Three months before doors open, already 400 exhibitors from 30 countries have registered for ANGA COM – Exhibition and Congress for Broadband, Cable & Satellite, to be held June 9 – 11 in Cologne, Germany.
The congress will start with an opening speech by Hannelore Kraft, Prime Minister of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia. The opening discussion for the first time will be split into two parts. Participating in the panel discussion on behalf of the network operators will be Michael T. Fries (President & CEO, Liberty Global), Dr. Manuel Cubero (CEO, Kabel Deutschland and Managing Director Consumer Fixed and Cable, Vodafone Germany), Wolfgang Elsäßer (Managing Director, Astra Deutschland), and Lutz Schüler (CEO, Unitymedia KabelBW). The media sector will be represented by Conrad Albert (Member of the Executive Board, ProSiebenSat.1), Kasia Kieli (President & Managing Director, Discovery Networks CEEMEA), and Marc Schröder (Member of the Management, RTL Germany).
The International Broadband Summit is the highlight of the international congress track which is made up of ten panels in English altogether. This summit will feature Michel Azibert (CCO & Deputy CEO, Eutelsat), Colin Buechner (Chief Network Officer, Liberty Global), Wilhelm Dresselhaus (CEO, Alcatel-Lucent Deutschland), Bruce McClelland (President, Network & Cloud and Global Services, ARRIS Group), Yves Padrines (VP & General Manager Cable, Media and Video EMEAR, Cisco) and Dr. Dirk Woessner (President Consumer Business, Rogers Communications, Canada).
Highlights of the strategy programme include a panel on the competition between Video on Demand and Pay TV with Amazon Instant Video, M7, ProSiebenSat.1, Sky, and Tele Columbus.
A panel held in cooperation with the BREKO Broadband Association will deal with financing and public funding of the broadband expansion in Germany.
Two strategy panels will deal with the controversial regulatory discussion about network neutrality: One panel is organized in cooperation with the VATM Association of Telecommunications and will focus on operational issues. The second panel, titled “Media Law and Network Neutrality in Germany and the USA” is held in cooperation with the Cologne Media Law Research Department and will also take a closer look at the international legal developments. Broadband topics in the congress programme are rounded off with a panel on the potential of Public Wi-Fi for network operators. This panel is held in cooperation with the BUGLAS Association of Fibre Network Operators.
A high-profile panel with the German TV Association Deutsche TV-Plattform will focus on terrestrial television switching over to DVB-T2. TV Everywhere and Cloud TV will be discussed in a strategy panel with Deutsche Telekom, RTL, Sky, Unitymedia KabelBW, and Zattoo. A panel in cooperation with the trade association telecoms/broadcast in the Austrian Chamber of Commerce will deal with best practice examples in IPTV and network-based Personal Video Recorders.
A panel on market structures and anti-trust law in digital markets is organized together with the VPRT (Association of Private Broadcasting and Telemedia) featuring the President of the German Federal Cartel Office. On the first day of the congress, the cooperation partner Medienforum NRW will also organize a high-level panel on media regulation.
Topics of the technology panels, held entirely in English, include DOCSIS 3.1, Multiscreen (in cooperation with the SCTE – The Society for Broadband Professionals), DVB-T2 (in cooperation with DVB), Fibre Networks (in cooperation with the FTTH Council Europe), RDK (in cooperation with the ISBE – International Society of Broadband Experts), UHDTV, TV Cloud Services, Wi-Fi, and CCAP.
Congress panels on the third day include a Connected Home Special, organized in collaboration with BITKOM, the Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media. Topics are networked device control, energy management and other value added services over broadband networks.
In addition to the regular congress panels – as last year – there will be a practical forum called Speakers‘ Corner, providing a hands-on approach and open to all visitors: 23 companies will present new products, projects and solutions; altogether there will be 36 presentations. The Speakers’ Corner will be located directly in the exhibition hall and can be attended by all exhibition visitors and congress attendees, no additional registration is required. The agenda is also available online.
Dr. Peter Charissé, Managing Director of ANGA COM: “The DNA of ANGA COM is and will remain the close combination of broadband and audiovisual media – practical, international and strictly dedicated to business. This year, we especially like to thank our diverse cooperation partners bringing together all relevant market participants of both industry sectors.”