The nation’s capital is the centre of ICT innovation as the 18th Convergence India 2010 opens today at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. Hailed as South Asia’s largest event on information and communications technology, the Convergence India series is organized by the Exhibitions India Group.

Over 450 participants representing the Telecom, IT, Broadcast, Media & Entertainment, Green IT, Security & Surveillance, Cable, Satellite, IP Surveillance and Information Security sectors of 20 countries have gathered on this international platform to showcase cutting edge technologies, products & services.

The event is supported by the union ministries of Communications & IT and Information & Broadcasting along with a host of other national and international associations ensuring a continuous flow of high-profile visitors at the event.

The Indian telecom industry has achieved tremendous growth consolidating a subscriber base of 560 million by end 2009 “By end 2010 we are hopeful of crossing our 11th Five Year Plan target of 600 million connections – two years ahead of schedule,” declared Shri Gurudas Kamat, Hon’ble Minister of State for Communications & IT, presiding over the event’s Opening Ceremony as Chief Guest. “Telecommunications have emerged as a springboard of ICT applications with economy-wide impact. A whole range of information based industry applications have come up creating new sources of employment and earning,” he added.

Endorsing these views, Shri R. Chandrashekhar, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & IT, said “There has been a huge surge of innovation in services riding on the wave of convergence and the mobile revolution.” Shri Chandrashekhar was present as Guest of Honor at the event.

Indeed, the ICT industry has been moving towards a whole new phase of growth with the focus on customized Value Added Services to serve the 1 billion plus Indian population. It is the acceleration of providing services like e-health, mobile commerce, mobile gaming, e-education etc. to the country’s rural hinterland that is telecom’s next big challenge.

Positive trends are being noticed in this direction. Handsets are becoming more affordable, there are different capabilities and services bundled at every price point. Shri Kamat emphasized the need of the hour as enabling the mobile device to empower the masses through customized value added services for rural applications.

Positing ICT as a tool to bridge the urban rural divide and create the spread of equitable economic development was the inaugural conference session - a round table discussion based on the theme ‘Digital Convergence.. Empowering a billion lives’. Communications companies are exploring the rural markets like never before in a bid to access 2/3rd of the country’s population and maximize on the opportunities in this underpenetrated market.

Animated panel discussions deliberated the issues of tariff wars and declining ARPUs in a multi operator environment and the timing for the emergence of a National Media Policy. Other conference sessions of the day focused on the future of the wireless business for GSM and CDMA operators and the digitization of broadcast technologies in India.

Leading companies such as Ericsson, NDS India, Advance Digital Broadcast participated in an animated panel discussion exploring the emerging issues in a multi-operator environment such as the consequent tariff wars and declining ARPU in the competitive scenario. A successive conference session on “GSM & CDMA – The future of wireless business” brings spokespersons from Bharti Airtel, Telcordia Technologies, Centre for Development of Telematics (C-Dot) and the Cellular Operators’ Association of India together to discuss issues of network transformation and emerging applications against the spread of wireless networks.

Fulfilling its long-standing mandate as a premier knowledge sharing forum, the 18th Convergence India 2010 was also a launching pad for the event’s Knowledge Partner OVUM to release an industry white paper entitled Telecoms 2020.

The Exhibitions India Group, established in 1987, is a trade promotion group focused on organizing international exhibitions and seminars and attracting investments in India, as well as, promoting participation of Indian companies at leading tradeshows worldwide.

Exhibitions India is the only trade fair and conference organizer in India with ISO 9001:2000 & ISO 14001:2004 Certification. The Group is a member of UFI (The Global Association of Exhibitions Industry); IAEE-USA (International Association of Exhibitions and Events) and IEIA (Indian Exhibition Industry Association). The expos organized by the Group conform to the Trade Fair Certification Program of the International Administration of the US commercial Service.