Press releases

At the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference, Opportunity Doesn't Always Knock--Sometimes It Calls

Press release: November 22, 2006

Sebastopol, CA--Registration has just opened for ETel, the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference. The second edition of ETel will once again bring together the CxOs, telco managers, entrepreneurs, developers, project leaders, researchers, and hackers injecting inspiration into the telephony industry. The conference program will compare and contrast web telephony technology, business, and culture in a collaborative, spirited environment. ETel happens February 27 through March 1, 2007 in Burlingame, California; early registration pricing is in effect until January 8, 2007.

"Open source, open standards, and commodity bandwidth has released 130 years of pent up telephone innovation," notes conference co-chair Surj Patel. "This year at the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference, we again bring you the precursors for 'thinking different' and laying bare the opportunities for both established telecom players and for entrepreneurs in this space. Remember there are roughly 250 million PC's in the world and 2.2 billion handsets. Which one do you think represents the greater opportunity?"

Like other O'Reilly conferences, ETel is a mix of the inspired and the practical, providing one of the only opportunities for the established telco/telecom community to come together with the new generation of developers and alpha geeks who are creating the next wave of IP telephony applications and tools. Patel and co-chair Brady Forrest are still shaping the program; confirmed speakers so far include:

  • Om Malik, GigaOmniMedia, "Business of VOIP"
  • Tero Ojanpera, Nokia
  • Jeff Bonforte, Yahoo! Inc., "Where Will Voice 3.0 Take Us?"
  • Benoit Schillings, Trolltech
  • Martin Geddes, STL and Telepocalypse
  • Charles Moldow, @home networks and Tellme
  • Kaliya Hamlin, Identity Woman, "Empowering People and the Coming Identity Layer of Everything"
  • Jyri Engestrom, Jaiku, "Telepresence"
  • Brian Aker, MySQL AB, "VoIP Hacking at Home"
  • Aaron Rosenburg, SiteSpeed
  • Stuart Henshall, Amsoft and Skype Journal
  • Colin Cross, opencellphone.org and Open Source Linux Cellphone
  • Dan York, Office Mitel and VoIP Security Blog
  • Matthew Hamrick, Homebrew Mobile Phone Club
  • Quentin Stafford-Fraser, Ndiyo, "Nydio: an NGO and Mobile"
  • Mike Liebhold, Institute for the Future
  • Rob Frederick, Snapvine Inc.

ETel brings to light the cutting edge projects that are changing the playing field, examining the grassroots tools that will carry us into that future and the effect emerging telephony will have on business opportunity. Topics to be explored at ETel 2007 include:

  • Open Source Software and Hardware
  • Wireless Mobility and Mobile Telephony
  • Wifi Telephony, the Telephone Network as a Platform
  • Intersection of VoIP telephony and Web Services Infrastructure
  • Infrastructure: GSM, CDMA, POTS, Wi-fi, Wi-max, Mesh, PicoCells, and more
  • Voice as Data
  • Ethnography, Culture, and People
  • Usability and Experience
  • Business Models

ETel 2007 will feature an Exhibitor Gallery, showcasing the projects and products shaping the future of telephony. The conference will again host an ETel Fair, a place to see first-hand the creations of under-the-radar inventors in an interactive, science fair-style event.

The web and telephony are converging to offer a network with unprecedented potential. ETel captures and telegraphs the excitement around ahead-of-the-curve telephony technologies, bringing together all layers of the telephony community to discuss and debate the future of communication. ETel gets rid of the hype and "conventional wisdom" of the past, presenting a whole new way of taming disruption, exploiting opportunities, and looking at the industry for newcomers and established players alike. Discover what's possible with IP telephony at ETel 2007.

Additional Resources:

  • For complete conference details, visit:
    http://conferences.oreilly.com/etel
  • O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference
  • Read the ETel conference blog for the latest event announcements and news.
  • Visit the O'Reilly Network Emerging Telephony site for industry news and information
  • For information on exhibition and sponsorship opportunities at O'Reilly conferences, contact sponsorships@oreilly.com
  • To become a media partner, email mediapartners@oreilly.com
  • Upcoming O'Reilly conferences:
    • O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, March 26-29, 2007 in San Diego, California
    • Web 2.0 Expo, co-produced by O'Reilly Media and CMP Technology, April 15-18, 2007 in San Francisco, CA
    • MySQL Conference & Expo, April 23-26, 2007 in Santa Clara, California
    • RailsConf, May 17-20, 2007 in Portland, Oregon
    • Where 2.0 Conference, May/June 2007 in the San Francisco Bay Area
    • O'Reilly Open Source Convention, July 23-27, 2007 in Portland, OR
    • RailsConf Europe, co-presented by O'Reilly Media and Ruby Central, September 17-19, 2007 in Berlin, Germany

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