VON Adds Latin America Telecom Summit

Many people have asked me how the VON Conference & Expo is going to cover the Latin American telecom market, currently the world’s most dynamic. Now I’m pleased to say I have an answer.

As we announced today, we’ll be presenting the VON Latin America Summit as part of the overall VON show. The VON L.A. Summit will take place on the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 22, and will showcase the region’s leading service providers and innovators in advanced IP communication services for this rapidly growing region. I’m very excited about this mini-conference, and it’s clear from the response we’ve already gotten that it will be a seminal event in the interrelationships between telecom providers and vendors in North American and their Southern Hemisphere counterparts.

We’ll have more to say about the VON L.A. Summit in coming weeks. For now I’ll present some evidence showing why Latin America is increasingly important as a growth market for North American providers and vendors. Consider Brazil.

The largest country in South America, Brazil has 192 million people and 67.5 million Internet users, according to the ITU. Per capita income has increased 66 percent since 2000, and the Brazilian stock market more than tripled in total value between 2003 and 2007. Brazil offers two things telecom operators crave: rapid growth and relatively low penetration. As of December 2008 only 6.8 million people (less than 4 percent of the population) had broadband connections.

Brazil’s telecom sector was fully liberalized in 2006, and apart from cable TV, the sector is open to unrestricted foreign investment. Already encouraged by the federal government, competition is being boosted by the introduction of number portability in March 2009. Wireless revenue for Tele Norte (now known as Oi (TNE), the country’s largest telecom provider, grew by more than 50 percent in the most recent quarter. The telecom sector also is undergoing consolidation, with the takeover by Oi of its smaller rival Brasil Telecom earlier this year, as well as the flourishing of a number of specialized providers in VoIP and related services.

In other words, Brazil is “one of the fastest growing telecommunications markets in the world with an immense untapped potential that is in desperate need of unlocking.” So reads the promo copy for TelecomsWorld Brasil 2009, to be held in Rio de Janeiro Sept. 15-18 – the week before VON.

Other Latin American countries, including Argentina and Chile, are seeing similar surges. Even Mexico, which suffers from one of the most monopolistic telecom sectors in the world, is starting to see the first shoots of competition appear.

Given our prime location in Miami, VON is perfectly positioned to catch this wave of growth and innovation coming from the south. We’ll have more to relate about specific speakers and session topics at the VON L.A. Summit in the next few weeks. I invite you to stay tuned to learn more about this exciting event.