What happened in Vegas

NXTcomm08 had hoped to establish itself as the telecom industry's premiere event, replacing Supercomm and its successor shows. Under a very hot Las Vegas sun, those aspirations were at least partially met. There were multiple robust conferences, well-attended keynote sessions and some show floor success, along with a bit of vendor grousing over both quantity and quality of attendees.

There was a decidedly serious tone to the keynotes at NXTcomm08, as everyone from major service provider CEOs to the head of CableLabs sought to rally the thousands in attendance to various causes, which ranged from defending U.S. broadband penetration to encouraging more investment in R&D.

The show's overarching theme was the need to maintain the strength and viability of the U.S. telecom sector and the promising future that can lie ahead. Randall Stephenson, chairman, president and CEO of AT&T, kicked things off with an upbeat look at what telecom can accomplish by connecting more people to the global economy, making more services mobile and making everything simpler to use.

Today's telecom industry is in position “to accelerate the velocity of commerce” and to “drive growth and prosperity on a global scale” by improving health care, education and quality of life, he said.

Stephenson described the impact of mobile phones on Indian fishermen, who were able to compare wholesale price offerings for their fish before choosing a harbor in which to dock. The fishermen increased their profits 8% and reduced waste based on lost stock, which increased the supply of fish and drove down prices for consumers 4%. The fishermen had more money to spend, which benefited the local economy as well, Stephenson added.

Denny Strigl, president and chief operating officer for Verizon, focused more on broadband in the U.S., saying critics have it wrong. The U.S. has “more broadband connections than anyone else with 100 million,” he said. “There is broadband service in every ZIP code, to every school and library, and to businesses. Half of American households have broadband connections compared with one-third in Europe. Three-quarters of U.S. households have at least two providers to choose from, and some have as many as six or seven” when wireless and satellite options are factored in, he added.

Strigl said, however, that U.S. consumers always want more, and Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint, agreed — at least when it came to wireless data. Hesse said that demands for higher capacity on wireless networks were exceeding the industry's ability to match them with current 3G technologies. He touted 4G and particularly WiMAX, given its several-year time-to-market advantage over competing technology long-term evolution, as able to provide the bandwidth at the low cost necessary to support demands.

Jagdeep Singh, president and CEO of Infinera, cautioned the industry that the decline in R&D actually threatens the U.S. technology sector. R&D spending has gone down since the telecom bubble burst in 2000; venture capital also is being drawn away from telecom by the biotech and energy industries; and fewer college graduates are emerging with electrical engineering or computer science degrees, he said. All of that exacerbates the industry's innovation problem.

Singh's suggested solution is threefold: Hardware and software companies need to stop making “me-too” products and start solving new problems; hardware companies should once again focus on innovation at the component level; and service providers need to reward innovation with their dollars.

Richard Green, president of CableLabs, touted his industry's bright future but asked for support on issues such as fighting Net neutrality legislation and supporting the U.S. State Department in its approach to the quadrennial reorganization of the ITU-T.