We've had a few folks ask us why the Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions group would attend Mobile World Congress, what many refer to as a "wireless" tradeshow.
There are a couple of reasons. First, while the title of this show is "mobile" the fact of the matter is that service providers are now operating converged networks that include wireless, wireline, and mobile IP broadband access. With IP broadband they've enabled a whole new world of IP Communications and, as the leader in Carrier IP Communications, Nortel CVAS clearly will be a leader in delivering Mobile VoIP over the new 4G broadband access networks. So, we're at Mobile World Congress because we provide VoIP solutions for any broadband service provider, whether they're wireless, wireline cable.
A few quick hits from CTIA which kicked off today in Las Vegas:
The handset guys are drawing the biggest crowds - no surprise - people always want to check out latest & greatest gizmos from the likes of Blackberry, Kyocera and of course, our partner, LG (forgive the obvious plug). From an instructure perspective, LTE remains the hot topic - and was by far the busiest part of our booth today (see pictures from the showroom floor below).
Ahhh Springtime... warmer days, green grass, birds chirping... and tradeshows - lots and lots of tradeshows.
Next week we march into the busiest events week of the year with stops in Orlando for VoiceCon, Washington for Cable Show 2009, and Vegas for CTIA. Be sure to check Buzzboard for more from the showroom floors - photos, videos, demos and on-site reports - but for now, here's a snapshot what's what next week:
CTIA Wireless 2009 - one of the year's best opportunities to engage face-to-face with current and prospective wireless customers. We'll be showing off our latest around GSM, CDMA, and especially LTE. The big focus though, will be on what has become the omnipresent question for operators - "Exactly how do we turn all these cool VoIP and multimedia applications into revenue?" And we'll also be looking at opportunities around mobile social networking and entertainment - see more here.
As Mobile World Congress winds down in Barcelona, we've wrapped up more than 200 customer meetings and rubbed shoulders with a wide array of partners, industry analysts and news media. Mike Z met personally with customers across Europe, the Middle East, Israel, Australia, Africa, Mexico and Nortel America.
Our message at the show was frank and straight-forward - we're working through big challenges, but Nortel is open for business and committed to driving innovation.
Here's a video of our IP Powered Business Demo from MWC. This is especially good stuff for SMBs. The technology untethers workers from their desks to help make them more productive. It gives you sophisticated call routing, screening and conferencing options, and allows you to set up a single phone number and mailbox that follows you regardless of your location. Best of all, it can make any call (i.e from your cell, home phone, computer, etc.) look like it is coming directly from your office number or extension, which can come in handy if you need to call your top client - or, um, your boss - from the golf course.
Heads up - this video is a tad long, and the first half is background/narrative, so skip to the middle if you just want to see the live demo portion.
Here's a video of our IP Powered Home demo at MWC, technology that allows you to combine Internet, TV and home phone services. This allows you to do things like set up separate IP phone lines for all the kids without having to install separate phone lines. Or, you can set your home phone number to ring through to your television, MP3 player, or other devices.
No surprise, the universal topic hanging over Mobile World Congress this year is today's challenging economic climate, fueling widespread discussion on how the mobile industry can best compete in such a tough environment.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer went so far as to say that it's a "super interesting time to talk about the mobile industry". Microsoft is making a big push at MWC this year to drive uptake for their mobile platform, Windows Mobile, in an attempt to take a bigger bite out of Apple's iPhone success.
It's that time again - Mobile World Congress (formerly 3GSM World Congress) combines the world's largest wireless exhibition with an executive congress that brings together leaders across mobile operators, equipment vendors, application developers and IT powerhouses.
If you're interested in the 4G wireless market -- as well as Nortel's participation in it -- then today there were a variety of articles from different pubs that are worth a read. Here's a quick run-down:
"Our wireless asset remains a key part of our carrier customer base. We have a good position in CDMA; we're continuing to do business in GSM and UMTS core. But both businesses are relatively flat. Our intent is to continue to leverage our wireless installed bases and invest in LTE."
Just a few hours ago Nortel issued this press release announcing that it is discontinuing its mobile WiMAX business. As part of this move, Nortel is ending its joint agreement with WiMAX vendor Alvarion that was originally announced last June.
Nortel's agreement with Alvarion allowed for the resale of Alvarion access products by Nortel, as well as Nortel's contribution of resources and funding to accelerate Alvarion's base station development.
AT&T calls LTE hands down the next generation of wireless technology, and expects their LTE deployment to be complete by 2011. That's just one snippet from the two-day conference LTE: Towards Mobile Broadband in Dallas that attracted several hundred decision makers, network architects, engineers, and planners that attended the event.
Hosted by ATIS and 3GPP, the conference focused on the migration path for mobile long term evolution (LTE), what it means for the industry and how LTE will affect operators, vendors and manufacturers in the Americas.
Nortel was well represented at the event with three session speakers, as well as having interviews with a variety of trade pubs at the show. This includes Dr. Vish Nandlall, Nortel's Carrier CTO, who presented to a packed room on whether LTE 'does what it says on the box.'
Rich Tehrani of TMCnet is on the short list of trade media we keep in the loop on all things enterprise. He often talks to Joel Hackney and other Nortel enterprise spokespeople on the state of our enterprise business.
Rich recently expressed interest in getting an update on the carrier side of our business, so our PR team set up Rich to talk to Richard Lowe, Nortel's president of the Carrier business. Rich and Richard cover a broad spectrum of topics related to Nortel's carrier business, and you can see that interview here on TMCnet.com.
Nortel is bringing in customers from around the world for its annual Advanced Technology Summit (ATS), a month-long event that allows Nortel customers to see demonstrations of technologies and solutions from across Nortel's product lines.
ATS started on October 14 and runs through November 7. By the time ATS is complete, Nortel will have delivered over 400 private technology demonstrations to over 200 customers from more than 50 different companies.
Late last week, Nortel issued this social media release that highlights some of the demos at the event, as well as pointing to videos for a variety of the technologies being demo'd. John Roese also had a blog post last week with details of the event. Finally, itWorldCanada had this article from Grant Buckler who attended the event. Most of his article focuses on the huge bandwidth increases to the home that Nortel's new WDM-PON access solution can enable -- though the article also gets into 4G wireless technologies like WiMAX and LTE.
A few weeks ago, Nortel CTO John Roese joined other industry leaders at the GigaOM Mobilize conference in San Francisco. I've already posted about the Q&A John had with Om Malik on-stage at the show. But after that Q&A, John talked to GigaOM's Carolyn Pritchard for a video interview.
Sometimes unscripted video interviews can be choppy and relatively uninformative -- but this is a really interesting interview with some great questions from Carolyn and good insight from John. In the interview, John talks about how 4G will enable an "equalization" between desktop and mobile experiences, and how that will help enterprises who have have fallen behind in providing their employees with effective mobile access to business applications. See the video below.
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