The DIGITAL CITY 2005
Carrier's strategy and roadmaps

In today's fast evolution of networking technologies, carriers are
facing a day-to-day dilemma trying to adopt and deploy a sustainable
and easily upgradeable solution for the next decades. With the
convergence of data, video and telephony services as well as the
emergence of more and more sophisticated wireless and wired network
systems, carriers need to quickly find an answer to remain
competitive and profitable. In this panel, professionals from the
industry will try to help us understand the challenges and bring us
their view on carrier's strategies and equipment vendor's product
roadmaps.


Panelists include:

Ursula Oester, Swisscom
Ursula Oesterle has a Masters degree in physics from the ETH in
Switzerland and a PhD in photonics. After her PhD she perused her
research at EPFL in Switzerland and joined a spin-off in 1996. After
a business course at IMD, she joined Swisscom Innovations in Bern in
2001 working for the CTO. Beginning of 2003 she moved to the USA to
run the Swisscom Office in Silicon Valley.

Claas Heise, Deutsche Telekom & T-Venture Representative
Claas Heise joined T-Venture in 2001 as an investment professional. T-
Venture is the corporate venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom
group, which also includes T-Mobile. Since 2002, Claas is based at T-
Venture's U.S. subsidiary. As the Managing Director of T-Venture of
America, he is responsible for U.S. portfolio companies, new deal
flow and projects, the relationships with U.S. venture capital
companies, and for managing T-Venture's partnership with TeleSoft
Partners. Claas has been involved with investments in The Fantastic
Corporation (IPO), Trivnet, Eyematic, NetByTel, eMotion and BelAir
Networks. Before joining T-Venture, Claas was Director of Product and
OEM Partnerships for TRAIAN Internet Products, and Product /
Marketing / Business Unit Manager for Business Television and
Internet - TV convergence, Deutsche Telekom. Claas received a Ph.D.
in Plasma Physics from the University of Hanover. He received an
Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung Fellowship and worked with a NASA
grant at Harvard University Center for Astrophysics, and is a former
Harvard faculty member and Harvard Fellow. Claas is a member of the
VC-Angel Roundtable, Chairperson for the German-American Business
Association of California, a member of the Steering Committee of the
Service Provider Investment Forum, an Advisory board member for Cal-
IT (The State of California-sponsored conference that each year
presents the most promising California High-Tech companies to
Europe), and an Advisory Board member for the Golden Capital Network.

The Digital City Forum is a Silicon Valley initiative that will
organize a series of 8 events to review the position of the different
parties involved in the United States as well as one special event on
what is happening abroad. The first event gave us an insightful
perspective of several connected cities, Milpitas, Lompoc, San Carlos
and Palo Alto in regards to their deployment of wireless access
(WIFI) and other form of broadband access. The second event provided
us with a better understanding of Fiber To The Home (FTTH)
infrastructure in the context of a "TRIPLE PLAY" from the point of
view of equipment manufacturer, broadband service provider and a real
case deployment.
The third session was focused on deployment of broadband technologies
in connected cities and metropolis outside United States. We have
looked at the drivers behind new communication infrastructure,
economics and lessons learned across the world. The fourth event
discussed on different architecture options in Mesh networks and how
they satisfy different demands to cover Cities.

As a reminder, this fifth event is part of a larger program that will
help us understand the different aspects of the `4 WAYS PLAY` (Video,
Telephony, Mobile and Internet access) that is going to hit us in the
future coming from the next generation service providers being
telecom service providers, cable companies, cities or new entrants.

We hope you will enjoy this program and let us know if you want to
participate in its organization. You may also forward this invitation
to people you know who could be interested.

Special Thanks:
Thanks to Socket Communication for their wireless products and for
sponsoring this meeting event!

Prizes:
Our lottery prize will be a Socket USB Bluetooth Adapter Card from
Socket Communications.

When:
Tuesday November 29th, 6:30PM to 9PM

Program:
6:30PM registration and networking
7PM: Panel and speakers presentation
8:30: Q&A

Where:
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
2475 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304

Map and Direction:
http://www.pillsburywinthrop.com/locations/office.asp?
directions=1&officeid=000058491444


Registration and Cost:
Cost: $10 by cash only. Make sure to have the exact change. No
registration is required but come early to make sure you have a seat.
You can also register on Digital City Forum (it is free) and say you
are coming in the Polls section. It will give us an idea of how many
people we will have.
To help better communicate and be informed of our future events, you
can register right now to our mailing list in sending an email to
digitalcityforum-subscribe@yahoogroups.com in the recipient.

Wine and cheeses will be served.