Paris (FR), November 2010 - The Broadband World Forum (BBWF) in October 2010, secured its highest-ever visitor numbers and stimulated widespread discussion on the requirements for the next phase of growth in the broadband market, calling for regeneration of current networks to better handle the increased traffic and the challenges placed on them.
During the three day programme of speaker sessions that included more than 250 industry thought leaders, it emerged that the introduction of more fibre, access, and GPON solutions are challenging the current structure. Since these are 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 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 echoed during the 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.
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 show's history. 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. 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 dates for the 2011 Broadband World Forum have been confirmed as 27-29 September 2011; it will again be held at the CNIT, La Defense in Paris, France.
