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CommunicAsia2008, held in the equator's cleanest island state, Singapore, from June 17 to June 20, 2008, is the Asia-Pacific region's largest international ICT and telecommunications tradeshow. Over the years, CommunicAsia has established itself as an important networking platform for business leaders and industry experts.

The four-day infocomm and broadcasting event saw more than 2,300 exhibiting companies from over 60 countries demonstrate innovative technologies and business solutions. It attracted over 66,000 professional visitors. However, these figures are somewhat lower vis-à-vis last year's over 2,400 exhibitors from 65 countries.

The Wi-Max and mobile entertainment clusters were particularly big with a large number of exhibitors presenting the latest in these technologies. Spanning a sprawling 72,000 square metres of exhibition space across Singapore Expo, the exhibition area alone was overwhelming. According to the exhibitors, 52 per cent of the visitors came from about 100 countries and regions across the Asia-Pacific, Europe, the US and West Asia.

The show had a host of informative sessions on topics like access networks and technologies, convergence and IP multimedia subsystems, and mobile and interactive services.

Leveraging on the show, mobile device manufacturers including LG and Samsung introduced a wide range of handsets, while vendors such as Ericsson, ZTE and UTStarcom demonstrated technologies like 3G, long-term evolution (LTE), WiMax, next-generation network (NGN), IP technology and IPTV. Major operators such as PCCW, SingTel, Telekom Malaysia and NTT DoCoMo also showcased varied offerings.

Both LG and Samsung occupied large pavilions to exhibit their latest handsets and communication technologies. Taking on the iPhone, Samsung launched a new touch-screen smartphone –­ the i900 Omnia, while LG launched the muchawaited all-black "Secret" in Asia. Besides the touch-screen models, these companies launched many other handsets at the event. For instance, Samsung added to its "Connected" series of phones and strengthened its "Essential" line-up. Meanwhile, with the KS360, LG launched an eye-catching QWERTY keys-enabled slider phone with a bright red keypad with a dash of black. LG also launched the world's first digital video broadcastingterrestrial mobile TV phone.

CommunicAsia also saw Garmin International Incorporated –­ a leading global positioning system (GPS) manufacturer –­ make an entry into the mobile phone market with the launch of the nüvifone. The nüvifone integrates 3.5G mobile phone capability with an internet browser, data connectivity, personal messaging and personal navigation functions.

Besides these, companies like ZTE, Huawei Technologies and NTT DoCoMo exhibited a variety of handsets. NTT DoCoMo also displayed a chip developed by the company for 4G phones.

A wide variety of mobile applications were also showcased at CommunicAsia. NTT DoCoMo presented its i-mode mobile internet service that encompasses internet access, music and video channels, GPS, TV broadcasts and electronic wallet services. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with Singapore's communications service provider StarHub to pilot a mobile wallet service in Singapore –­ NTT's first market outside Japan. The company also exhibited a terrestrial digital TV broadcasting service for mobile devices as a part of its i-mode service.

SingTel showed its location-based applications that easily transfer useful map content to mobile devices and are widely used to facilitate local searches.

Yahoo! pushed to strengthen its position in mobile advertising and searching with a series of new deals in eight Asian countries and territories. During CommunicAsia2008, Yahoo! also announced localised versions of its Go 3.0 voice search technology for India, Southeast Asia and Australia.

The NAVTEQ Global Locationbased Services Challenge was held for the first time in the Asia-Pacific. NAVTEQ gave away over $4.5 million in cash prizes and data licences. Finnish company Joikusoft was awarded a prize package worth $275,000 for its JoikuSpot solution which transforms Nokia smartphones into hotspots.

Meanwhile, Tandberg launched instant telepresence, exhibited its latest range of telepresence offerings and conducted live demonstrations to show how its video systems work.

IPTV was clearly a big success at the show with vendors including Ericsson, ZTE and UTStarcom, as well as operators like PCCW, demonstrating their IPTV solutions.

In an attempt to package its IPTV success and sell the technology that underpins its TV service, Hong Kong's PCCW launched PCCW MediaCore, an all-inclusive IPTV package for operators looking to add TV services to their existing portfolios. The package includes technologies, services, business and technical consultancy, marketing support and strategies, and experience.

With operators in Singapore gearing up to make mobile TV solutions available by end-2008, MComms TV, an Australian mobile TV company, launched MComms Ad Insert –­ a solution that enables advertisements to be incorporated into live Mobile TV streams and viewed on any handset with ease. The software-based solution enables ads to be scheduled and inserted into live TV streams when and where required.

Wi-Max was a key focus area at the show with a number of vendors including Samsung, Soma Networks and Alvarion showcasing their products. While Samsung demonstrated voice over internet protocol (VOIP) over mobile Wi-Max and displayed various mobile Wi-Max base station selections, Soma Networks exhibited its FlexMAX mobile Wi-Max system –­ a complete all-IP-based solution which enables service providers to deploy virtually any fixed or nomadic broadband service. Radio Frequency Systems unveiled radio frequency filters for Wi-Max applications. Australia-based Juni, a provider of telecommunication elements including femtocells and repeaters, demonstrated its WiMax femtocells.

ZTE's theme being "Talking to the Future", the company showcased its latest solutions on wireless technology, including the recently released software defined radio (SDR)-based LTE/universal mobile telecommunications system (LTE/UMTS) multi-mode base station, an all-IP SDrbased unified platform, as well as Wi-Max and CDMA technologies.

The SDR-based stations simultaneously support GSM and WCDMA while existing base stations available in the market need separate hardware components for GSM and CDMA. They also provide LTE readiness and a smooth evolution path, significantly lowering network infrastructure costs for operators while improving network integrity, continuity and stability.

For broadband technology, ZTE exhibited multi-play, NGN migration and virtual private LAN service. In addition to telecom infrastructure solutions, the company also displayed a wide range of terminal products, including mobile phones, data cards and 3G handsets that support different mobile technologies.

The other major Chinese vendor, Huawei, focused strongly on broadband, exhibiting wireless broadband solutions including Wi-Max. It also showcased its high speed packet access (HSPA) technology and launched the HSPA USB stick.

Given that access bottleneck is a key challenge for operators, RAD Data Communications demonstrated methods of breaking access bottlenecks in carrier Ethernet services, cellular backhaul, VOIP, and multi-service access over time division multiplexing (TDM) and DSL.

The company highlighted carrier Ethernet access technologies which provide end-to-end operations, administration and maintenance services to customer service level agreements. It also showcased backhaul of Wi-Max and IP radio access networks (RANs); voice trunking; optimisation solutions to increase bandwidth efficiency; HSPA backhaul enabling migration to all-IP RANs; and TDM and ATM pseudowire (PWE3) technology among other solutions.

While regular visitors to CommunicAsia observed that the number of visitors had reduced substantially, the organisers seemed to think otherwise. "The shows this year have met exhibitor expectations and about 78 per cent of them have already committed to participating in 2009. With their backing, we are confident that CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia will continue to be key highlights on the ICT and media industry calendars in Asia," said Stephen Tan, chief executive, Singapore Exhibition Services (organisers of the exhibition) and president, Allworld Exhibitions Alliance.

All in all, the annual CommunicAsia brings major communications and broadcasting players under one roof for trade collaborations, unveiling of new products and services, and conveying industrymoving alliances and memorandums.