Looking ahead to Total Telecom Congress 2019

2019 has been an unbelievably eventful year for the global telecoms industry. With more than 60 mobile network operators around the world kicking off their 5G launch programmes this year, there is a sense that the industry is ushering in a new age of next generation connectivity.

There has been huge progress on the fixed line side of the industry too, with fibre deployment rates in the UK and Germany in particular accelerating at a rapid pace. The latest figures from Ofcom show that FTTH penetration levels in the UK hit 8 per cent in September and are set to pass the 10 per cent mark by the end of the year. Considering the UK had hardly passed 1 per cent of properties with full fibre network services at the start of the year, that is a fairly rapid deployment by anyone's standards.

And yet with so much to celebrate, there are also many areas where telcos must do better. Customer service, digital transformation and the evolution of new business models are all areas that telcos will be looking to sharpen up over the next 12 months.

With Total Telecom Congress 2019 right around the corner, what better time to take stock and look at the key issues that will be dealt with at this year's show.

“At Total Telecom we have always tried to place ourselves, and what we do, as being pivotal to the way the industry is shaping and moving. The Congress gives everyone involved an important voice as we all work towards an exciting and unparalleled new era of how we all communicate in both our homes and our professional lives,” said Rob Chambers, managing director at Total Telecom.

Global Telecoms Reimagined

Day one of the Congress will kick off with key note addresses from some of the industry's senior decision makers and thought leaders. Alexandre Fonseca, CEO, Altice Portugal; Jean-Yves Charlier, Executive Vice Chairman & CEO, Digicel; Veli-Matti Mattila, CEO, Elisa and Howard Watson, Group CTIO, BT will debate the constantly shifting role of the telco in today's everchanging connectivity landscape. Earlier this month, BT's new CEO, Philip Jansen, said that his company would continue to strive to be "so much more than just another communications provider".

As telcos strive to be more than mere providers of dumb pipes, this panel will look at the new strategies and business models that will drive the evolution of the industry. 

5G Focus

The launch of 5G mobile network services has undoubtedly been one of the stand out events of the year. With 60 operators around the world launching 5G networks in 2019, 2020 promises to see a swathe of fast followers launching their own services. Of those countries yet to launch 5G, the real eye catcher will be China – with Chinese operators pledging to have covered over 350 towns and cities in China by the end of 2021. This gargantuan effort will require around 600,000 to 800,000 5G base stations to be deployed over the next 12-18 months – good news for vendors!

South Korea, the UAE, the UK, Germany and Switzerland were among the first countries in the world to launch 5G in the second quarter of 2019 – but what can the fast followers learn from the efforts of the industry's first movers?

Total Telecom Congress' 5G stream will attempt to answer that very question. The track will kick off with a keynote address from Christoph Aeschlimann, CTO and CIO at Swisscom AG. During his introductory speech, Aeschlimann will share valuable insight from his company's own 5G launch as well as commenting on the challenges and opportunities of scaling up their operations in the year ahead. The keynote address will be followed by an interactive panel session, which will look at the lessons to be learned from 5G's first movers. The panel will be comprised of senior representatives from some of the industry's leading telcos and service providers, including: Kim Krogh Andersen, SVP at Telenor; Yves Bellégo, director of network strategy at Orange; Takehiro Nakamura, SVP and GM of 5G Labs, NTT DOCOMO; and Paolo Trevisan, lead service provider product management at NETSCOUT.

IoT and Industry 4.0

With the launch of LTE-M networks in Europe and North America in 2019, and the advent of international roaming on these networks, 2020 could be the year that IoT technology takes off on a truly industrial scale.

Bénédicte Javelot, CEO Wholesale at Orange will give the keynote address in the IoT track and will be able to provide insights into the use of LTE-M and 5G networks in accelerating Industry 4.0 use cases.

Following Javelot's keynote address a panel of distinguished experts will discuss the role of the telco in establishing a firm platform for IoT connectivity.  The panel will include: Stefano Gastaut, CEO, Vodafone IoT; Richard Cornish, head of IoT solutions at Telefonica, as well as Eric Torres, business operations and solution engineering head at TCTS.

With its biggest ever agenda, spread over two days, 2019 promises to be the biggest and best edition of the show to date.

Held from the 29^th – 30^th October 2019 in London's Business Design Centre, the event will bring together the industry's key thought leaders and decision makers.

Click here for a full agenda and to find out how you can be involved in the show.