Convergence India to highlight ongoing convergence revolution

NEW DELHI: With the theme 'Next Generation Convergence Communication',

the 10^th event, Convergence 2002, is being held in New Delhi between

6-8th March'02. Co-organized by the Ministry of Communications and IT and TEMA

among others the event witnessed 177 participants from 17 countries.

The event will highlight the ongoing convergence revolution in India. There

were about 20 sponsors to the event, the gold sponsor being Qualcomm, which

stole center stage, and Canal Technologies as the Silver sponsor. Among the

other sponsors were Hughes, Commworks, Seagate and Texas Instruments. Issues

such as VoIP, CDMA/GSM and Interconnectivity were discussed while profiling the

changing landscape in the telecom, entertainment and Internet segments.

At the inaugural address Tapan Sikdar, Minister of State for IT and

Communications, said that the government is making efforts in increasing the

tele-density and over the year has already installed around 2.18 lakh telephone

booths in the nation. "Every hour we are adding 1000 new telephones in the

country and by 2005 we would achieve a tele-density of 7 per hundred

person." The Minister said that these are steps taken to bridge the digital

divide, the recent most being the setting up of 'Sanchar Dhabas' an ambitious

scheme for the rural places and small towns. With the growth in the telecom

sector at a 22-23 per cent steps will be taken to further spread the vast

network of call centers and other IT-enabled services in the country.

With wireless sector expanding, emphasis was laid on GSM and CDMA. US

conglomerate Qualcomm Inc. is making an entry into the industry with its

pioneered CDMA technology. Speaking at the occasion CDMA specialist, Dr. Irwin

Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm, said "We are looking forward to take advantage of

the software capabilities in India. India does occupy a promising position on

our activity chart where we would have a number of projects concerning CDMA chip

manufacturing and deployment."

Convergence India is providing an interactive forum for experts and delegates

from a vast cross-section of the industry worldwide. The participants in the

event comprise of 21 companies from the US, 15 from China, 13 from Hong Kong

among others, with visiting delegates and 83 conference speakers.