NXTcomm08 won’t be the same old telecom trade show. Whereas in years past the topics permeating the show floor revolved around buzz, hype and surmising about the future potential of technologies, this year’s show will be all about where the industry is today -- how to deploy technology, interoperate it with other networks and how to bring together a community of buyers, suppliers and investors to ultimately change the way everyone does business. David Gross, chief analyst and founder of Freesky Research, said this will be the scene at the Las Vegas Convention Center in two weeks.

“As far as telecom trade shows go, it is not so much about getting a big broad overview -- although you can certainly get that. It is a lot more practical, and it is fulfilling a more important role in the industry now especially as we have fewer trade shows today than we did 10 years ago,” Gross said on a Webinar today.

Gross joined NXTcomm executive director Wayne Crawford on a NXTcomm08 pre-show webinar today, held to give attendees an insider’s perspective on the show’s themes and intricacies. Crawford said that this year’s show will bring together service providers of all kinds, as well as the enterprise community – which has grown in importance to the organization over the past few years. Co-located with InfoComm, which will focus on AV and IT, NXTcomm08 will spotlight the full spectrum of services that service providers offer.

The two organizations, TIA and USTelecom, which owned and produced Supercomm for 18 years to later break into their own trade shows, joined forces again in 2007. The result was NXTcomm with its inaugural event in Chicago last year. This year’s conference is slated to be the one industry show that delivers the entire ecosystem of network-enabled voice, video and data. Whereas Supercomm focused on the lower layers of components -- cable, transporting and switching -- NXTcomm08 will run the gamut of services and service providers, while maintaining the enterprise focus that Supercomm started fortuitously.

“Supercomm historically began to get into the enterprise market, enterprise community, simply by mistake in that it was located in Chicago, a very vibrant business marketplace where a lot of companies began to send their IT folks to the event to get ideas on network infrastructure,” Crawford said.

This year, however, InfoComm will have the most enterprise focus, designed largely for the AV and IT buyer. For NXTcomm09, wireless will be an increased focus as it has become paramount as a way to move packets in the industry. Unlike many years’ past, Gross also said that this year, the telecom industry is as healthy as he’s seen it since 2001.

With the return of the most popular speakers from the ATIS CEO panel as well as many new additions, Gross stressed that NXTComm08 will contain much more than just what the media reports. It will get to the heart of the issues that impact buyers today, and conversations will center both on the higher level, as well as the highly specific and technical levels. NXTComm08 attendees have the opportunity to join the community and be a part of it – not just at the show – but in the years to come as well, he said.