Host of foreign firms participate in fair

SUPERCOM 2004

Notwithstanding the upbeat mood on the Indian telecom scenario, day one of Supercomm India 2004 turned out to be a dampner with finance minister Jaswant Singh and star attraction Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries failing to turn up for the thinly attended inaugural session.

Tata group chairman Ratan Tata, made a special appearance but was not slated to speak on the ocassion.

The number of large international players exhibiting their prducts were also few with the exception of LG, Motorola and Tell Labs.

The exhibition was heavily dominated by CDMA players with Reliance Infocomm,Tata Teleservices, LG and a special Korean pavillion hogging the limelight showcasing the latest in data transmission technologies like EVDO and wireless braodband.

The GSM camp were however conspicous by their absence. There were also no major announcements during the day with only LG launching its video mobile phone in the country.

Rajan Sharma, managing director, INTER ADS Limited however said, "Our feedback suggest that the participants and executives were very happy with the show. This year the size of the show has in fact grown. More than 100 telecom companies incuding 35 foreign companies are participating. Some companies like Samsung, which were not present this time have already signed up for next years edition."

But both Indian and foreign delegates was the gave its thumbs up to the Indian telecom growth acheived in the past two years.

The talk of the show however was broadband with most speakers aggreing that it was set to change the future of not just communication sector but also others like medicine and education.

Kishore Chaukar, managing director, Tata Industries said, "India will find its place in broadband capability. The factors that will drive broadband growth will be its availibility, quality and awareness." Chaukar said that Tata group was conducting due deligence for buying out a broadband company in India.

Gene Delaney, executive vice president, Motorola Inc. said "The Indian government's policy has helped in facilitating growth and upgrading infrastructure. The unified services licence has started to propel growth in telecom sector."