• How has the global IP market evolved in the past few years?
• How is the core business of IP carriers changing?
• What do carriers need to do in order to survive and thrive?
• How can carriers achieve differentiation, better customer service and growth?
• Exploiting the increasing dominance of IP

• Placing broadband at the heart of your business strategy
• Investing in next generation networks – allowing provision of a big, simple, flexible platform for delivering ICT, broadband and mobility
• Dealing with challenges presented by the migration to IP

• Advantages of operating an all IP network
• How new entrants can position themselves
• Future for growth
• Financial viability 
• How important products, quality of service and pricing are to a carrier's offering

• What are they key market requirements for QoS?
• How to provide a fundamental that addresses the end-user marketing with differential services?
• How to navigate in the jungle of QoS
• Providing a substantial proof of QoS

• What types of multimedia services will service providers and carriers launch in 2005?
• How will fixed and mobile networks converge to seamlessly deliver services to any end-user device?
• What are the major obstacles to achieving end-to-end service quality across multiple network boundaries?
• Who will win the battle to own the customer relationship?
  

• How can the IP transit market be strengthened?
• Need to diversify and become more customised
• Restructuring the peering system
• Working on the same business model as for voice traffic?
• Working with service providers to establish destinations
• Evaluating different types of connection models
  

• Incumbents or altnets – who will capture the lion’s share in Europe?
• Analysing the move to next generation networks – what does the competitive landscape in Europe look like?
• Will IPTV take off in Western Europe?
• Impact of local loop unbundling on carriers

• Capturing the broadband market in this region – who is poised to succeed – telcos or cable companies?
• Dealing with large-scale rollouts of voice services by cable operators
• Future for broadband penetration in North America
• Adopting VoIP to remain competitive
• What do FCC rulings mean for the IP market in North America?

• How can the tremendous growth opportunities that this region offers be capitalised on?
• Assessing the adoption of next generation networks in Asia-Pacific
• What does the regulatory climate mean for IP carriers in the region - does it stifle new entrants and prevent innovation?
• What are the ‘killer applications’ in the region
  

• If the future is IP then traffic must be managed efficiently and securely
• What can be done to ensure QoS and SLAs
• Overcoming packet latency, jitter, bandwidth utilisation and packet loss
• Guaranteeing secure IP to IP peering between service network providers
  

• Importance of monitoring, managing and reporting on IP traffic
• What does the global outlook regarding IP traffic look like?
• Traffic growth - what can be done to give the most accurate assessment?
• What applications are driving traffic growth rates?
  

• Bringing new markets and new technologies into an established carrier model
• Meeting the requirements of the domestic carriers and their end customers
• Maximising the opportunity to achieve differentiation and growth
  

• Meeting the cost and security concerns of a demanding enterprise customer
• Creating value added and differentiated services for enterprise communication
• Providing a secure, reliable, flexible and high standard of connectivity
• Examining customer requirements for different service offerings
• What can operators and end users expect?
  

• Ensuring a smooth migration from frame relay to IP VPNs
• Migrating ATM services onto a converged platform
• Migrating DSL from ATM to Ethernet
• When is TDM over packet a viable option?
  

• What are the drivers of converged communications?
• Dealing with future challenges - what to expect
• Integrating communications on various fronts
• Delivering the services that customers want over converged networks
  

• Reducing capital and operating expenses by delivering multiple IP services
• Is triple play of voice, data and video just the start of a more seamless, converged world?
• Exploiting a potentially explosive market
• Creating stickiness and retaining custom
• Triple play for all – migrating to triple play from the point of view of voice carriers, cable operators and data carriers
• Examining different triple play models – deploying TV over DSL or reselling TV services
  

• Enabling customers with new IP services – presence, push to talk, interactive gaming and real time video sharing
• Providing mobile operators with global roaming over IP
• Meeting customer expectations of a seamless mobile service – wherever they are
  

• Assessing what the future holds for the telecommunications market – who are carriers competing against?
• How can carriers increase revenues and remain profitable?
• Adopting the new technologies and services that will lead to success
• What will be the attributes of the winners and losers?
  

• How is VoIP changing the ground rules and revolutionising the telecoms industry?
• Making money out of VoIP
• VoIP as an enabler of convergence
• VoIP as an alternative to circuit switched long distance connections
• Will VoIP add value to the telecoms industry at all or will it just be one element of a broadband package?
  

• Comparing business models: new entrants vs incumbents
• Assessing the network architecture & Pricing models
• Major threats to VoIP players & key success criteria
• How to gain competitive advantage
  

• Comparing feasible business and pricing models
• Outlining market scenarios
• Assessing the impact of VoIP on the fixed voice business model
• Evaluating the offensive and defensive modes deployed by incumbents
  

• Challenges facing traditional voice and data suppliers entering the IP telephony space
• Overcoming holes in the value chain
• Ensuring a smooth transition towards convergence
• Factors for success: QoS, scalability, security
  

• Assessing the different adoption paths taken by carriers
• What are the biggest opportunities for growth?
• Impact of VoIP on carries and consumers
  

• How are mobile operators adapting their business models in response to VoIP
• Understanding the threats and opportunities of VoIP for an MNO
• Outlook on possible VoIP evolution
• Can VoIP be profitable for mobile operators?
  

• Understanding the implications and challenges of regulating VoIP
• Impact of regulation in one region upon another
• Allocation of numbers for VoIP
• What is the future regarding lawful interception of VoIP?
  

• Analysing current enterprise take up of VoIP services and predicting further growth
• Developing services to target the enterprise market
• Making VoIP part of enterprises’ larger technology migration
• Meeting the cost-saving expectations of enterprise VoIP users
  

Sonus Networks, a pioneer in the voice over IP industry, will lead a full-day, interactive workshop dedicated to VoIP, covering the operational, business and competitive implications of this exciting technology. Clearly, VoIP is no longer the technology of the future – it is a reality today. Introduced in the late 1990s, carrier-class VoIP infrastructure solutions deliver the robust qualities and features that service providers require and have come to expect. In a relatively short period of time, many major carriers and service providers have successfully transitioned their voice networks from a circuit-switched architecture to the packet-based softswitch model, and many more will in the years to come. 

The move to a truly converged network, where applications and voice services are transport-independent, is fundamentally changing the way carries compete to serve their customers, and has the potential to redefine the structure of the industry. And VoIP is at the heart of this transformation.

This interactive pre-conference workshop day will provide an overview of the opportunities and threats, and will address a variety of issues facing carriers today, including:

• The new economic model of the VoIP business
• Voice over IP technology – are the barriers falling?
• VoIP from core to edge: how can VoIP benefit you?
• The operational challenges of delivering on VoIP
• Generating additional revenue – how can IP carriers deliver toll quality voice at IP prices?
• The realities, cost and complexity of deploying a voice network
• Thriving in a multi-protocol, multi-service environment: providing the scale and quality for VoIP