TELECOM99, GENEVA: The Telecom Extravaganza

ITU's quadrennial

World Telecom show-held every four years since 1971-is not supposed

to be for profit. However, if it does profit, ITU uses the surplus

income for specific telecom development projects in the world's

least developed and lowest income countries.

Every four

years, the who's who of telecom-in the government and the corporate

world-rush to Geneva. Geneva, the headquarters of the International

Telecommunication Union (ITU), world's oldest intergovernmental

organization founded in 1865, has been known for the telecom

show considered the Mecca of telecom whiz kids. Telecom99, the

eighth such event, held from 10-18 October lived up to its image

and glory this year too. It was here that crossbar systems were

launched in 1975, ISDN in 1983, GSM in 1987, and ATM/SDH in

1995.

With telecom

ministers of almost all of ITU's 189 member countries as well

as CEOs of almost all its 560 sector and corporate members,

could one afford to miss not being there? Over 300,000 visitors-more

than Geneva's population-did not. It is another matter that

almost anything habitable within 1 - 2 hour's drive of Geneva

was occupied-on Geneva's terms. And it was true of the most

eating-places.

The total

expenditure-estimated at around 2.5 billion dollars-on the 9-day

show is enough to meet the annual budget of many a developing

countries. Many of nearly 1,200 exhibitors spent tens of millions

of dollars including the multi-level elevator-equipped stands,

complete with swank offices, private conference rooms, mini-theatres,

and bistros with elaborate bars.

Extreme

Marketing



Swisscom pinned 35,000 white roses on the walls. It even replaced
the same the moment one wilted. All aimed to please "customers"!

Newly formed "Concert" painted a big "why"

with BT written on one side and AT&T on the other. Everyone

seemed to understand the subtle messages. And for those who

could not find BT's stand in the show, one could not miss the

big white "BT" yacht-probably the biggest in the Lake

Geneva-entertaining its guests. Many stands had professional

dance performances and some even live fashion shows. Names like

Daina Ross, Natalie Cole were heard to perform for some.

One wonders

whether it was a loud orgy of self-importance or just extreme

marketing and muscle flexing. However, for some like me, it

was a peep into the future; provided one is able to look through

the glare.

Peep

into the Future



It took Geneva to make Bill Gates announce in his keynote address
at the accompanying conference, "Microsoft Corp. wants

to be at the forefront as data communication converges with

mobile telecommunications and television. We intend to offer

customers access to their information at any time, anywhere,

and on any device". It was the realization that soon mobiles

will outnumber the PCs that the OS suppliers started wooing

and partnering the mobile phone manufacturers.

Internet:

the Show Stealer



Someone commented "Internet would make it all redundant".
And the Internet it was indeed what the show seemed to be obsessed

with. Be it WAP enabled mobiles, 3G multimedia terminals, DSLs,

digital interactive TVs, broadband satellites…everything

that seemed to help in delivering Internet and eventually multimedia.

Going by the impressive range of their 3G-multimedia products,

one needs to watch out: Japanese and Koreans are finally arriving

in mobiles too!

We had heard

of glitzy give-aways like top-of-the-line cell phones, palm-tops

etc. But the unusual gifts this time were VoIP gateways being

given away to ISPs. Just for popularization of VoIP. With such

an obsession, it is difficult for IP not to arrive.

A Call

for Have-nots



Among the entire fanfare someone did remember the five billion
populace in developing countries-for whom WWW means World Wide

Wait-out of the world's total of 6 billion. Remembering them,

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reminded, "For many of

them, the great scientific and technical achievements of our

era might as well be taking place on another planet." However,

ITU Secretary General Yoshio Utsumi sounded hopeful, "New

technologies make it an achievable goal to bring virtually the

whole of mankind within easy reach of a telephone." And

ITU released a new report "Internet for Development"

which listed three factors for disproportionate distribution

and its dearth in developing nations: the shortage of infrastructure,

the inequality in pricing (relative to per capita income), and

lack of multilingual content. Annan added, "telecom is

a tremendous force for integrating people and nations into the

global economy-the only real hope we have of overcoming poverty".

More and

more people believe in the Internet as the "cyber bullet"

with the instant power to improve everything from GNP to health

care to education and to solve the other socio-economic problems

of developing nations. There is skepticism, but the Internet

with applications like e-commerce, is being considered different

from preceding technologies. It took the telephone 75 years

to reach 50 million users while it has taken only four years

for Internet to reach the same number. The Internet is showing

signs of having power to change everything. Telecom99 seems

to have succeeded in driving the point home. Time will only

tell if the few billions were worth spent for.

The Other

Side



One only wonders why everyone has to put up with all those taxi
queues, the crushing crowds, late nights, and the skyrocketing

prices for basic necessities. And every four years, as the show

becomes bigger and bigger, all this only worsens. Someone complained,

"To me it means sandwitches and sandwitches…enough

to put me off them for a year. Staying almost two hours away,

I eat them for breakfast in the bus, for lunch on the stand,

and many a times for the dinner too". May be, the Internet

will help!