Four years between shows may be a bit long in the telecoms industry, but the gap between 1995 and last week's bash thrown by the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva gave visitors an opportunity to see the latest products and to reflect on the changes brought about over the period.
A lot has changed in that time. Deregulation in Europe and the US has led to a proliferation of new telecoms operators. The once-separate worlds of data communications and telecommunications are in the process of merging, spurring a rush of mergers and acquisitions. And mobile telephony has moved from being just a particular type of telephony to being accepted by many as the most popular voice and data access technology in coming years.
In fact, from a publicity perspective, mobile telephony stole the show. The main talking point was a new mobile data service known as WAP, or the Wireless Access Protocol. Because it brings a scaled-down version of Internet access to mobile phones, WAP is being heavily hyped and is currently being launched or planned by many cellular operators around the world.
Other mobile data products and services will also appear in the coming years, leading to speculation that Europe's lead in mobile telephony will cause it to overtake the US as the leader in Internet access in coming years.
Meanwhile, the jockeying for market position in future mobile products is ruffling feathers. An announcement by the leading supplier of mobile handsets, Nokia of Finland, that it was licensing the operating system of Palm Computers, maker of the market-leading Palm Pilot, did not please Nokia's partners in Symbian. Nokia was one of the founding members of Symbian, which aims to provide palm-sized computers-come-mobile phones using an operating system provided by British-based Psion. Following the Nokia announcement, Symbian issued a statement saying it and Palm "have agreed to discuss the licensing of each other's technology".
Meanwhile, mobile manufacturer Ericsson displayed a device that brings music to mobile phones. Based on the MP3 standard, which allows music to be downloaded from the Internet, a small music player with no moving parts plugs into the bottom of a mobile phone.
The matchbox-sized device features a small memory chip that can hold roughly 30 minutes of near-CD quality music, downloaded from a PC. Users can listen to the music via headphones that double up as a hands-free headset when a call comes in.
Ericsson says the phone can play music for about 10 hours between battery recharges, and that new memory chips with twice the capacity will soon be released. It says the price has yet to be determined, but a similar plug-in with a small FM radio instead of a MP3 player will cost about £10 (€12.7) more than standard hands-free kits.
Away from the mobile area, another hot topic of the show was broadband access, or getting very fast Internet access to homes and businesses. Two competing technologies from the worlds of cable television and telecommunications were prominently on display.
It is acknowledged that the cable version has stolen an 18-month lead, with millions of cable modems already installed in the US in particular. These allow both Internet access and telephone services over an enhanced television cable network.
However, the telephone companies are responding with a technology called DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), which operators in the US and Europe are beginning to trial or launch. French supplier Alcatel, which claims to have captured 50 per cent of the DSL market, says it will install roughly one million lines in the US.
Irish telecoms companies were strongly represented at the show. Enterprise Ireland said a record 15 companies exhibited at its stand, representing areas such as convergence, access, mobility and Internet. The board of Eircom was also seen touring the show, and although they did not have a stand of their own, they were spotted spending time on the stand of Dutch stakeholder, KPN.
The Dutch operator is tipped to play a larger role in Eircom now that the European Commission has approved the merger of Sweden's Telia and Norway's Telenor, which has a 49.5 per cent stake in Esat Digifone. Telia is expected to divest its Eircom interests.
Eoin Licken is at elicken@irishtimes.ie
