3rd Infocom Albanian Telecom Forum

«Digital Albania: Driving the Broadband Highway»

The 3rd InfoCom Albanian Telecom Forum (www.infocomalbania.com) took place on Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 at Sheraton Tirana Hotel, Albania and as expected became the main attraction for the Telecom & Information Technology industry.

The conference was organized by media company Smart Press S.A., one of the leading companies in this field, owner of numerous technology websites, printed magazines publisher and renowned conference organizer.

The 3rd InfoCom Albanian Telecom Forum is the next in line of the very successful events, organized by Smart Press SA during the last 14 years of Conference organizing, in Greece and Cyprus.

With an eye to the future, the main theme of the 3rd InfoCom Albanian Telecom Forum was "Digital Albania: Driving the Broadband Highway", given that the country is currently at a turning point: it should take a final decision on its digital future, as the developments on its effort to converge with the European institutions are expected to be fast and vast.

3rd InfoCom Albanian Telecom Forum main aspiration was to become the meeting point for the political and business entrepreneurs as well as for all the main players in the market – in other words, become the key institution for the exchange of different views and proposals on the Albanian ICT market.

According to recent research, investments on broadband implementation are a quite significant means of development for every economy. 3rd InfoCom Albanian Telecom Forum had as a taget to highlight this perspective, as well as refer to the problems and the necessary institutional reforms. It was also a forward point for questions and suggestions, so that the country may move rapidly towards the Information & Knowledge Society.

In a constantly changing environment, in spite of the global economic recession, countries like Albania can –and should, via the adoption of modern technology- find their own recipe for development and sustainable growth by reinforcing the competitive advantages of the local market, as well as the effective functioning of the state through e-government practices.

Delegates who was attending the 3rd InfoCom Albanian Telecom Forum as well as Albanian public opinion leaders, focused not only on the way that politicians and institutional factors face the perspectives of the ICT sector in Albania, but also on the opinions shared by the ICT executives, the role reserved for Next Generation Networks, the situation vendors are facing, and the public statements by the heads of ICT companies.

The conference program fulfilled the message "Digital Albania: Driving the Broadband Highway" and placed new standards for next years' events.

The sessions of the 3rd InfoCom Albanian Telecom forum was:

Session 1: Next Generation Networks & Infrastructure

Right now Albania is at a turning point, as far as its broadband strategy is concerned – it should make the right decisions in order to enter directly and without delay, the «Broadband Highway», which is the speediest road to the future.

Yet, what are the main possibilities, the potential, the challenges, the available technologies, the business models and the arising opportunities? How and in what way should the new infrastructure be deployed? What are the dangers, the difficulties and the problems that we should overcome?

This session is dedicated to the opinions and presentations by the companies which will undertake the implementation of the fixed and wireless New Generation Networks, as well as from specialists that will describe the technologies to be deployed and the business models they will be based on, in order to secure the viability of the investments needed to fulfil this purpose.

Section 2: CEO Summit: Citius - Altius - Fortius

Telecom market is quite rightly considered as the locomotive of every national economy, yet it needs a suitable investment and regulatory framework in order to fulfil its promise. In spite of the problematic international economic framework, telecom market leaders keep on producing good results and improving their position and this fact provides ample justification of the Albanian market dynamics.

In this final session we will try to chart the Albanian ICT market environment. What are the oncoming changes? Which are the new technologies to look after, the business models to implement and the best solutions to choose from? What kind of investment and regulation problems arise and how they will be solved? What is to be done with the deployment rights? What is the best way to deal with the interconnection delays? What about the expected constriction cycle of the market, the long anticipated synergies, mergers and acquisitions between companies? What are the most possible alliances we may witness and what are their perspectives?

Political and institutional figures of the country will present their opinion on all these subjects, alongside the CEOs of the telecom networks that will outline their future expectations and the rapid succession of events in the Albanian telecom market.

Session 3: e-Albania: A brave new world!

A brave new world is on the rise: e-Albania! The first major steps have already been taken but more, equally important ones are in store. In this session, ICT companies and market leaders will present their solutions regarding the digital future of the country, such as:

• Unified Communications – Unified Communications is the practical result of the convergence among several fields, as it offers integration of real-time communication services such as instant messaging, telephony, presence information, video conferencing, data sharing and even speech recognition with non real-time ones, like voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax. It is a whole set of products and services, that provides a higher level of experience and a common interface to any user across multiple devices and media types. Practically, this means that the user has only one platform to deal with, regardless of the device he utilizes, which can cover all his communication needs at home or at work, while either being stationed or on the move.

• Cloud Computing – Cloud Computing is the new, quite important trend in the global digital technology market. We have already seen the first results (in fact, just a glimpse…) of the coming revolution in the ICT industry. Regarded as one of the “hottest” issues in the market, Cloud Computing may well alter all the existing business models, as it will offer new revenue streams stemming from the whole digital ecosystem and open up new exciting fields and activities related to digital technologies. Telecom operators may profit more, exploiting Cloud Computing, as it offers to them quite important opportunities to create new products and services that will help them counterbalance the losses from voice services, due to the worldwide economic crisis and the fierce competition.

• E-Government – e-Government is an “umbrella” term, used to describe all shorts of digital interaction between government and citizens (G2C), government and businesses (G2B), government and employees (G2E), as well as government and its own ministries or agencies (G2G). The possibilities and the advantages offered by ICT and the new technologies involved offer enormous potential, as a lot of dedicated applications promise swift, efficient and proper functioning of all networked institutions and agencies. A high degree of transparency is secured, during every phase of the exercise of authority in the country, while maintaining great standards as far as the service to the citizens is considered. 

• e-business (e-shops / e-learning) – Everything starting with e- is set to exploit the merits of digital technology. Among them, e-business is of paramount importance as it is the future of a really indispensable everyday human action, as selling and buying products and services. It may be applied to individuals, groups or between businesses. Through the use of digital technology, Electronic business methods enable companies to link their internal and external data processing systems more efficiently and flexibly, to work more closely with suppliers and partners, and to better satisfy the needs and expectations of their customers. More and more people prefer to buy things through e-shops nowadays and the same method is used for educational purposes: more and more students prefer to learn a foreign language via the Internet or attend the online courses of a university that may be or may be not established in the same country.

• Mobility: Smartphones & Applications – Although smartphones have just entered the Albanian mobile telephony market, their popularity along with their market share has already climbed to about 40% all over Europe. The explosive increase in their sales is combined with a major eco-system built-up all around them. Smartphones and Mobile Applications are the shape of the things to come. It is more than certain –as quite the same has already happened all over the EU- that through the deployment of 3G mobile networks (grace to the two existing licences and the third one to be awarded soon) Mobile Internet will change the way people get information and education, entertain themselves and work, in their everyday lives.

InfoCom Albania Awards

Last but not least, the Conference closed with the InfoCom Albania Awards which reward and honor innovative companies, services, products and market executives.

The purpose of the awards was to publicly recognize the efforts and the effectiveness of all those who have contributed their creativity and passion to market growth and technology advancements in Albania.