Broadband World Forum EclipsedBroadband World Forum Eclipsed

MADRID, Spain – Up to 3000 delegates who managed to register in time for the opening of the Broadband World Forum here Monday (Oct. 3) had to interrupt their deliberations and conference sessions for an unlikely, celestial reason --- an almost total eclipse of the sun.

At about 10.40 am local time, the sessions were interrupted for delegates to experience the eclipse, and thanks to some quick thinking and excellent PR from Siemens, could do so safely. The German communications equipment giant took the opportunity to hand out safety glasses.

According to the IEC, which organizes the Broadband World Forum series, almost 4000 delegates pre-registered for the event, but had a very frustrating and long wait in queues to be allowed into the venue as a result of both security and poor administration reasons.

Neither did it help that the whole Conference complex lacked a broadband connection for the fist morning of the event.

At the event, Texas Instruments is expected to reveal details of a novel VoIP gateways platform targeted at T1/E1 enterprise applications. The platform is based on TIs DSPs and the Teology software for VoIP that the chip group acquired last year.

Alcatel is also expected to lift the lid on its latest optical transport switch as well as enhancements to its DSLAM line up.

One of the main themes of the Forum is expected to be some of latest improvements in delivering and accessing IPTV.