Welcome to Telephony’s NXTcomm microsite, your home for official pre-show/during show/post-show daily news and content.

The name may be new, you’re thinking, but NXTcomm really is same old show, right? Well, yes and no. When the doors open on June 18, you’ll see a lot of the same exhibitors you’ve come to know and love, and the event’s keynoters—a list of true heavy-hitters that includes AT&T’s Randall Stephenson, Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg, Bell Canada’s Michael Sabia, Motorola’s Ed Zander and Kevin Martin from the FCC—are all pretty familiar.

But a closer look at the keynote speakers reveals two speakers that will bear closer watching. The first is John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems, the king of enterprise networking companies and a firm that has dabbled in the service provider market, but now insists it is here to stay. If you’re a service provider, go to hear the sales pitch (but listen closely, as Chambers is a real speed-chatter). If you’re a vendor, go to size up the competition, because Cisco is coming at you with a pretty lengthy IP resume.

The second noteworthy keynoter is Bob Wright, chairman of NBC Universal and also vice chairman of GE. Wright is notable because his appearance is representative of NXTcomm’s nod to the influence and importance of content services, something that separates NXTcomm from its predecessor trade shows. Now, maybe Wright, who realistically is not even a content guy (more an accounting guy who came to content by way of electrical appliances), isn’t necessarily on the cutting edge of content the way that some of the Internet’s young bucks are. However, as telecom service providers make real connections in the content industry, they’ll want to look up people like Wright, who hold sway over massive content empires.

Whatever this week’s new Internet content trend is, it will be great inspiration to the service providers, but succeeding in a new service realm is all about the connections you make and where those connections can take you.

E-mail me at doshea@telephonyonline.com.