Report on Telecom Israel

November 10, 2006 - 2:08 PM by Sarah

(My future boyfriend) Sagi reports on the event:

Last time I attended this event was in 1999. In terms of the hype – not much has changed. (Buzz words are a bit different these days… but not much)

Here are some thoughts:

* All talked about (very) high data speeds (as a given), advanced services and mobility, and convergence was a key word (seamless user experience, simplicity in discovery, payment)
* But much more than convergence in device, networks, and services, I think in the coming years we’ll see convergence in the conferences themselves; i.e. the topics discussed in Telecom conferences are almost identical to those in the broadcasting conferences (i.e. IBC) – so even if these two worlds won’t be converging soon – at least the conference scene is.
* Its sad to see all the great communications technologies developed in Israel being enjoyed by many countries – other than Israel (Following the opening speech of our communications minister (Ariel Atias), I am quite sure it will be a long time before any interesting commercial services take off in Israel)
* One final comment – about the hype. Since a picture is worth a thousand words… Compare the two photos below:

Entrance to track 3 (Digital Content, Internet, UGC, Social networks)
telecom track 3