Pipeline Exclusive Q&A with TIA, USTA, and the IEC By Timothy E. Young

Where will your company place its trade shows dollars in the years to come? With SUPERCOMM gearing up for its last show, we decided ask Matthew Flanigan, President of TIA, Walter McCormick, Jr, President and CEO of USTA, and Roger Plummer, Managing Director of the IEC, the reasons behind drawing the curtain, and what we can expect to see from these organizations in the future.

Pipeline: According to the event history on the SUPERCOMM site, the event has its origins in telephone trade shows of the 1950's. A whole lot has changed since then. What technologies are likely to be the talk of the expo this year?
USTA: This year, anything IP is hot. USTA is holding a two-day conference at SUPERCOMM devoted specifically to IP-Video and I expect we will see a lot of new and exciting products on the exhibit floor. We'll also see a lot of new business opportunities for service providers including managed services for Enterprise networks.
TIA: I think what's happening with Convergence, VoIP, and the whole broadband expansion is important. VoIP needs a broadband pipe to ride on, and last year broadband really grew at SUPERCOMM and was probably one of the most important items. And you're going to continue to see broadband explode along with VoIP and other applications that are going to ride on the internet.

Pipeline:SUPERCOMM is a massive event with between 650 and 675 exhibitors. At an event this huge, how does someone make the most of it?
TIA: Last year TIA introduced what we call TIAnalytics, which is a really valuable tool that allows both attendees and exhibitors to prearrange meetings, based on the kind of products or services you're offering or seeking. That's going to help set the stage, because it is almost impossible to go around and visit all the companies.

Pipeline: Are there any specific events that the OSS crowd shouldn't miss?
USTA: USTA is sponsoring two conferences at SUPERCOMM that will specifically appeal to the OSS crowd. The IP-Video conference will tee up the latest technologies for deploying video and the Telecom Engineering Conference will have a lot of great resources for OSS.
TIA: SUPERCOMM has over 200 educational sessions that touch every possible facet of telecom, whether that's Enterprise, the optical side, VoIP, SIP, WiFi, WiMax…the list goes on and on. I think every subject you could imagine is going to be covered in one of the sessions. That's the one thing truly unique about SUPERCOMM. It allows you to not only see and touch the equipment and talk to the vendors directly, you can go to one of the seminars and get all the information you need to make your company competitive in this marketplace.

Pipeline: TIA and USTA built this event, so they've obviously been involved since the beginning. How long has the IEC been involved in SUPERCOMM?
IEC: IEC has been involved with SUPERCOMM since 1995 when it was brought on as Program Manager to grow the show's attendance level which had dropped and become stagnant.

Pipeline: After eighteen years and immense growth and change, SUPERCOMM is in its last year. Why?
USTA: At the end of SUPERCOMM 2005, USTA and TIA will complete a five-year contract and both organizations decided to go their own way.
TIA: I think both organizations couldn't come to terms in expanding the role of SUPERCOMM, and it was decided to go separately, so that's what we've done. It's been a great run and a good relationship, but most things come to an end at some point.

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