Congress of Communications appeals to sector ‘Restart’
Friday, November 19, 2010
The 20th Congress of Communications, held last 17 and 18 November, debated opportunities and challenges of the sector, at a time marked by strong economic conditions.
‘Restart’ was the theme of the 20th Congress of Communications, held on 17 and 18 November, at the Lisbon Congress Centre. A few managers from Portugal Telecom attended this APDC-promoted initiative.
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| Zeinal Bava was present at the 'Status of the Nation' debate of communications | The 20th Congress of Communications gathered many national and foreign specialists to share different viewpoints, make an assessment of the situation and devise paths and perspectives for the future. ‘The Status of the Nation’ was once again one of the main debates of the communications agenda in Portugal, putting together, at the same panel, representatives from several organisations: Portugal Telecom, CTT, Optimus, Vodafone, Zon, Oni Communications and Cabovisão. This panel, moderated by Nicolau dos Santos, deputy director of Expresso, a reference weekly newspaper, focused its debate on what it is expected to happen in telecommunications in 2011, a year of economic recession.
Zeinal Bava, chief executive of PT, stressed that in spite of a year that is expected to be difficult, the analysis should be done by segment of activity and not by sector. In the Corporate segment, “PT’s Cloud computing offer may provide opportunities for the company to grow”; in the SME and Self Employed Worker segments, “2011 will be difficult, but 2010 has been difficult too. We believe that the scale of PT enables it to face any challenge; in the Personal segment, “mobile has decreased its revenues by 5 to 10%. The mobile industry had been able to maintain a sustainable business model. This year, with an irrational competition level and meaningless tariffs, consumption minutes increased by 40% and revenues per user fell abruptly”; in the Residential segment, where the market is more resilient, Zeinal Bava thinks that competition increase “has been very positive to increase pay-tv penetration. If there is going to be cost contention in 2011, we believe that this is the market segment that leaves us most confident.”
Together with the analysis of the sector, economic previsions and challenges and opportunities for 2011, issues such as contents, regulation and internationalisation were also debated. As to contents, the CEO highlights PT’s bet mostly on
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| Pedro Leitão, Board Member, PT | quality, multi-platforms and interactivity. “It is not about offering a lot of channels, but channels of quality that people enjoy.” Interactivity has been a success such as for example the case of the first experiences: the World Football Championship on RTP, Idols on SIC and The House of Secrets on TVI. “It is not about the price paid for contents, but the capacity over such contents”, stresses Zeinal Bava.
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| Miguel Moreira, chief executive, PT SI | As far as regulation is concerned, the chief executive of PT made an appeal to good sense, praised the ‘extraordinary’ Anacom report and explained that if conditions concerning LTE, the 4th mobile generation are not convenient, I doubt that we consider such investments very early.” Technology should be seen as a means and not as a goal. Conditions should be created for Portugal to adopt LTE as early as possible. As to optical fibre, Zeinal Bava said that the network is not available for acquisition or sharing with anyone else, but ducts “are open and may be used”.
Highlight should also go to internationalisation, having Mr Zeinal Zaval mentioned PT’s presence in Brazil. “PT’s presence in Brazil continues to be strategic. After the deal with Oi is concluded, we shall have circa 60% of our business outside Portugal.”
PT’s presence at the Congress of Communications
At the "Media: The Battle for the Digital Home” panel that gathered operators and content producers around new trend analysis in the offer of contents and the need to leave the comfort zone and seek new paradigms, the focus was the change in the sector carried out by users who spend more and more online. This change makes mobile operators bet on wireline, and wireline operators bet on mobile.
“What is starting to happen is that internet contents are starting to invade TV and this will cause an explosion of contents that will become available on different displays, such as the case of Meo VideoClub. Meo is ready to take advantage of market opportunities as it acts on three different frontlines: contents, functionalities ad multi-platforms”, says Pedro Leitão, Board Member, PT.
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| Luís Avelar, Board Member, PT | Cloud computing was the central issue of the panel, which counted on the presence of Miguel Moreira, chief executive officer of PT SI. Operators and users got together to discuss the importance of Cloud computing and the opportunities that may arise from this service. “We believe that the differentiating element is high-capacity connectivity, therefore we bet on Cloud Computing.”
According to the PT’s CEO, there are five factors that lead a operator to bet on cloud computing: the investment made and keeps making in networks, its own infrastructures (PT has 6 Data Centres in Portugal), to have an extensive
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| Marta Neves, Director of Regulation, PT | sales network with a business model based on close customer proximity, know-how as the result of strong and continuous investment in strategic technologies and partnerships enabling PT to lead in terms of innovation and market response. “Our ambition is to become the ideal provider of cloud computing services. We have infrastructures, quality of service and know-how, allowing us a more end-to-end offering”, confirms Miguel Moreira.
Luís Avelar, Board Member, PT, was present at the “Value Chain: New Balances?” panel; Celso Martinho, technological director of Sapo, at the “Web: The new Internet experience” panel; and Marta Neves, director of regulation, PT, at the “Regulation: New networks and new challenges” panel.
PT sponsors APDC and was a supporter of the Congress as well. It was present at the event with a booth where a 3D surfing experience was offered to congress people.
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