As some of you may (or may not) know, we used to organize large trade shows several years ago...at its height, WiNOG had over 500+ attendees with 50+ exhibiting sponsors (I still have pictures of Rick Harnish and Mac Dearman @ the inaugural WISPA meeting in Chicago almost 3+ years ago =) In 2006, I decided to put an end to the large shows and change the format into a 1-day traveling road-show due to the fact for the there hasn't really been anything all that exciting out there in the market that would drive traffic to get me to put forth the effort to organize a large show...That said, I believe that with recent market developments, including the release of the 3.65 GHz band, the commercialization of WiMAX equipment in the US and the maturation of the market, I have enough stuff to work with to build an interesting content program. That said, before I go out and spend a lot of time and effort throwing something together, I'd like to get a feel for what people feel: Here are my thoughts
1. WiMAX World 2008 is scheduled for Sept 30-Oct 2, 2008 (Tuesday-Thursday) in Chicago...with 100+ exhibitors, it makes for a pretty large gathering of the wireless operator industry 2. While WiMAX World has a lot of people coming together, it's focusing more on large mobile broadband operators (ClearWire / Sprint) and the 802.16e WiMAX standard instead of small-to-medium operators who would utilize 802.16d (fixed) WiMAX 3. A three-day conference pass for WiMAX World costs almost $2,000...additionally, in looking at the programming, it seems more suited for Wall-Street / Gartner-type Analysts than for operators deploying systems in the field 4. WiMAX World (Yankee Group) is aware that they're content program doesn't really cater to the small-to-medium fixed-wireless operators, so they've come to me with a proposal to put together a more focused / targeted program on the side (that's also cheaper) Here's my idea 1. Do WiNOG as a smaller sub-get-together (100 or so people) focused on the specific issues of fixed-operators on September 29-30 (Monday-Tuesday) right before WiMAX World 2. Make WiNOG affordable to the network operators (have 2 tiers of admissions - 1 tier for service providers at say $95 to pay for food and another tier for vendors / consultants / random people at $500+) 3. Give attendees of WiNOG (through some cross-promotional agreement) the ability to go to the WiMAX World Exhibit hall for free on Oct 1-2 (Wednesday / Thursday), so they would get the focused content and operator peer-to-peer discussion along with the chance to experience a massive exhibit hall Thoughts? Comments? -Charles ------------------------------------------- WiNOG Wireless Roadshows Coming to a City Near You http://www.winog.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
