Telecom show wars continue

The telecom industry convenes this week at the second of two major trade shows spawned from the dissolution of the Supercomm conference. Exhibitors such as Cisco and Juniper plan to showcase offerings designed to support new carrier services from metro Wi-Fi to IP TV.

The inaugural Globalcomm kicks off after the separation of Supercomm's joint sponsors, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and the U.S. Telecom Association (USTA). After collaborating for 18 years, the organizations went their separate ways after last year's Supercomm.

The USTA launched TelecomNext earlier this year; now it's the TIA's turn, just as the industry pauses from the frenetic consolidation pace among carriers and their suppliers. And Globalcomm promises to be as busy as Supercomm was last year, according to Matt Flanigan, TIA president.

Attendance, exhibition space and exhibitor numbers will be close to those of Supercomm 2005, Flanigan says (see graphic).

TelecomNext, held in Las Vegas in March, was about half the size, with more than 10,000 attendees, 275 exhibitors and 215,000 square feet of exhibition space. But what TelecomNext lacked in size, it more than made up for in content - CEOs from major carriers, media companies, regulators and enterprises delivered candid comments on a range of controversial topics, such as 'Net neutrality.

Expect more of the same at Globalcomm. 'Net neutrality will be one of the hotter topics at the show, along with IP TV, IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), VoIP, wiretapping, disaster recovery, Ethernet business services, fixed/mobile convergence, and issues and challenges with enabling the mobile enterprise.