Eurasia Com: Azeri and Tajik delegations announced

This morning we have more good news about the size, diversity and seniority of the group set to assemble at our Eurasia Com conference in Istanbul (31 March & 1 April 2009). The already-strong panel of speakers is to be boosted by the presence of the General Directors of two of the Eurasia region's state-owned incumbent wireline carriers.

Tajiktelecom will be represented by Mr Rahmunali Hasanov, joined by his counterpart from AzTelecom, Mr Magomed Mamedov. With the Kyrgyz incumbent operator already represented by its General Director and CTO, and with Türk Telekom CEO Dr. Paul Doany opening the event with a Welcome Keynote Address, Eurasia Com 2009 is shaping up to be the biggest, best event we've ever hosted for telcos in the Central Asia and Caucasus regions.

Yesterday, I was pleased to learn that ECI Telecom, a leading supplier of networking infrastructure for carrier and service provider networks worldwide, had been signed up as a Eurasia Com sponsor. We look forward to introducing the ECI Telecom team on-site to the carrier delegations whose presence we are currently confirming. As a sponsor, ECI Telecom can expect to gain privileged access to new contacts from across this high-growth region. We urge other telecoms tech vendors interested in the region to avail themselves of this opportunity also.

Dual-mode WiMAX/GSM device hits Russian market

Earlier this year WiMAX watchers Maravedis were talking up Russia as one of the world's top WiMAX/BWA markets. Some weight was added to this arguments when we hosted a, WiMAX Forum-endorsed and well-attended Russia/CIS conference in Moscow last month. Further evidence of Russia being a key market for WiMAX equipment and device vendors was reported yesterday by telecoms.com, who noted that Taiwanese PDA and handset maker HTC has officially unveiled a dual-mode mobile WiMAX/GSM handset to add to its 'Touch' range of devices using Windows Mobile OS. The first to get their hands on the HTC Max 4G, which is being heralded by its makers as the world's first commercially available device of this type, will customers of Russia's Scartel.

Scartel, currently building out a mobile WiMAX network in Moscow and St. Petersburg and offering services under the 'Yota' brand name, will offer the HTC device to subscribers from November 26th.

According to the telecoms.com piece, for voice, Scartel HTC MAX 4G users "will be able to make and receive GSM calls with any Russian mobile phone network operator; when both callers are Yota subscribers, calls will be routed as VoIP on the Scartel's mobile WiMAX network."

We hope that Scartel and HTC will both be represented at our 7th annual Russia & CIS Com conference (formerly GSM>3G Russia) in Moscow next June when, once again, we will be gathering high level executives from telecoms businesses mainly in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. For companies looking for good business development opportunities in the CIS, this event offers a very convenient one-stop shop for meeting operators of every type and size - fixed, mobile, integrated, cable MSOs and more. An earlier opportunity, relating more specifically to meeting prospects from the CIS markets of the Caucasus region and Central Asia (i.e. Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) is our Eurasia Com conference. The next of these will be 31st March and 1st April 2009 in Istanbul. Companies which have already confirmed their high-level participation include: MTS, MegaFon, Kyrgyztelecom, Bakcell, AzEurotel and Megacom.

Kyrgyz incumbent carrier: CEO-level support for Eurasia Com conference

Our 5th annual Eurasia Com conference (31 March & 1 April 2009, Istanbul) received a huge boost this morning. While we have done well in terms of attracting speakers and delegates from the mobile operators of the South Caucasus and Central Asia regions, it has frankly been rather more difficult to engage with the mainly state-owned incumbent carriers from that part of the world. Doing this more effectively is an ambition I've held for a couple of years now. I am convinced that many of our customers (telecoms tech vendors looking to access emerging markets regions worldwide) also find their business development in the CIS to be above-averagely challenging. My vision for this event, therefore, has been to gather every kind of telecoms operator from the region under one roof for a two-day one-stop-shop for our sponsors. The CIS markets' incumbent wireline carriers have been the one missing piece from this jigsaw.

That changed today with the confirmation of Mr Marat Mambetaliev, General Director of KYRGYZTELECOM as a member of the panel of speakers. We will now work to leverage this confirmation to encourage the participation of Mr Mambetaliev's counterparts from other countries in the region.