Recently in 4G Category

Internet radio has really revolutionized the way millions have listened to music and for that I have to thank everyone in the industry for allowing consumers to mark individual songs for more or less play. The amazing thing about Internet radio is that the more you listen and mark the songs you like, the better it gets - adjusting to fit your musical taste like a custom-made glove.

Having said that, I believe we owe Tim Westergren one of the founders of Pandora a great deal for being a pioneer in the space.

To hear Tim's thoughts on 4G, iPhone/AT&T exclusivity and the growth of his company, be sure to read the interview.

Oh, and I would be doing you an injustice if I didn't mention the 4G Wireless Evolution event taking place with ITEXPO this week in downtown Los Angeles at the Convention Center. The TMC team is all here (the last few just arrived) and we are setting up for the best show ever.

I just found a new blog - Seamless Enterprise which is sponsored by Sprint and recently did a roundup of the seven best blogs in communications. Thanks to Mark Ivey for picking two TMC blogs out of seven.

Here are the non-TMC blogs on the list.

• GigaOm
• VoIP IP Telephony
• NoJitter
• Fierce VoIP
• VoIP Watch

If you want to know which TMC blogs made it please check out the entry for yourself.

I spent the night having dinner with the TMC team at the new LA Live area of shops and restaurants by the Los Angeles Convention Center and Staples Center. We were in ESPN Sports Zone which sports a pair of 103 inch Panasonic TVs with stunning picture quality.

But getting back to downtown Los Angeles, I have been coming to the Los Angeles Convention Center for over a decade and am happy to see such a large amount of investment is taking place in the area. It will probably be unrecognizable to most people who have not seen the area in a while.

Much more of the team are arriving tomorrow and there will certainly be much more to share in the morning. Good night for now.

We are heading into ITEXPO with one day to go and today I got great news from my team who all arrived safely in Los Angeles and are busy preparing the Los Angeles Convention Center for the best ITEXPO ever. The good news? The preregistration for Avaya's social networking kick-off event is over 3X greater than last year's Avaya conference so far. Either this is an indication of the interest in social networking or there are more people coming to the show. Hopefully it's a bit of both.

My weekend in Los Angeles has been great... I have spent time with many relatives - at least 100 and counting. Yes, I have a huge family.

As always, we are looking forward to welcoming you all to what promised to be a great show - full of collaboration tools, videoconferencing solutions, IP communications tools and more. Moreover, there are new areas of the show such as Smart Grid, M2M, 4G and WINOG which I just can't wait to learn more about.

Then there are open source certifications (Digium/Asterisk, Fonality/Trixbox) on all the important flavors of open source communications solutions.

I have said it repeatedly - the way to get the most out of any conference is to not only attend sessions and the exhibit hall but also network with people who can help you. Perhaps they can help you purchase a product or service or even land that lucrative consulting gig. Maybe you are looking for potential customers or partners at the show. Whatever you seek, if it is in the communications space, there is no better place than ITEXPO to find it.

And before the show kicks off this Tuesday, September 1 in Los Angeles I wanted to share the fourth installment of interviews from the show. These interviews provide guidance, allowing you to get a feel for who will be at the show and more importantly, who can help you learn valuable information.rise-voip/articles/63128-dangers-ubiquitous-wireless-networks.htm%20

As a reference, here are interviews, one, two and three.

Suzanne Bowen over at DIDX is a past ITEXPO exhibitor and I noticed some nice words from her about the show. In her words:

Both conferences attract a huge and robust mix of professionals, developers, early adopters, SMEs, voip companies, anything over IP companies, and more which results in exciting discussions and new innovations. When a conference only concentrates on one type of participant, the results will be the same as always.

Feel free to read the entire post and I hope to see you at the show next week. Suzanne, thanks for the nice words and to my readers - thanks for your ongoing participation.

A recent Forbes survey shows business executives prefer face-to-face meetings over those of the virtual type. As expected 58% of respondents said they were travelling for business less today than they were at the beginning of the recession in January 2008, with more than a third (34%) indicating they were travelling much less frequently.

What seems obvious (to me anyway) is that executives still expressed an overwhelming preference for face-to-face meetings, with more than eight out of ten (84%) saying they prefer in-person contact to virtual.

Even more interesting, those that prefer face-to-face meetings believe they facilitate the following: Building stronger, more meaningful relationships (85%), the ability to "read" another person (77%), and Greater social interaction (75%).

Other tidbits worth sharing, 64% of those who prefer technology-enabled business meetings like them because they allow them to multitask and 87% agree that there are tangible business benefits to in-person, face-to-face meetings that outweigh the cost savings of alternative, technology-based meeting methods such as web conferencing or videoconferencing.

I find this survey refreshing as it confirms what we may all know - that

face-to-face meetings are much better than meeting in any other way.

The timing of these survey results are interesting as I am headed to TMC's ITEXPO (Sept. 1-3, 2009 in Los Angeles) -- (This photo was taken at the last ITEXPO this past winter in Miami) to engage in a live event which focuses on virtual meeting technology based on IP communications. As it happens, the attendance to the exhibit hall portion of ITEXPO is ahead of last year and I am thrilled to welcome the global crowd to the exhibit hall and conference areas.

I take this as a sign that although IP communications technology is gaining more traction by the day, sometimes, face-to-face gatherings are the best way to learn more about how to meet virtually, save money on communications and boost productivity.

I am happy to hear from a number of companies attending ITEXPO that they are being overwhelmed with requests to meet and do business at the show. This is yet another signal to me that the communications markets are resilient and from what I hear, a number of companies at the show are expecting nice growth for the rest of the year. A few first-time exhibitors told me they think they have sold products to companies who saw them on the exhibitor list. This is great news as ITEXPO has always been the premiere communications event attracting buyers and sellers.

But what I haven't shared is how we at TMC are doing our best to foster the buyer and seller relationship by adding tools to our community which allows them to arrange meetings with one another at the event. The service we added is called DealCenter and the details are below. I hope you find it useful

The ITEXPO DealCenter is now
available for attendees

and exhibitors to begin pre-show
networking!

NEW TO ITEXPO WEST 2009:THE ITEXPO DEALCENTER!

All registered attendees and exhibitors coming to Los Angeles for ITEXPO West 2009 are eligible to use the ITEXPO DealCenter to network and plan meetings with other attendees and exhibitors on-site at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The ITEXPO DealCenter is an online list of registered attendees and exhibitors available to meet on-site in Los Angeles. Attendees and exhibitors who create a profile in the ITEXPO DealCenter can view one another's names, titles, companies and industry sectors to determine with whom they would like to meet with on-site at the show. 

The DealCenter allows you to arrange 30-minute meetings with new prospects and partners, thereby introducing you to new business potential and increasing your event ROI. These meetings can be held at the on-site ITEXPO DealCenter meeting area, your exhibit booth, or any location at the Los Angeles Convention Center that you find convenient.

HOW DO I LOGIN TO THE ITEXPO DEALCENTER?

First you must register to attend or exhibit at ITEXPO West 2009.

Once an individual is registered for ITEXPO West 2009, please Opt In by sending a note to Michael Genaro from ITEXPO West and let him know you'd like to be included in the list of ITEXPO DealCenter participants.

If you have any questions about the ITEXPO DealCenter, please email support@deal-center.com or call 201.839.0177

To see the ITEXPO West DealCenter please click here.