Welcome to Beyond Connectivity 2010

SAMENA's Beyond Connectivity 2010 will be held on April 28 and 29 at Movenpick Hotel, Beirut, Lebanon.

This year, the Beyond Connectivity annual conference will focus on the current growth prospects and future opportunities as well as challenges that exist in our industry. The aim is to review markets around the world and analyze the pattern of growth, evolution, and innovation.

While some argue that innovation is not happening in the industry at a desired pace, all consider it to be the name of the game. Innovation needs to happen not only in creating and deploying the most advanced transmission or access technologies, but also in proactively creating new services using both the existing and the new infrastructure and resources; serving growth customer bases by keeping balance between costs, customer demands and service quality; making broadband access real, widespread and cost-effective; investing in efficient optical networks; creating and distributing content; and in inducing greater collaboration within the industry..

This year, SAMENA would like to convene its members and prospects in Lebanon, to discuss how gears need to be shifted in this new era that demands innovation.

Discussion Topics

Panel 1: Introductory and opening

• Setting the Scene: Growth Prospects and Future Bets.
• Global markets overview: growth shifts and emerging opportunities.
• Re-shaping the industry: operators new strategies and business models.
• Sector policy and regulation post liberalization and recession.

Panel 2 : Demand shifts and resulting opportunities and challenges

• Uptake of consumers demand for bandwidth hungry applications.
• Uptake of enterprises demand for Cloud computing.
• New demand from a new segment: Application and content providers.

Panel 3 - Innovation: the new name of the market facing game

• Effectively competing in low-income markets.
• Playing it right in the applications and content space.
• Mobile applications, Mobile Payment and Mobile TV.
• New enterprise business model.
• Serving the government and public sector segment.

Panel 4 : Broadband technology models

• Next generation access strategies.
• Mobile broadband: myths and realities.
• Fixed broadband: business potential vs. national imperatives.

Panel 5 : Business infrastructure strategies

• FTTH as a national sustainability and competitiveness imperative.
• Building the networks of the future: enables and inhibitors.
• New infrastructure business model: operators perspective.

Panel 6 - (Regulatory Panel) Next Generation Policy and Regulation: Need for a New Agenda

• Effective policies to drive broadband, convergence and innovation.
• Challenges and imperatives of regional harmonization.
• The impact and the need to regulate terminations charges.
• Regulating International Roaming: The SAMENA region's perspective.
• Evolving regulatory roles toward better managing climate change.

Panel 7 : Mobile application strategies

• E - Health
• E - Education

Panel 8 : Content

• Content Creation and Distribution in SAMENA
• The impact of “revenue-less” content
• Realizing challenges in content ownership
• Value creation in an "open content" era

CEO Live Session

Eng. Saud Al Daweesh Saudi Telecom Company	Mrs. Nayla Khawam Orange Jordan	Mr. Mikkel Vinter Friendi - UAE	Wilson Varguese Kalimat
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