Telecom Israel 2006

I was at Telecom Israel today.  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)

Versus - entrance to track 1 ( Infrastructure Development, Wimax, HSPDA, Networks...)

Tags: Israel, Telecom, Conference, 2006