SUPERCOMM Returns!

TIA, USTA Drop NXTcomm Name

SUPERCOMM is back.

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and the United States Telecom Association (USTelecom) announced today that they are dropping the NXTcomm name in favor of the show’s previous, long-time name, SUPERCOMM. So, starting with the 2009 show, planned for June 8-11 in Chicago, please refer to NXTcomm – or as many had already referred to it: “SUPERCOMM, or whatever it’s called now” – as SUPERCOMM.

TIA and USTA said the return to the old show name reflects “a new industry, a new economy and a new world of communications.” However, after the various iterations of the trade show previously known as SUPERCOMM ─ and all the confusion that resulted from TIA and what is now known as USTelecom (previously called USTA) aligning, separating and then reuniting for this show ─ a lot of people in the industry became confused about both the ownership and name of the event. So this move to rename the show SUPERCOMM may be an attempt to remedy that issue and get a little extra publicity along the way.

The two groups had teamed up for 17 years to host SUPERCOMM, one of the world’s biggest technology trade shows, but went their separate ways after their deal to jointly stage the show expired following the 2005 event. Neither TIA nor USTA elected to use the SUPERCOMM name for the events they ran individually or after they got back together.

USTA had branded some of its individually sponsored events under the TELECOM brand and others as TelecomNEXT, which it pronounced was the replacement for SUPERCOMM. Meanwhile, TIA held its own so-called SUPERCOMM replacement event, called GlobalComm.

Many exhibitors and attendees participated in both events to “test the waters,” making 2007 the deciding year for the success of the respective events. But for most, which had become much more conservative with their marketing dollars following telecom’s “nuclear winter”, the cost and time of exhibiting at two major events so close to one another was just too much to bear. So, many of these companies exhibiting at TelecomNEXT and GlobalComm pushed for TIA and USTA to realign on the trade show front.

And so in October of 2006, just months after the first GlobalComm and TelecomNEXT events, TIA and USTA/USTelecom announced they would renew their partnership for a single telecom industry event in 2007, and the trade show now previously known as NXTcomm was born.

Related Articles:

SUPERCOMM: The End of an Era

The Face of NXTcomm

Walter and Matt’s Wild Ride

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