year and wireless data traffic is
quadrupling annually while landline home phone use continues to fall.

“To realize the full potential of all this connectivity, it takes the
combined efforts of many different companies and technologies,” Stephenson
explained.  “NXTcomm brings all the players together to accelerate this
innovation, improve quality and reduce coasts.”

Sol Trujillo, CEO, Telstra expanded on Stephenson’s remarks when he took the
sage immediately afterward.  Trujillo explained how he is leading
Australia’s largest telecommunications company through a five-year
transformation based on detailed customer research.

“Our industry has the best opportunity for growth since the mid nineties,”
Trujillo said. “But this time it is being driven by consumer needs.”
Trujillo stressed the need to continuously research and re-evaluate consumer
needs and desires.

According to Trujillo, consumers want uncomplicated, intuitive, time saving
personalized devices that are easy to use and offer a lot of value for the
money. Trujillo believes that network’s performance now has a larger impact
on the consumer’s experience than does the design of the hardware or human
interface.

Both Trujillo and Stephenson mentioned the importance of a seamless
ecosystem of hardware, software and high-speed networks in delivering
consumers a quality experience.  Their compelling and energizing vision
opened NXTcomm08 show floor on a high note.

The Forum

New to NXTcomm is The Forum – a new show floor presence offering visitors a unique opportunity to learn about some of the hottest trends in communications, interoperability and industry development. The Forum is the perfect one-stop spot on the exhibit floor for attendees to gain in-depth knowledge in a classroom atmosphere, while seeing leading-edge technology, developments and applications in a hands-on setting.  The Forum provides first-hand offerings from the following groups:

 

The Broadband Services Forum (BSF) is an international industry resource focused on the business of broadband. The BSF provides a forum to address the fundamental business and technology issues vital to the growth and health of the broadband services industry. The BSF fosters collaboration across the broadband value chain including content, service and technology providers. Topics recently addressed include: IPTV, “over-the-top” video, monetizing the IP network, and advanced applications. For more information, visit www.broadbandservicesforum.org.

 

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Forum is a global telecommunications industry association devoted to M-Play the interoperable IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and Next Generation Network (NGN) service delivery architecture and solutions. The Forum’s mission is to accelerate the interoperability of IMS and NGN services and to enable enterprise and residential consumers to benefit fully from the delivery of multimedia mobile and fixed services over broadband cable, wireless, wireline, and fiber networks. The Forum is the creator and organizer of the IMS Plugfest™ and NGN Plugfest™, the industry’s only events focused on verification and certification of IMS and NGN service interoperability through the IMS Certified™ and NGN Certified™ programs.  Visit www.IMSForum.org booth SL6521for more information.

 

MultiService Forum is a global association of service providers, system suppliers and test equipment vendors committed to developing and promoting open-architecture, multiservice Next Generation Networks. Founded in 1998, the MSF is an open membership organization comprised of the world’s leading telecommunications companies. Known for its Global MultiService Interoperability (GMI) Events, the MSF’s activities include developing Implementation Agreements, promoting worldwide compatibility and interoperability of network elements through global test events, and encouraging input to appropriate national and international standards bodies.

 

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) unites representatives from data and optical networking disciplines worldwide, including leading carriers, component manufacturers and system vendors. The OIF promotes the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services through the creation of Implementation Agreements for optical networking systems and optical, interconnect, network processing and component technologies.  This industry-wide collaboration leads to accelerated innovation, faster time-to-market, enhanced intelligence in networks and devices, reliable interoperation and global access.  Visit www.oiforum.com or booth SL7212 to learn more.

 

Like all NXTcomm08 Special Interest Sessions, Forum sessions are free with your Exhibits Plus Pass.  So stop by the Forum to learn how these industry groups are working to improve the health of the industry.

The NXTcomm website is an invaluable resource for learning about and planning for NXTcomm08.  Here are some of my favorite nxtcommshow.com tools.

 

myNXTcommnxtcommshow.com/mynxtcomm.html is a powerful tool that intelligently mines through the NXTcomm08 community and identifies the exhibitors, products, educational sessions and other attendees who best meet your business goals.  After you provide an email and get a password (which done automatically when you register for the show) you can search for topics or people that interest you and select from the returned list.  Anything you select is added to your personal “You-Based Event Report” which is built for you week-by-week by and is accessible from your personal myNXTcomm web portal.  From there you can export or print your full event plan including maps, schedules and contact information.  For those of us without a team of executive assistants and handlers, myNXTcomm is the best way to manage your show experience.

 

There are some good instructional and informational videos on the site as well.  The myNXTcommTV segment on NXTcomm Exhibitor News http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=k27895ri and MyCompanyNewsTVhttp://mynxtcomm.bdmetrics.com provides a sneak peek at what some of the major exhibitors plan on announcing at NXTcomm08.  NXT TV http://web20.telecomtv.com/pages/?id=21e5f0e9-726f-43a6-ac37-1161f8160724&vidid=2960&view=video&page=1 is the streaming video portal where the keynotes will be shown live.

 

The NXTcomm08 interactive floor plan http://floorplan.nxtcommshow.com/shows/nxt08/start.cfm is a small Java applet that lets you sort the items on the show floor by exhibitor, booth, pavilion, group or favorites.  Click on an item in the list and you’ll be shown the location on the color map.  You can zoom in for greater detail and print the map to take with you.

 

The Press Room https://nxtcommshow.com/news_room.html section of the site offers some great tools for keeping up with industry news.  The Exhibitor News <http://virtualpressoffice.com/media/show/display.jsp?showId=1181060943076> section links to a comprehensive list of exhibitor press releases.  There are links to telecom industry RSS feeds, blogs and even a button to get “Linkedin” with NXTcomm executive director Wayne Crawford.

 

nxtcommshow.com has all the tools you need to get the most out of NXTcomm08 so visit early and often!

In keeping with the digital dialogue of the information age, here is a numeric expression of the excitement around NXTcomm08.

200,000 square feet of exhibit space

500 exhibits

250 reporters and analysts (pre-registered)

100 keynotes, sessions and conferences

27 official hotels

19 exhibit hours

12 Eos Awards

4 days of conferences

3 Summits

One event delivering the entire ecosystem of network-enabled voice, video and data.