Editor's Corner

The telecom industry has closed the summer house, stowed the beach umbrellas and cleaned the grills. Time to go back to work and hit the road with a vengeance.

There are two big trade shows next week 2500 miles apart in geography and maybe even further apart in attitude: CTIA IT and Fall VON. CTIA, in Los Angeles, is all about wireless content and enterprise wireless. VON, in Boston, is about VoIP. In LA, expect a lot of talk about entertainment and manageability. In Boston, expect a lot of talk about how wireless VoIP is going to chop at the roots of CTIA members' revenue streams--a subject that the cellular crew appears to be largely silent about this time out. That's OK; the VON folks will be talking about it enough for both camps.

The pre-show buzz at VON is pretty much across the board. We've been hearing lots of advance word about disaggregated session border controllers, peering agreements (and sales), and tons about the consumer market. There'll be lots of Skype and Vonage phones and some interesting announcements about voice-over-IM. As is the general practice, several companies have clued us in about stuff they'll announce officially next week, which is when we'll pass it along to you.

And while we're talking about wireless and VoIP, I'd be completely remiss (and wow, would I get spanked by the editors) if I didn't remind you about FierceMarkets' upcominging wVoIP 2006 Executive Summit, November 7 and 8 in San Francisco. Learn more about it here. I'll be there; I hope you will be, too.

In the meantime, look for live exclusive coverage from CTIA IT from FierceMarketsupcoming, and count on getting tons of stuff from Fall VON next week right here at this same bat-station. If you see me at the show, be sure to say "Hi!" - Dan