Lucent Technologies Inc. will be noticeably absent when the Personal Communications Industry Association kicks off its 2000 showcase next September in Chicago.
The infrastructure vendor has told PCIA it plans to stop exhibiting at its future shows in North America, opting instead to invest its marketing dollars into international shows and in the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association trade show held every spring.
“I think the issue has to do with the overall changes of the industry, and our need to focus our resources,” said Sam Gronner, Lucent’s public relations manager. “We’re going to concentrate most U.S. resources on CTIA, and that will free up resources we need to spend on other parts of the world.”
Show traffic was another of Lucent’s concerns. The vendor, in a letter to top carrier executives and CTIA President Tom Wheeler, characterized floor traffic as sparse over the last three PCS trade shows.
“The quality of that traffic, i.e. `customers or qualified prospects’ is even more sparse,” wrote Lucent.
Lucent’s public concerns about show traffic are ones many infrastructure vendors have quietly grumbled about. Last year’s PCS showcase attendance in Orlando, Fla., disappointed many vendors, though they concede that the threat of Hurricane Georges sent many conference attendees home early. Lucent believes the line between cellular and PCS carriers is blurring because of mergers and acquisitions, and wireless carriers say they are beginning to focus the majority of their resources on just CTIA’s show.
PCIA said it received positive feedback from its exhibitors and has assigned 60 percent of show floor space for next year with 230 companies.
“We had very good comments from our exhibitors, and we did several on-site surveys,” said Dennis Corcoran, PCIA’s vice president of meetings and conventions. “Those results are coming back very strong. Each company looks for different types of people … We’ve had a number of companies that increased the size of their space for next year’s show.”
The majority of large vendors RCR polled said they haven’t decided whether they will return to the show in 2000. Though most manufacturers are determining budgets for next year, they also are studying what type of conference attendees visited their booths.
“We haven’t re-signed the contract for next year,” said Kathy Egan, vice president of communications with Ericsson. “We do this after shows as a regular practice … We’re looking closely at the demographics and trying to decide if it meets our future needs. It’s a question of financial resources.”
As the number of conferences continually increases around the world, vendors are finding they must be prudent with their marketing dollars. Lucent said in 2000 it is participating in almost four times as many trade shows in the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia-Pacific regions than in the United States.
Telecom 99, the International Telecommunication Union trade show held every four years, will kick off this month. Vendors are spending millions there.
“This year is particularly difficult because of Telecom 99,” said Egan. “It’s a big strain on corporations.”
Infrastructure vendors Nortel Networks and Siemens Stromberg-Carlson said they are evaluating their plans and have not signed contracts with PCIA for booth space next year, though both said they had a steady flow of traffic at their booths.
“Obviously we’re looking to hear from PCIA about the quality of attendees before we make a decision,” said Nortel spokesman Paul Rubin. “We continually evaluate all opportunities within the trade show realm. We’re looking for things that provide us with the most value.”
Mass introductions of new data-enabled handsets were the buzz of this year’s show. As such, the world’s largest handset manufacturer, Nokia Mobile Phones, said it was pleased with the people it met and will return to next year’s show.
“All in all, we were very busy,” said Nokia spokeswoman Megan Matthews. “Our sales groups had 30 to 40 meetings.”
And Motorola Inc., the world’s largest pager manufacturer, has signed a contract to exhibit at PCS 2000.
“We had a very busy booth throughout the entire show,” said Allan Spiro, marketing manager for Motorola’s North American paging operations. “It’s important for Motorola to be there. Paging is a major force for Motorola.”
Because it believes the U.S. wireless marketing is maturing, Lucent is advocating one major trade show in the United States every year. It has asked PCIA officials to consider merging their show with CTIA’s show and is urging its service-provider customers to do the same. PCIA disagrees. CTIA declined to comment.
“In the telecom industry, technology is moving faster than once a year,” said PCIA’s Corcoran. “Six months is a lifetime.”
Merging trade shows and associations is not a new issue. Industry has debated this for years. PCIA caters to PCS, paging and broadband wireless operators, while CTIA’s membership consists of cellular and PCS operators. When PCS operators entered the wireless industry, PCIA welcomed them in, while CTIA saw these operators as a threat to its cellular operator members. It eventually wooed them in.
The question remains: Is the industry mature enough where the market distinctions and regulatory issues that affect both PCS and cellular operators now are closely aligned? Clearly pure-play PCS and cellular carriers remain on opposite sides on some regulatory issues, such as the spectrum cap, but some operators are finding the need to focus their attention on one association.
This year, PrimeCo Personal Communications L.P. and BellSouth Mobility DCS opted not to renew their membership with PCIA. AT&T Wireless Services Inc. did the same about two years ago, said Ken Woo, AT&T Wireless spokesman.
“Our position is that it was better for us to focus our resources and voice through a single association,” said Shawn Steward, BellSouth Cellular Corp. spokesman. “CTIA’s focus aligned with our business interests.”
AT&T Wireless declined to comment on why it ended its membership with PCIA, but sources close to the company said it too wanted to focus its money and resources on just one association, CTIA. It also reportedly was unhappy with some positions PCIA had taken on Capitol Hill.
Industry insiders wonder how the $1.7 billion proposed merger between pure-play PCS operators VoiceStream Wireless Corp. and Omnipoint Corp. will affect PCIA. CTIA today enjoys backing from VoiceStream chief executive John Stanton, who served as CTIA chairman last year. VoiceStream has proven to be the consolidator of U.S. GSM operators, recently announcing merger plans with struggling Aerial Communications Inc.
