<<The mass-market is for sure the most important development engine for both information technology and communications industries. Even if it was somehow considered to be less important than the corporate-government market, the companies betting on the mass-market are showing today the most rapid growth. The key of understanding how the industry should take the advantage of this growing market seems to be a simple one: At the end of the day, the end user wants quick and cheap quality access to free content. But how and in which way this should be delivered is not that simple anymore.

The 6^th edition of the International Broadband Communications Conference is dealing with three important aspects related to this issue:

Because the end user wants reasonable cheap broadband everywhere, the first day will be dedicated to one promising local loop technology that is WiMax. As the 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7 GHz frequency bands are already available for this technology and with the mobility 2.5 GHz on the way, we think that this is a good opportunity to bring together the operators and the equipment suppliers in the conference.

The need of this topic of any sorts is clear and the success of the companies producing and delivering the content is the best way of measuring it.

Much more, because the end user wants more and more free of charge information, the second day is dedicated to the advertisement industry. This seems to be the most reasonable mechanism that may provide free content. Many blogs have more traffic than a newspaper and many video sites have more audience that many televisions. Still the advertising is in the classic media. This way, the second day is about reinventing the advertisement and shifting from the old media to online. The third day is dedicated to the content and how it is delivered to the end user. We will present a wide variety of technologies and technologies-based services from software to multimedia, from entertainment to e-learning and end user financial services.

The format of each day is the same and is made of four sections: technology, services, business models and a round table collecting the most relevant issues which were presented on the first three sections. It seems that the world of IT&C is going through very profound change. Some of us are calling the future as being disruptive, other are considering these new development opportunities and there are people among us already in the middle of this wave. Meeting together in this conference, mixing the three development vectors, will help us to better understand the future to come and to benefit out of this understanding.>>

<<It seems that the next years in telecomm will be dominated by the metropolitan area networks. This concept is the most promising in terms of solving the last mile aspects in the most crowded areas and in terms of bringing the new technologies in business or entertainment, close to the end user. This concept will change the way the network itself will be designed and will create new opportunities for the operators and equipment producers. It will be an important vector of the revolution which is taking place in software development, easing the shift from desktop oriented applications to the network based applications.

Romania is in the process of building metropolitan area networks. The first two towns developing this kind of projects, both using wired and wireless local loop technologies, are Bucharest and Timisoara. More and more Romanian towns and crowded areas are in the process of deciding to create such networks.

The 5^th edition of the International Broadband Communications Conference is to be held between the 10th to 12th of October, at the World Trade Plaza in Bucharest and is dedicated to metropolitan area networks, this year being entitled “Metropolitan Area Networks”. The event is organized in cooperation with the Romanian Regulatory Authority for Communications, ANRC, under the patronage of the Committee for Information Technologies and Communications of the Chamber of Deputies of Romania.

The conference is opened to the major technology creators, equipment producers, operators, application developers and regulatory authorities. As usual, adjoining the conference, an exhibition featuring live demos of the discussed technologies, equipment and applications will also be an integrated part of the event. Upon specific requests, EVENTS supplies the whole logistic and support for one-to-one meetings.

This year will be brought into the spot the wired and wireless metropolitan telecommunications technologies and solutions for building infrastructures. The most important cities from Romania, Europe and USA government representatives will provide statements on existing and building metropolitan telecommunications infrastructures.

"International Broadband Communications Conference" is a referential yearly event, one of the most important from the area of international IT&C events. Its success was proven by its first editions: "3G Readiness 2002", attended by over 150 participants, while "Regional Communications Forum 2003" gathered more then 400 participants from almost 200 Romanian and foreign organizations. In 2004 we organized "Local Loop Technologies 2004" with over 500 participants and last year “New Generation Broadband Technologies 2005” conference brought together over 600 participants from Romania, Europe, Asia and USA.>>

<<New generation broadband technologies are where the most intense effort of innovation has been placed over the last years. That is why the 4th edition of the International Broadband Communications Conference, to be held 18^th to 20^th of October at the World Trade Plaza-Sofitel in Bucharest, is focused on WiMax technologies and NGC concept. The event is organized in cooperation with the Romanian Regulatory Authority for Communications, ANRC.

The conference is opened to the major technology creators, equipment producers, operators, application developers and regulatory authorities. As usual, adjoining the conference, an exhibition featuring live demos of the discussed technologies, equipment and applications will also be an integrated part of the event. Upon specific requests, EVENTS supplies the whole logistic and support for one-to-one meetings.

As in the previous editions of the conference, the Romanian regulatory authority will host the dialog between the European regulatory authorities, Federal Communication Committee bringing the trans-Atlantic perspective into the spot. This year the round table will debate on WiMax frequencies and regulations concerning the NGN concept. This debate is opened for all participants.

"International Broadband Communications Conference" is a referential yearly event, one of the most important from the area of international IT&C events. Its success was proven by its first editions: "3G Readiness 2002", attended by over 150 participants, while "Regional Communications Forum 2003" gathered more then 400 participants from almost 200 Romanian and foreign organizations. In 2004 we organized "Local Loop Technologies 2004", an event where everyone in the industry (but not exclusively) had been present: last year, we have welcomed over 500 participants.>>

<<In the first years after the liberalization of the European telecom markets interconnection has driven voice tariffs down, offering real choice to consumers and a serious boost to new-entrant operators. It is time now for the same thing to happen for broadband, via access to the dominant incumbents’ local loop and new local loop technologies. With the necessary regulatory framework in place in most countries, implementation seems to be the major challenge of both the industry and the regulators.

The 2004 edition of the International Broadband Communications Conference, which will be held from October 5th to 7th, 2004, at World Trade Plaza – Sofitel, in Bucharest, is dealing with the local loop technologies, aiming to shed light on the innovative technical solutions, but also to bring European regulators together to discuss the challenges raised by local loop unbundling. The event is organized under the patronage of the Committee for Information Technologies and Communications of the Chamber of Deputies of Romania and with the support of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications.

The conference’s goal is to express the achievements of the telecom industry over some younger local loop technologies. We intend to present market reactions and trends, equipment and deployment solutions, software platforms and value added services. We shall discuss the new xDSL developments, IMT-2000 success stories and the 802.16 challenger. The trends in LBS and other value added services will also be assessed.

We are honored to invite you to participate at this event and to consider the possibillity of sustaining a keynote address following the enclosed draft agenda. The industry representatives present at the conference should benefit from this conference and also provide prompt feed-back. Also, the Roundtable will bring together heads of the NRA’s from all over Europe in order to discuss means to implement effective broadband interconnection methods.

The conference takes place in Romania, a market in which a policy of technological neutrality succeeded to create a broad technological diversity. We hope that the conference, the adjoining technology exhibition and presentations, as well as the regulatory roundtable will prove a valuable opportunity for all stakeholders in the region to explore their opportunities and to find ways of working together, bringing about a greater understanding of how to lower operational costs, better manage the network, offer more innovative services, and create customer satisfaction.

"International Broadband Communications Conference" is a referential yearly event, one of the most important events from the IT&C area. Its success was proven by its first editions: "3G Readiness 2002" was attended by over 150 companies, while the "Regional Communications Forum 2003", the second edition of the "International Broadband Communications Conference", gathered more then 400 participants from almost 200 Romanian and foreign organizations. This year, the participants will include telecom operators, equipment manufacturers, integrators, software developers and financiers.>>

<<These last few years, the Central and Eastern European market of communication technologies has known an extraordinary progress, becoming one of the major technological markets of Europe. One outstanding example is the development of the Romanian communications market, which we owe to the concern of communications companies in adopting the newest technologies and to the policy of technologic neutrality promoted by the Romanian authorities.

Considering the importance of regional partnerships for the further development of communications, the Regional Communications Forum is focused on assessing and promoting technological interoperability in the region. Bringing all key stakeholders together, the Regional Communications Forum is exploring the possibility of developing enabling policies for regional broadband communications in the region as well as the efficient broadband interconnection possibilities between the CEECs.>>

<<This conference will bring together representatives from the areas of technology, infrastructure, and software development, offering the opportunity to telecommunication operators and investors to foresee the next steps in the development of 3G telecommunications. Broadband communications are facing challenging times. 3G telelecommunications networks are close to a reality, but sustainable revenues from these operations may lag for years to come. Business analysts believe that there are three factors that will drive 3G growth: applications, devices and pricing. That is why this conference will focus on '3G Readiness'.

Why Romania?

1. A live environment for the 3G technologies already exists, giving participants an opportunities to experience the services and analyse customer perceptions.
2. Romania has important telecommunications operators with a notable experience in developing CDMA 2000 and UMTS networks.
3. High level programmers and innovative software companies already developing 3G applications.