SUPERCOMM® owners, the United States Telecom Association (USTelecom) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), announce the 2009 keynote schedule to include Ivan Seidenberg, Chairman and CEO, Verizon and John Stankey, President & CEO, AT&T Operations. Seidenberg will present the opening keynote on Wed. morning Oct. 21 and Stankey will present on Thurs. Oct. 22 in the morning.

And, to coincide with the fall US stimulus package spending awards in the third and fourth quarters, USTelecom and TIA, along with new management company, EXPOCOMM Events LLC, have moved the dates of SUPERCOMM from June to Oct. 21-23, 2009. 

The attention Amazon.com’s second generation Kindle is getting is pretty extraordinary, Almost reaching Apple like proportions; the Kindle 2 has replaced the iPhone as a media darling. And the addition of an iPhone application that lets Apple users access Kindle content from their phones or iTouches will only speed adoption.

Amazon sold approximately a half million Kindle’s, not too shabby for a first generation technology that went largely to early adopters. That was before the 2G release, the Oprah mention and 1,003 news stories (according to Google). Now, 2009 is being heralded as “The Year of the E-Reader.” Jeff Bezos is back in the news, being called a visionary and spoken of in such glowing terms that it’s possible to believe we’re all back in 1999, if only for a moment.

The Kindle has clearly captured our imaginations, and highlights one of the few areas of growth in a dismal economy. E-readers including Sony’s less publicized model, use E Ink technology and that company reports sales growth of up to 800 percent over last year. The operation is adding jobs and looking forward to continued growth. Good news for broadband.

Kindle ships with the data plan included, and uses Sprint’s EVDO network. The ever increasing popularity of these portable devices and demand for data rich transmissions will continue to drive growth of 3G and 4G networks.

Contributed by Jeff Kagan, Wireless and telecom industry analyst and consultant 

In the middle of this deep and dark economic black hole that is sucking the life out of many companies, AT&T is hiring. Today AT&T talked about hiring 3,000 workers for its wireless business. This story shows the ups and downs of this economic mess. In this case, the ups and downs in one company.

Some companies are still strong and growing and hiring. While at the same time other companies are struggling with these issues of cutting. Then there are a special group who are in both the new and old businesses. Like phones companies offering traditional phone lines and all the new services like cellular, broadband and television.

Parts of the business are shrinking and parts are growing. In AT&T’s case they cut around 12 thousand jobs months ago and now they just announce adding 3 thousand.

I think much of this would have happened with or without the economy. The economy may just be speeding things up a bit. During the last several years, while the economy was still strong, these changes were already occurring. Perhaps these changes may have less to do with the economy, and more to do with the changing industry.

Wireless, broadband and television  is growing and wireline is not according to the baby bells. So perhaps companies like AT&T are just restructuring the business. Something they would have to do anyway. It just gets a lot more attention in this environment.

When the DTV transition got delayed, so did the sale of the old analog spectrum. What does this mean for broadband?

For the most part spectrum won’t be released until after the new transition deadline of June 12, nearly four months after the original analog cut off. Buyers can theoretically get early access to some cleared spectrum, but it’s a reportedly complicated process. For practical purposes, you’ll have to wait until June.

According to the Yankee Group, the delay could be costing some carriers looking to build out 4G networks some serious money. In a reported back in January, the consulting group issued plea to Congress and the incoming administration:

Carriers that want to build 4G networks have already paid more than $20 billion for the spectrum being used for analog TV today, and the FCC has already granted those licenses. Delaying the next generation of wireless networks to ensure that the public can still watch “Lost” on aging TVs is a false economy that looks backward rather than forward to our digital future.

How is this affecting the broadband industry? Are network buildouts for things like WiMAX being delayed or is it a welcome respite from having to make an investment in a down economy?

Seems there is no oasis in this storm. Even previously strong mobile device sales are feeling the pain.

New reports show a market being affected by decreased consumer spending. Until now, mobile handsets have been a bright spot but as the worldwide recession deepens, everyone shares the pain. According to the Gartner Group, worldwide cell phone sales fell 5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, and Juniper Research says revenue might only grow 7 percent if the economy doesn’t turn around soon. Best-case scenario, according to Juniper is for the market to grow 19 percent. But the words “best case scenario” aren’t exactly rolling easily off tongues today.

But smart phones are driving the business and broadband demand continues to be THE topic in this industry. Sure, the numbers might be a tad disappointing, sure. But that 7 percent is still in the positive territory. Not something a lot of product categories can boast about.