Industry exhibition

This week all Telecom industry was in good mood with the help of SvyazExpoCom 2009. Strange and a little bit ugly name but still the oldest telecom exhibition in Russia.

First of all I'd like to mention very tight attention of Government to this exhibition. Russian president attented the exhibition and visited several sites. It brings idea that Government is trying to solve crisis issues by stimulating telecom industry.

One of the most interesting places was pavilion with MNOs: SvyazInvest, MTS, Megafon, Beeline, Tele2.

SvyazInvest had one of the biggest two storey stands. From the early beginning they were visited by very powerfull persons: Medvedev (President), Schegolev (Minister of Communications). Many managers from daughter companies attended this exhibition and could be met at the stand.

MTS stand was joint with AFK Sistema actives. Intellect Telecom, Komstar, Skylink, MTS shared one big stand. MTS was demonstrating several corporate VASes (LBS, Messaging, 3G) and new brand Omlet with video streaming capabilities on mobile and web. Dmitry Medvedev didn't visit AFK Sistema stand despite of presence of AFK Sistema owner Evtushenkov and many top managers like Shamolin (MTS), Pridancev (Komstar). Evtushenkov said that there is 90% possibility that Medvedev will attend AFK Sistema and I thought "Even such powerfil persons couldn't predict future. Hence the more detailed you could predict future the more powerful you are. It is not the matter of money, but it is the matter of analytical skills."
Beeline. They had "Beeline City" stand. First of all Russian president paid attention to Beeline. He looked at Mobile TV (DVB-H standard). Another interesting features on their stand are: IPTV demo (Corbina) which recently commercial launched, Business services and 3G. President interest in Beeline could be thought as Government support to the company with shareholders war. They say that 1/3 of debt to pay in 2009 is already paid but very bad financials will push Beeline further down.

Megafon had similiar big stand with Smarts infront of it. They were quiet and as always green. They didn't show anything special but were presented. There are rumors that there was a message to all big telecom players to be presented at the exhibition in order not to be against Government willing to raise SvyazExpoCom power. Megafons so called MVNO Prosto was presented on different stand and was very popular.

Thanks,
Denis.