Trends in television in Olympic year - Anga 2008

The next Anga Cable in Cologne is taking place from May 27 to 29, 2008. This exhibition and conference is dedicated to cable television, broadband networks, and satellite broadcasting. There will be 369 exhibitors from 28 countries. The organizers are expecting about 10 000 visitors.

ANGA Cable has become the most important trade exhibition of TV technology and related areas in Europe.

Great sporting events are very important for television market - they generate demand for new services, can be a breakthrough in introducing new technologies to the public.

This year the technology that has a chance for popularization due to sports transmissions is HDTV.
The first step was free HDTV transmissions on the British Freesat platform, which began in May. It has created demand for suitable receivers, adaptation of existing antenna systems to new requirements, multiswitch installations.

On the one hand it seems that there is a market opportunity for DVB-T receivers with MPEG-4 decoders. Practically all European countries plan to introduce the system enabling terrestrial HD transmissions. On the other hand, only several countries have adopted this standard, so the manufacturers cannot take advantage of mass production.

International fair - list

Are you looking for information about trade fair somewhere abroad? There is a useful website which I was looking for a long time. So you can save your time :-) Fair in Poland, in Taiwan, Denmark, Stockholm et c. :-)))

Intertelecom award for ULTIMAX DVR - quick and precise

We are glad to inform you that ULTIMAX DVR, produced under our patronate, has won a prestigious award at Intertelecom fair. ULTIMAX is a series of 3rd generation digital video recorders, with implemented, so far the most efficient, H.264 compression.

CeBIT 2008 - photo report

New trends in telecommunications - CeBIT 2008

An indisputable leader in display technologies - once again Samsung - Large Format Display (LFD).

The products awarded for aesthetics (International Forum Design): Access Point - Level One, computer of Sony, CCTV camera of Panasonic.

31-inch OLED television, so far the largest TV set made in this technology. AMOLED (Active Matrix OLED) displays, in the first place may replace LCD screens in mobile phones and still/video cameras.

CeBIT 2008 - new trends in telecommunications and IT. For many years CeBIT has been mapping out development of electronic industries in the world. This year we saw several forerunners of new technologies, and products that have a chance to become hits in the near future, as well.

The marked tendency revealed at the fair was increase of mobile multimedia market. Transfer rates of 100 Mbps available in mobile phones (LTE announced for 2009), OLED screens - consuming less energy, and more effective sources of energy - will mean cultural breakthrough, similar to that of GSM revolution. Low costs of broadcasting will allow the operators to offer many programs available all around the world. Video telephony and VOD will become really popular.

So far, many big companies, like Microsoft, Linksys, Netgear, promoted solutions based on fixed lines. In the future, home servers will be libraries with collections of films, music, computer games, and - at the same time - phone exchanges. Computer network will become the core of all communication and multimedia systems.

The trade fair confirmed strong position of IP cameras as important category of network devices. Majority of well known manufacturers of WLAN equipment have introduced (or will introduce) wireless cameras, as one of the main parts of the offers. Functionality of the devices will probably decide about elimination from the market of the traditional analog CCTV cameras.

Popularity of LFD (Large Format Display) will change the nature of advertising. Large screens connected to the Web and equipped with dedicated software will be able to react to the watcher changing the content (woman, man, child).

More information: http://weeklyreview.dipolnet.com/inf_dipo_2008_11.htm
More pictures: here.

CeBIT 2008

New concept of CEBiT - a success? This year's CEBiT in Hanover - the world's largest trade fair for IT and telecommunications - took place between 4th and 9th of March.

There were about 5900 companies (by 5 percent less than last year). For the first time in the history of the fair, China had the largest representation, surpassing in numbers the previous leader, Taiwan.
Among the notable absentees were Sony, Sharp, Philips, Lenovo, Dell and Nokia.

After several years of decrease of the number of exhibitors, the organizers decided to increase the number of conferences - to attract professionals, and shorten the event by one day - to cut the costs of exhibitors. But probably the main focus was to define the objectives of the exhibition.

Unfortunately the organization efforts didn't seem to refresh the event. They couldn't eliminate the feeling of deficiency, a want for new technologies and for an impulse to stop the decrease of investments in European telecommunications.

During the trade fair we could see a steady factor in European industry - expansion of red tape. The organizers, using subsidizing, invite national exhibitors that, instead of products, are showing travel brochures, and grassroots movements - promoting projects like Green IT.

In this situation the most interesting trends seen at the fair were network and mobile solutions for television - as an extension of offers of telecommunication operators. The solutions are based on technologies that improve data transfers, especially those of mobile telephony. The example is LTE technology presented by Sony Ericsson and T-Mobile.

LTE (Long Term Evolution) is the newest transmission system for mobile applications, developed according to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The specification accepted in January, 2008, adopts theoretical limit of 326 Mbps (practical speeds reach 100 Mbps).

HD DVD - the end of competition

On February 19, 2008, Toshiba officially announced the discontinuation of HD DVD format. It means end of the "second technological war" for video recording standard. Before the latest campaign for blue-laser format - HD DVD vis a vis Blu-ray, there was the clash between videotape formats - VHS vis a vis Betamax.

Probably the final blow was dealt by Warner Bros - it was the information about decision of releasing its high-definition DVD titles exclusively in Blu-ray disc format - beginning since June this year. After that Wal-Mart Stores decided to withdraw HD DVD players. It did not help at all that Xbox 360 consoles equipped with HD DVD players sold well in the end of last year (ca 100,000 pieces). Toshiba informed about a million HD DVD players sold by January of 2008. There were released 386 HD DVD films in the U.S., and 214 in Japan.

Telecommunication in Israel

Telecommunications is one of the most important industries in this small country. Population of Israel: 7.7 million. Its technological level can be measured by the percentage of homes using broadband access to the Internet - ca. 70%, securing the fourth position in the world - after South Korea, Hong Kong and Iceland.

Mobile telephony is also included in the top rankings - already in 2006 there were more mobile phones than the number of inhabitants (7%). 97% of the residents can potentially use cable TV (52% of households subscribe it).

Israel belongs to the small group of countries having own satellites. The first satellite has been successfully launched on the orbit in 1996, and together with the second one - AMOS-2, is mainly used for direct TV transmissions.

Other satellites, Gurwin-II TechSAT and EROS, are used for communication, cartography, and other research purposes. Great potential of high-tech industries in Israel has attracted international corporations - IBM, Motorola, Cisco, or Deutsche Telekom were opened just in this country.
Among the companies listed on the NASDAQ stock market, Israeli firms are the second most numerous group, after Americans. They include Alvarion, Gilat Satellite Networks, Radware, RAD Data, Tadiran, Teledata, Telrad, VocalTec, Verint.

Photo report: http://www.dipolnet.com/telecommunications_in_israel_bib856.htm

Mobile World Congress - Barcelona 2008

Power of technology. The congress was held between February 11 and 14, organized by GSM Association (GSMA).

In Barcelona there were 1 290 companie about 55 000 visitors saw their stands. The audience that took part in the accompanying conferences was estimated at 8 000 people.
So high interest in this technology arises out of the scale of the market. Enormous investments and mass market encourage manufacturers, scientists, and marketing specialists to develop new and improved products.

This year the interest focused on LTE technology (Long Term Evolution). It is the newly adopted standard (January 2008). It should be commercially launched on the market in 2009, and able to compete even with fiber-optic technology (in mass-market applications). It is possible due to practical transfers ca 100 Mbps (theoretical limits reach 300 Mbps!).

Analyzing the market potential of various technologies or services according to the number of conferences, the most promising areas seem to be payments via mobile phones and mobile TV.

There were given Global Mobile Awards for the products connected with mobile technologies listed below:

* Best mobile handset/device: SonyEricsson for W910 Walkman Phone and 3UK for 3 Skypephone, the first GSM mobile that supports Skype;
* RAD Data Communications - for LA-130 Cell Gateway, linking wired and mobile systems;
* Airtel - for mChek service providing access via mobile phone to credit cards and bank accounts, including operations, after entering 6-digit PIN (application of USSD capability - Unstructured Supplementary Service Data).

USSD is instant messaging type phone service, not employing SMSC (Short Message Service Center), used for example to query the available balance, to recharge the credit etc. in pre-paid GSM services. The function of a code depends on what kind of services the operator has made available.

Telecommunication trade fair in Europe

1. Germany

• ANGA cable trade fair: 27 - 29 May 2008, Cologne
• CeBIT: 4 - 9 March 2008, Hannover
• IFA: 29 August - 3 September 2008, Berlin

2. Poland

• ALARM Video Surveillance Conference and Exhibition: 5 - 6 November 2008, Kielce
• Intertelecom Fair of Electronic Communication: 8 - 10 April 2008, Lodz
  
• SatKrak Satellite Fair: 18 - 20 Octobre 2008, Krakow (Cracow)
  
• Securex International Security Exhibition: 22 - 25 April 2008, Poznan

3. England

• IFSEC: 12 - 15 May 2008, Birmingham

4. Spain

• 3GSM World Congress, mobile event: 11 - 14 February 2008, Barcelona

5. Belgium

• ECOC Optical Communication Event: 21 - 25 September 2008, Brussels

6. France

• Communication over IP VOIP Expo: 15 - 16 April 2008, Paris la Défense
• MtoM The Machine to Machine Show: 1 - 3 April 2008, Paris la Defense
• RF & HYPER EUROPE: 30 September - 2 October 2008, Paris

7. Georgia

• Georgia Tel, Georgian International Exhibition Telecommunications and Information Technologies: 22 - 24 May 2008, Tbilisi