Latin American Triple Play conference grows, challenges Expocomm

THIS SCRIBBLER flew last week to the second yearly edition of "Triple Play" conference, organised by the Convergencia publishing company and market research group, and hosted at the Sheraton hotel in Cordoba, Argentina. It was well worth it.

The decision to host it in Cordoba, the country's second-largest city at the geographical centre of the country -about 450 miles NW of Buenos Aires -marks a nice departure from the country's capital-centric mindset. This year, which marks the second edition of Convergencia's "Triple Play" conference, the organisers decided to expand it and give it a more regional reach, hence this year's edition was dubbed "Southern Cone Edition", and indeed, there were plenty of people not only from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil -the so-called "Southern Cone" - but also from other Latin American countries like Mexico and Colombia.

Welcome sign awakens zombies registering at 7:30am

Sponsored by heavyweights like Global Crossing, Akamai Technologies and 3M, among others, including local incumbent heavyweights Telefonica and Telecom Argentina, the event attracted over 700 people the first day, which packed the auditorium during the first welcome speech, an undeniable growth compared to the previous year's 600 guests.

Cordoba´s Sheraton, a nice venue
-would be perfect with a decent internet connection-

The organisers wondered aloud - and with little modesty - something like "I wonder, isn't this becoming the most influential telecommunications event in Argentina?" They might be right. If they continue on this path, the folks at Expocomm better worry, yet they have some work to do to match Expocomm's size and relevance. For instance, with everything packed in two days, registration started early in the morning, more precisely at 7:30am, with the first welcome message from the organisers starting at 8:30am, and the event closed at 7:00pm, leaving little time to digest all the relevant information. Plus, the first day saw six workshops, but staged simultaneously in pairs, putting visitors in the uncomfortable position of having to choose which to attend.

IPTV and VOIP hardware was everywhere
Here, GlobalThink distributor showing off an Amino IPTV tuner alongside their SIP SoftSwitch solutions

In short, this was an event about the future, and might as well have been dubbed the "ARF Conference" - ARF standing for "awaiting the regulatory framework". Incumbent telecommunications providers Telecom and Telefonica, who keep their virtual monopoly on the local loop, are currently banned from getting into TV broadcasting, and cable TV operators are banned from getting into telephony. On the other hand, the customer is held hostage to the incumbents' own phone networks, as local loop unbundling has been put "in the freezer", all this while the two incumbents play flex their collective lobbying muscle, suspending -but not yet pulling completely- its claims against the Argentine government on the World Bank's ICSID as a result of the 2002 currency devaluation.

Over 700 people attended the inauguration, according to organisers

One could clearly see two camps in the conferences: the CATV operators wishing to get into "triple play" by adding phone service to their current offering of TV and broadband, and on the other hand the "pure IP" IPTV peddlers, trying to sell the virtues of "video on demand" services.

Aggressive newcomers to the carrier and triple play game like IPlan -which has its own fibre network carrying internet and VOIP- were there, surely giving the incumbents Telecom and Telefonica a well deserved headache

I'd say the CATV camp has a point: getting a IP broadband modem -and remember not every current phone user who also watches TV is currently also a broadband user-, and an IPTV tuner box for TV service behind it, plus a VOIP box added to the mix is an explosive combination just waiting for disaster, it's not only a great expense for the service provider, it can also be a configuration and tech support nightmare. While there are some combo devices out there -say ADSL modem and SIP VOIP gateway all rolled into one-, the competition of pure IPTV over the established CATV providers will be an uphill battle, a battle that they will only win if the TV viewers embrace the "pay per view" and "video on demand" models rather than the current "package of signal feeds" offered by traditional cable television.

Cordoba's Sheraton hotel: the right place for a crowded event

In addition to the conferences and workshops, several dozen companies showcased their kit and sales literature alongside the hallways. You could see for instance the aggressive and innovative small firm IPlan -in my opinion one of the best ISPs you can find in this country- peddling their internet and telephony services -which use the company's own fibre network and reaches Cordoba among other cities without using the incumbent's local loop-. The company has a new VOIP service dubbed " Proximo" which extends the company's telephony offerings to anyone with a broadband connection - like Vonage - but also offering innovative "virtual PABX" and IVR services on top of the traditional VOIP offer.

Speakers included not only the execs from private companies giving the usual "sales speech" but also executives from Venezuela and Peru speaking on the regulatory framework in their countries, along with a public official from Colombia's CNTV regulatory commission which deals with all matters related to TV broadcasts.

In short, this event - despite some little shortcomings like the Sheraton's slow Wi-Fi connectivity about which I will write soon - was a success, and it will continue growing in relevance, as Convergencia irons out the little details. My only recommendation to the organisers: next year's edition should span at least four days, instead of packing everything in just two. Expocomm already lasts more, and even then I'd give Expocomm an extra day. If you are reading this and you do business in IPTV, content delivery, broadband or equipment sales to the South America region, attending this event is a must, so book your registration for the next edition. Recommended. µ

L'INQs
Cordoba City, at the geographical centre of Argentina
Convergencia Latina, the local publishing and market research company
Cordoba's Sheraton Hotel
IPlan Networks uses Global Crossing to converge Data and Voice

See Also
Argentina ends 2006 with record-breaking e-figures
Intel creates software R&D unit in Cordoba, Argentina
Expocomm Argentina 2006 - INQ coverage