Latin America 2006 (18)

Theme: Everything over IP

The theme of this issue of Connect-World Latin America is EoIP – Everything over IP. The shift to IP for everything will be dramatic, it will change the telecommunications and broadcasting industry, certainly, but it will change the lives of the people and businesses that will come to depend upon a wide range of IP delivered services even more. This issue will take a deep look at just what these changes will be, what to expect and how to prepare.

The Internet is growing far beyond anything its inventors imagined. What started as a military research project to link various kinds of packet networks now links the world. The Internet protocol, IP, the common language developed by this project, has become one of the most powerful communications tools ever devised. It started with text, but it now works with images, with voice and, as well, with anything else transmitted digitally. IP, voice over IP – VoIP, is inexorably taking over from traditional switched telephone systems. IPTV will almost certainly change the face of traditional TV broadcasting and of broadcasting business models. Education, healthcare, social services, and businesses of every imaginable type will all see much of their content, many of their services and internal applications carried and executed via the Internet. EoIP is coming to the world and to Latin America. It is only a question of time – probably less time than most imagine.

The issue reviews what changes this technology will bring to the region and how it will affect its people, businesses and institutions, and what it means to the people, the businesses, and the ICT sector in the region, how it will lead to the growth of the economy, the availability of education, jobs and social services.

Connect-World Latin America is an official media sponsor of Futurecom, 2-5 October 2006, Florianopolis, Brazil. In addition to our usual mailings, copies of Connect-World will be distributed at this show.

In each of Connect-World’s editions - Global, Africa and the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, and EMEA - global and regional leaders look at the issues that drive the development of their home regions or countries. Current discussions centre upon the changes wrought in industry and society by the latest generation of information and communications technology, especially Internet protocol digital communications, broadband and personalised services - and how both business and society are changing, need to change, as a result.