“Even three to four years ago, the presence of broadband at CES was limited,” said CEA Senior VP of Industry Affairs Jason Oxman. “Now it’s not [...]]]>

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) hopes to get more telecom vendors to the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) (www.cesweb.org) in January through a dedicated telecom pavilion this January.

“Even three to four years ago, the presence of broadband at CES was limited,” said CEA Senior VP of Industry Affairs Jason Oxman. “Now it’s not about the RJ-11, but the RJ-44 [Ethernet] jack, where [consumer devices] come into the home.”

The fall of SUPERCOMM provided an opportunity for CEA to provide a somewhat-but-not-totally new forum for telecommunications vendors and service providers to do business. “We saw a community that was very focused and we have a logical part of the technology value chain on exhibit at the International CES, so we created this telecom pavilion to and for the telecom and broadband equipment industry,” said Oxman.

CEA talked to a number of organizations, including its member companies which also happen to be TIA members, and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). Oxman pointed out that TIA and CEA used to be parts of the Electronics Industry Association (EIA) and until three years ago were in the same office building in Virginia.

But who will participate? “We expect both” network core and CPE vendors to show up, said Oxman. “The integration between broadband networks and CPE in the last few year has exploded. It’s hard to find an HDTV that doesn’t have broadband capability built in… that’s something that didn’t even exist three years ago.”

The CEA tie-in to broadband devices and the fact that CES 2010 brought in the executives from the top 50 global telecommunications service providers would seem to make a telecom pavilion with a network component a logical complement to the CES show next year, bringing together service providers, CPE companies, and network hardware vendors.

Since the CES telecom pavilion announcement was just made this week, it has generated “a great deal of interest” but it was too soon to discuss vendor commitments.

Scheduled to run January 6-9, 2011 in Vegas, the Telecom Pavilion will be focused on broadband equipment and services. More specifically [...]]]>

Taking advantage of (hopefully final, stick a fork in it, it’s done) the SUPERCOMM implosion, CES (www.cesweb.org) has announced a dedicated telecom pavilion. (Not that I needed another excuse to go to CES…)

Scheduled to run January 6-9, 2011 in Vegas, the Telecom Pavilion will be focused on broadband equipment and services. More specifically from the press release–

The Telecom Pavilion at CES is designed to bring traditional and emerging communications companies together to leverage the rapid convergence of advanced core network and broadband equipment, services, content and applications. The newly floored CES exhibit space will feature the latest in 3G/4G, broadband, content, copper and fiber-based networks, FMC (Fixed-Mobile Convergence), IPTV, IMS, triple play, quad play, security, VOIP and more.

(Psst, you guys need to work in “HD Voice” into your buzzwords. Maybe replace FMC with UC)

ANYway, CES boasts that “all of the top 50 global telecommunications service providers” showed up at the show in 2010.  Be interesting to see if the Big Iron/Network people traditionally represented by TIA will exhibit and what kind of lover’s triangle may emerge between CES, TIA, and USTA – the latter two the former “partners” in SUPERCOMM during its tumultuous life.

MatlinPatterson wanted [...]]]>

The bidding for the corpse and pieces of Nortel has gotten more interesting.  The Ottawa Citizen reports “vulture fund” MatlinPatterson Global Advisors is making a play for Nortel.  It couldn’t convince a U.S. bankruptcy court for an extension to the bidding process of Nortel wireless assets to Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), however.

MatlinPatterson wanted a 15 day extension to formalize a bid. Instead, the company must put together something by July 21 for an auction being held on July 24 with NSN currently the only bidder.  NSN and Nortel were hoping to close a sale on July 29.

With about $400 million – about 10 percent of Nortel debt – in Nortel bonds, Matlin feels that Nortel is worth more than the quick bidders believe, with cash reserves of $2.7 billion (U.S.), and notes the company has made $220 million since filing Chapter 11 in January.

However, NSN won’t get a free ride. The bankruptcy court ruled that NSN has to top competing bids to win the wireless assets and has made changes to the bidding process to allow options such as the reorganization of Nortel and the sale of all assets.

Be interesting to see if NSN holds course and what kind of cards Matlin might put on the table by July 21.