FLANIGAN OPTIMISTIC DESPITE 35% DROP IN SUPERCOMM ATTENDANCE
Despite another 35% drop in attendance at Supercomm in Atlanta last week, Telecom Industry Assn. (TIA) Pres. Matthew Flanigan remains upbeat about both the conference and the telecom industry, he said in an interview. He said he saw “a very positive mood” among Supercomm exhibitors because “the decision makers were on the floor” of the convention. Attendance was down about 30% last year.
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TIA is estimating 24,000 persons attended Supercomm (audited figures will be released later), down from 36,993 in 2002, Flanigan said. The good news, he said, is that the number of companies and govt. agencies attending was down only about 10% to about 7,800: “There were fewer people, but most firms wanted someone there to get the latest information.” Flanigan said much of the drop also was in the number of exhibitor personnel, so the number of potential customers wasn’t down as much: “Companies everywhere are downsizing, but they all are saying Supercomm is the one show they want to be at.” International attendance also was off sharply, he said.
Flanigan said he saw a “very positive swing” in the overall economics of the telecom industry, saying the “bottom” had been reached and the industry was starting to grow. He said many companies had had profitable quarters recently, and the 418 press releases issued at the convention included “a lot of new partnerships.”
Telecom probably won’t return quickly to the boom years of 1999 and 2000, Flanigan said, “and we probably don’t want to.” But he said the industry was seeing a lot of new partnerships for new products and services, and “a lot of good business plans.”
Govt. regulation will remain “a big part of everything going on for the next year,” Flanigan said, but he was less concerned about regulation than was USTA (CD June 5 p6). If the FCC’s Triennial Review decision follows the principles in its press release, Flanigan said, it will give broadband “an element of certainty” that should provide another boost. Asked about USTA’s bid for total telecom deregulation, Flanigan said only that “that would be a really big step. I think it would take more than the FCC to do that.”
Meanwhile, the DSL Forum said DSL subscribership had grown 90% in the last year, with most of the worldwide gain in the Middle East and Africa (up 34.83% in the last quarter alone) and Asia (up 32.73%). North American DSL subscribership, in contrast, was only 6.74% higher at the end of first quarter 2003, from 4th quarter 2002, it said. The Forum said at Supercomm that 41.3 million households worldwide had DSL, including 16.4 million in Asia, 11.3 million in Europe and 8.7 million in N. America. For individual countries, the U.S. and Japan are virtually tied at 7 million DSL connections each, followed by S. Korea at 6.7 million, it said.
Despite cable’s lead in the U.S., DSL has the largest share of the worldwide broadband market, the Forum said, with 56.5% of all broadband connections. Cable has 38% and Gigabit Ethernet 4.7%, it said.