International telcos tackle new industry challenges
at 3rd Asian Carriers Conference
MANILA, Philippines, May 31, 2007 — More than 300 delegates from over 100 telecommunications carriers and entities from 32 nations around the world discussed new challenges facing the telecommunications industry during the recent 3rd Asian Carriers Conference (ACC) in Cebu City.
The ACC, which was hosted by PLDT and Smart, was conceived by the PLDT Group to create a venue for discussion of trends such as NGN (Next Generation Network) and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), and the challenges and opportunities in the fast-paced telecommunications industry.
In his keynote speech during the event held from May 15 to 18, PLDT Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said that the event’s theme, “Conquering the New World of Telecommunications,” is a call to action.
He encouraged the participants to continue focusing on the importance of the customers in their business, and he pointed out the need for government to support the industry by promoting sufficient but not ruinous competition.
“We have seen the enormous value that our industry adds to the economy and the benefits—both direct and indirect—that are conferred on consumers. Based on this, it is fair to say that our services have acquired an important social dimension, rather than being simply viewed as a business,” said Pangilinan.
Claire Paponneau, Executive Vice President – International Wholesale Solutions of the France Telecom Group, said having the technology is not enough.
“Customer experience, customer care, billing, marketing and having the right business model are also very important,” she told participants during the event.
She explained that the diversity of convergence offers limitless variety of contents and seamless fixed-mobile worlds. This will require flexibility, turnkey solutions, quick time-to-market and satisfactory quality.
“Building a new world for our customers means fewer communications devices, simpler manner of communicating, more and easily accessible content, less pure voice and more innovative services,” said Paponneau.
Tesh Kapadia, Senior Director of Telarix, said telecom companies today are in a “battle of the business models.”
Networks today are integrating the Internet and the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), toward a more flexible, easy-to-innovate system with a more viable financial model, security and quality of service, he said. This is the result of NGN technology, he added.
“We now have horizontally integrated services that include voice, video, content gaming, VPN (or virtual private network), ASP (or application service provider), etc.,” said Kapadia.
“The battle now moves from one of network supremacy to the battle of business models,” he added.
PLDT Group Head for International and Carrier Business Victorico P. Vargas said the participants were encouraged to share their insights and expound on their ideas.
“We are very pleased to have among the participants telecom industry leaders from six continents. And we are happy to receive very favorable feedback about the conference. Many said the event was well organized and that they were very much impressed. We hope to do better next year,” he said.
The high turnout this year, ACC’s highest in three years, made networking and the conduct of bilateral meetings at the ACC productive and efficient.
Aside from PLDT and Smart, the other major sponsors, speakers and exhibitors of the ACC included leading telecom players such as France Telecom, Belgacom of Belgium, VSNL/Teleglobe of India and Canada, IDT Asia, US Sprint, Verizon Business, Hong Kong Colo, NEC of Japan, Computertel, Mabuhay Satellite and Telarix.
Among the countries represented at the conference were Japan, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, India, Egypt, Oman, the UAE, South Africa, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Russia, the United States, and Canada.