Event 2 : 3G: The Next Wave - Kochin

ASSOCHAM in association with Ericsson had organized the "3G: THE NEXT WAVE" on 4th - 5th December, 2008 at Le Meridian, Kochi, India. Siddhartha Behura Secretary, Department of Telecommunication and Chairman, Telecom Commission was the chief guest on the occasion.
The event was attended by all the leading telcos in India, content providers , content aggregators, entertainment channel providers and device vendors. The event had a lot of significance at the backdrop of government decision to auction 3G spectrum. The auction that is slotted for January’09 created lot of debate during the event.
This conference had coincided with the well known “Formula One Sport of Ocean Racing – the Volvo Ocean Race” at Kochi- Kochi hosting this 1st time.
After the welcome address by Balaji VP, Ericsson India , Gowton shared his views on Global 3G trends and its relevance to India, Sanjeev Aga, MD of Idea Cellular during his keynote address requested the DOT to conduct the auction in healthy manner and to think beyond the objective of revenue generation.
Jithu Niruthambath, Director of Wireless business at Texas Instrument emphasized on the importance of User experience and soon to launch devices such as MID (mobile internet devices) that would cost ~ 150 USD will bring revolution into a consumer applications such as MobileTV etc.
Jaikishan Rajaraman, Sr. Director at GSMA gave a brief of GSMA contribution to the telecom world and shared the global trends in Telecom market.
Before we head for a Gala night, the DOT gave on regulatory environment and overall auction process of 3G spectrum.
After having back-to-back session participants were in desperate need of some cocktail break. The evening couldn’t have been better and the site more electrified with good music, food and drinks around.
The second day all started with a “New revenue Doors” – a prospective from pioneers of entertainment providers in India viz. Sony and NDTV. In their view, Telcos due to lack of flexibility in business model have failed to provide the value for their content. Telcos have merely gone for acquiring the subscriber and have also retained a major share of revenue earned through content services. Sanjay Trehan, CEO NDTV emphasized on the need to synergies so as to tap the potential of mobile content.
The two day conference concluded with a memorable tour to VOR race village. The experience shared by the Ericsson crew who was on voyage kept us spellbound…!!!