Telecom managers in the Communications Management Association
(CMA)will hold their annual conference next week,
and will be pressing comms regulator Ofcom to deliver a better deal
for business users.
The conference itself will be addressed by Ofcom chairman Lord
Currie, and the CMA will also reveal the results of its annual
members’ survey.
The survey is expected to include the latest business attitudes
to broadband pricing and performance, the progress in voice over IP
business roll-outs, the take-up in Wi-Fi, the business relationship
with BT and other service providers, plus many other issues.
Ofcom outlined its five key market priorities at the turn of the
year, most of them unsurprising considering that little progress
has been made in any of these areas so far.
The target areas covered by Ofcom’s strategic plan will help
form the cornerstones of Ofcom’s work over the next three
years.
The areas focus on the commercial release of spectrum, promoting
competition in converging markets, promoting new platforms to
users, improving industry compliance, and creating a closer
relationship between Ofcom’s compliance work and market
economics.
On the issue of spectrum, Ofcom wants to facilitate and
accelerate a market-based approach to spectrum release and to allow
new services to develop. The regulator also wants to promote
spectrum trading between existing holders.
With Ofcom’s target of promoting competition and innovation in
converging markets and increasing user choice in fixed-line
telecoms, broadband, and wireless, the biggest two factors may well
be BT and the five existing main mobile operators.
Companies and organisations set to address the two-day CMA
conference include: BT; Microsoft; Cheshire County Council; Cisco;
Nokia; Orange; Avaya; analysts Forrester; Ovum; Yankee Group; IDC;
and consultant Deloitte.
Cheshire County Council will explain to delegates how its has
adopted an IP environment for running its operations, and Yankee
will cover a new communications paradigm driven by the younger
generation of comms users.
The conference will take place on 7-8 February at The
Plaisterers Hall, London Wall, London EC2.
Conference details
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