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By Tim Young
Spring is here at last, and along with the obligatory showers and flowers, we are all revved up for conventions, expos, and other venues for tech firms of all stripes to show their new wares to the delight of the savvy masses. Last month’s TelecomNEXT brought a great deal of excitement and a slew of announcements and press releases regarding rollouts, product launches, mergers, acquisitions, and a host of other activity. Like many telecom events, however, TelecomNEXT may have proven somewhat intimidating to those with a particular interest in OSS. After all, the beauty of such major shows is variety, which can occasionally come at the cost of specificity. With that in mind, Pipeline would like to take a look at another upcoming show and provide a little focus for the OSS professional or Service Provider looking to get more out of the show than a handful of keychains and ball point pens. With that in mind, here’s Pipeline’s guide to CTIA Wireless 2006.
CTIA Wireless 2006 is a sizeable show presented by CTIA, the Wireless Association. It encompasses pretty much every aspect of the wireless world, and exhibitors include everyone from PayPal to Sega. In this year’s show, taking place in Las Vegas April 5-7, CTIA claims 1000 exhibitors from some 80 countries, plus speakers, forums, roundtables, and various other activities. Still, like any trade show, massive amounts of time, effort, and money will be invested in the exhibitions, and on the floor you’re on the front lines of the revolution.
Anyone interested in OSS has some great options for the ‘must-see list’. The testing and analysis mavens from Agilent will be at the show, no doubt promoting their network testing solutions, as well as displaying the variety of other services they offer in the wireless realm. Verisign will be at the show, though it is uncertain, to date, of what they will be displaying. Still, judging by the growth of the company, which has greatly expanded its roots in just the past few years, any press releases from this tradeshow are bound to be worth a look.
Telcordia, Lucent, JDSU, and Micromuse will have a presence at the show as well, and are always worth a peek. Lucent may be of particular interest to market watchers who want to see what interaction the firm will have with Alcatel as they build toward what could potentially be a merger that will make some serious waves. Likewise, anyone interested in any potential changes in direction that may have occurred within Micromuse since the finalization of their merger with IBM will have a chance to take a first-hand look. Furthermore, a look at the offerings from Ceragon and Spirent are a safe bet. Though few of the companies have yet released information on what specific announcements will accompany the expo, there is little doubt that more than a few press releases will flood mailing lists in the near future.
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"...this year’s show, taking place in Las Vegas April 5-7, CTIA claims 1000 exhibitors from some 80 countries, plus speakers, forums, roundtables, and various other activities." |
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Anritsu: The company plans to showcase its rebranded product suite, which will replace the MasterQuest and InterQuest solutions. Anritsu also gives hints at some other announcements regarding its new solutions for network testing and analysis.
Cisco: This giant is planning on making waves at the show with its RAN optimization solution. Definite details will not be released until the show, but RAN optimization is pretty sharp, and we’ll all be interested to hear what Cisco has to say about it.
There are several educational
opportunities at the show as well. Yankee Group Vice President Phil Marshall will moderate a forum entitled ‘IMS: Enabling New Business Models’ on April 5. Representatives from Yankee Group with also offer forums on other areas of the industry, from M2M adoption to carrier portals. Informa is also sponsoring an IMS summit, which will take place April 5th and include speakers from Sprint, Vodafone, and Nortel.
Additionally, CTIA offers a well-stocked docket of educational forums, including what looks to be a fine collection of programs on the Technology Roadmap, sponsored by Nortel and featuring several subsessions likely to pique interest among the OSS crowd. The chief speakers for the session include CTOs of Sun, Verizon, and Motorola, and the subsession topics include fixed/mobile convergence, IMS, LBS, and software. Other educational sessions under the central CTIA banner are the Cisco-sponsored “Business Ecosystem” and the Apax-sponsored “Emerging Opportunities in Wireless”. Within any of these topics OSS may not always be the central focus, but representatives from OSS firms abound and, consequently, so does good information on the business climate for OSS vendors and service providers alike.
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In addition, a few other companies have some offerings definitely worth noting.
ACE*COMM: The firm will tout its ‘Parent Patrol’ to the throngs of onlookers. The tool, which essentially serves the same purpose as a PC-based content blocking device, will allow parents to monitor and control call lengths and numbers dialed. Additionally, the service includes a content-blocking feature to limit access to certain websites from a given cell phone. By extension, ACE*COMM offers a similar service for enterprises, badged as Enterprise Patrol. The tool can, again, limit the numbers that are called and the airtime used, all from a web-based interface. |
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Perhaps that is the underlying worth of any broad-scope exhibition. While smaller boutique shows may see expos like CTIA Wireless or GlobalComm as “jacks of all trades and masters of none”, what they lack in foucs, they may make up for in variety, scale, and context. There is much to be said for either type of show, and the ultimate judge of the worth of any trade exposition is the net gain for all participants, whether that gain is in the form of knowledge, partnerships, or a pocketful of giveaway bottle openers. Because, hey. Who doesn’t like bottle openers?
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