PTC'09
Collaborating for Change: Strategies, Opportunities & Partnerships

The program for PTC’09 (18-21 January 2009) will focus on the vital role of collaboration in bringing new communications services to market. It will simultaneously highlight the impact that collaborative efforts have on the industry, while featuring the importance of collaboration as the means by which ever more complex systems and services are developed and distributed including user-driven applications that are accelerating demand in the global marketplace.

Telecom today exists in a permanent state of revolution. Innovation and market change continue apace.  Change has been good. Hundreds of millions more people around the world today receive services that would have been inconceivable only a few years ago.  End-to-end IP-based networks have enabled innovation at a level unimaginable in the past. Advanced collaboration technologies such as telepresence for example are finally delivering on the promise of almost “being there,” while driving demand for high-performance telecommunications beyond the capability of most current end-user services.

But change also brings new challenges.  Services have become more complex and less provider-centric while markets that once were local or regional are now global. Large enterprises are seeking ever more sophisticated and integrated solutions while entrepreneurs bring rapid shifts in market focus. Increased complexity also means no single entity can go it alone. Gone are the days of market dominating, vertically integrated business models.

New opportunities have opened up for those who understand the changes and new partnerships are being forged as a strategy to meet those opportunities. Collaboration is not only critical to reach target markets, but essential to meet new demands in the expanded global marketplace.

For everything from basic communication services to the very latest in social networking applications or innovative media services delivery across a broad array of both wired and wireless networks, cooperation is as essential for meeting complex needs as competition is a driver to meet market demands.

No event embraces the spirit of collaboration more completely than PTC.  For 31 years, telecommunications companies, equipment and software developers, content and media services providers, vendors, investors, academics and researchers, policy makers and civil society representatives have met each January in Hawaii to forge alliances, negotiate agreements, and to learn from one another's experiences.

We invite you to join us in collaborating for change at PTC’09!