NETWORK EVOLUTION AND MARKET GROWTH CREATES A BUZZ AT BBWF 2010

2 November 2010 – This year’s Broadband World Forum has been hailed a huge success after securing its highest ever visitor numbers and stimulating widespread discussion on the requirement for the next phase of growth in the broadband market, calling for a regeneration of the current networks to better handle the increased traffic and the challenges placed on them.

During the three day programme of speaker sessions, from more than 250 industry thought leaders, it emerged that the introduction of more fibre, access and GPON solutions are challenging the current structure and coupled with increasing pressures from video content and interactive services, the networks are straining.

During the keynote session on day one Olivier Baujard, CTO from Deutsche Telekom and Jen-Hon Lin, senior vice president and CTO from Chunghwa Telecom discussed the financial pressures on telcos to improve their systems and provide a better service for those customers who still have money to spend. This led on to the opening keynote on day two by Dr Choi Doo Whan, president, corporate technology group from Korea Telecom who highlighted the requirement for a blend of Wifi and 3G networks to cope with the ever increasing smartphone traffic.

The theme was again followed during Executive Institute Leadership Summit, chaired by George Nazi, president of 21CN and global networks and computing infrastructure at BT, where the opportunities and challenges presented by next generation broadband and content delivery were discussed. On day three the discussions concluded with a keynote presentation from Alan Barr, RVP Telecoms, Media and Technology at Salesforce.com who talked about the move to providing cloud-based services to customers.

Gavin Whitechurch, director of the Broadband World Forum, commented: “The 10th Broadband World Forum has been an outstanding success with more visitors, more delegates, more speakers and more exhibitors than ever before. It is clear from the presentations at the show that broadband is booming, and that this growth will drive a new phase of network regeneration that will bring opportunities for all our participants.”

The 2010 Broadband World Forum attracted more than 5,000 visitors from over 100 countries across the three days – a growth of 22 per cent on the previous year and the highest number in the shows history – and confirmed the event is still the world’s number one broadband show. The new tracks covering transport, intelligence, access and services proved a hit with the delegates and the analyst breakfast briefings and expanded conference provided further opportunities for networking. Plus, the InfoVision Awards on the evening of day one highlighted the breakthrough products and services set to dominate the industry in the coming years. The full list of InfoVision winners can be found at http://www.broadbandworldforum.com/infovisionawards.

Gavin added: “We look forward to facilitating this business with all our clients over the coming years.”

The dates for the 2011 Broadband World Forum have been confirmed as 27-29 September 2011 and will again be held at the CNIT, La Defense in Paris, France. For further information about the show and details on how to register for 2011, visit the website at www.broadbandworldforum.com or call +44 (0)20 7017 5506.

The next two events in the Broadband World Forum Series are Broadband World Forum MEA 2011 on 14 – 15 March 2011, Dubai, UAE (www.broadbandworldforum.com/mea), and Broadband World Forum Asia 2011 on 10 – 11 May 2011, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (www.broadbandworldforum.com/asia).