Comms Connect Melbourne: 20–22 November

Local and international experts are gathering in Melbourne for Australia’s biggest-ever Comms Connect conference.

This year’s Comms Connect Melbourne conference promises to be the biggest and best ever, with a huge range of speakers, panel sessions, cases studies and preconference workshops presented by experts from Australia and overseas. The wide-ranging program will see a large variety of topics covered, from LMR to 5G, IoT to mobile broadband, public safety to spectrum management, LTE to smart cities, SCADA to Li-Fi, connected workers to control rooms, and much more.

There will be two keynote addresses on the morning of the first conference day:

• Critical public safety communication standards and technologies — presented by Dereck Orr, Division Chief of the Public Safety Communications Division at NIST’s Communications Technology Laboratory
• Innovation and partnerships in technology: how the LAPD is staying ahead of the curve — presented by Lt. Dan Gomez, Innovation & Strategic Planning Division, Los Angeles Police Department
   

The second conference day will kick off with three major plenary addresses:

• An update on the status of Australia’s public safety mobile broadband — presented by Luke Brown, Assistant Secretary, Emergency Management Australia, Department of Home Affairs
• Empowering public safety with lifesaving technologies — presented by TJ Kennedy, Co-founder, Public Safety Network
• Mission-critical communication of the 21st century — presented by Karim Nejaim, Executive, Product Engineering, Telstra
   

The conference sessions will be split into three themes that will run across the two days: public safety and emergency management, technology and industry. On the second day, there will be a special fourth theme on critical communications in Finland (see below for information on the Finnish pavilion in the exhibition).

There are too many individual presentations scheduled for us to list them all here, but these are some highlights:

• Surviving Hurricane Maria: Lessons for P25 interoperable systems — Rudy Torres, Director, EF Johnson
• BroadWay: Procuring innovation to enable pan-European mobile broadband for public safety — David Lund, Vice President, PSCE and Coordinator for BroadMap
• Critical Communications roadmap for NSW — James Corkill, Director Engineering and Spectrum, NSW Telco Authority
• Getting to 5G using innovative fixed wireless technology — Eddie Stephanou, Regional Technical Manager, Cambium Networks
• Radio management systems and data analytics — Paul Whitfield, R&D Manager, Omnitronics
• In the digital economy, data is the new oil — Geof Heydon, Creator Tech Smart City Consultancy and the IoT Alliance
• DMR Tier 3 voice radio coverage testing — Nick Wigley, Powerco
• PTT over LTE for mining operations — Wireless Systems Specialist, Link Information Technologies
• Rethinking two-way radio intrinsic safety — Paul Barnes, Director IT Operations & Communications, NSW Fire & Rescue
   

The Finnish sessions will feature several presentations and a panel session, including:

• Success in cooperation on the road to broadband — Tero Pesonen, TCCA
• Operative field communication and training — Elina Avela, CEO, Beaconism
• Deep dive into key solutions to enable successful field operation — group presentation by Teemu Ekola (Insta DefSec Oy), Timi Harkonen (Codea Oy), Sami Honkaniemu (Mentura Group) and Simo Ruoko (ROGER-GPS)
• Requirements for broadband to meet the critical communications sector’s demand — panel session with Markku Korkiakoski (Bittium), Mika Skarp (Cloudstreet), Barbara Noonan (Nokia) and Pete Peltola (Bandercom)
   

There are plenty more sessions and panels to choose from — see the full program on the Comms Connect website.

Industry workshops

The conference workshops are always very popular, and this year will include not only discussion, but also hands-on training in some cases. And the topics to be covered are both varied and vital:

• Critical messaging in the modern world
• Radio spectrum management — what’s trending
• Community safety information management — an international perspective
• ARCIA professional development training workshop — multicoupling
• Digital LMR and the mobile broadband landscape — key information for evolving critical wireless communications
• Critical control rooms for the next generation of operations
   

The moderators and participants will be drawn from a wide range of local and international businesses, and industry and intergovernmental groups, the latter categories including ARCIA, TCCA, ATCCF and BroadMap.

See the Comms Connect website for full details of the workshop program and registration details (which are separate to Comms Connect itself). Places fill quickly, so don’t delay.

Exhibitors

Comms Connect Melbourne is your one-stop shop at which to meet and greet face to face with local and international vendors. In particular, it’s a great chance to compare notes, give feedback, get up-to-date information on the latest technologies (including, often, pre-release or developmental details) and generally build connections within the industry.

For the first time at Comms Connect, there will be a special pavilion for companies from a particular region of the world. For 2018 this will be Finland, and there will be a host of enterprises represented: Bandercom, Beaconsim, Bittium, Business Finland, Cloudstreet, Codea Oy, Critical Communications Finland, Dedicated Network Partners, Insta DefSec Oy, Mentura Group, Nokia, ROGER-GPS, Savox Communications and Wirepas Mesh. This will be a great opportunity for local communications operators and vendors to meet with these Finnish firms, see solutions demonstrated and exchange ideas. Head to stand 157 on the exhibition floor.

You can see a full list of local and international exhibitors at melbourne.comms-connect.com.au/whos-exhibiting.

And don’t forget that even if you’re not taking part in the conference, you can still get a FREE expo pass to visit the exhibition — see melbourne.comms-connect.com.au/pricing-and-registration for more details.

ARCIA dinner and awards

The annual ARCIA Gala Industry Dinner will be held on the evening of Wednesday, 21 November, at the Convention Centre. Each year the dinner gets bigger and better, with more than 500 industry professionals participating in 2017. This year promises to be even bigger.

Held at the same venue (the MCEC) as Comms Connect, the evening will include: networking over pre-dinner drinks and canapes; live entertainment; a three-course dining and drinks package; and, most importantly, the presentation ceremony for the Industry Excellence Awards, which celebrate and recognise the achievement of outstanding individuals in our industry.

So as you can see, this year’s Comms Connect is packed full of essential speaker sessions, panels and workshops. Make sure you register as soon as possible, to ensure you stay up to date with all of the latest solutions, technical advances and developments in the field of critical communications.

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Comms Connect Melbourne 2018

Workshops: Tuesday, 20 November (9.30 am–5.00 pm)

Conference: Wednesday, 21 November (9.00 am–5.00 pm) and Thursday, 22 November (9.00 am–4.30 pm)

Exhibition: Wednesday, 21 November (9.00 am–5.30 pm) and Thursday, 22 November (9.00 am–3.30 pm)

Who: 1500+ attendees, 80+ speakers and 90+ exhibitors

Where: Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre

Web: melbourne.comms-connect.com.au

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