Celia Desmond
Past President - COMSOC
Past President - IEEE Canada

This talk is an overview of the recent environment of voice, data and multimedia communications industry. Everyone is aware that the communications industry, which includes traffic that is voice, data and other media, grew by leaps and bounds in the 1990’s, providing wonderful opportunities for many business people and entrepreneurs. Then the bottom fell out of the market.

Many companies failed, merged or formed joint ventures. Even amongst these there has been more churn than analysts can follow. Additional uncertainty was, and still is, caused by the evolution of emerging competitive technologies, such as Voice over IP, allowing people to use internet for voice calls, and adding further to the woes of the traditional telephone companies, since the models used for internet rates did not generate the same level of revenue for such calls. It remains to be seen which technologies and which companies will survive. There is also growth in many internet applications.

Engineers and other creative designers are introducing new services almost daily, and many of these are also becoming very popular. However this growth alone cannot sustain the industry, because the revenues produced by these services are low. The internet culture was one of offering free service, with generally low quality, which is diametrically opposed to the telecom culture. Users are showing that they are willing to pay for these services, but this change is slow in coming. Services such as voice over IP, electronic commerce, and social networking do appear to have a solid future, and these services, along with mobile communications, will help the industry to recover.

The nature of the telecom industry has changed, and will continue to evolve. There are numerous opportunities for people who understand the new types of services, but they must come with the right skills. This talk illustrates the need for strong management skills to accompany the technical skills engineering typically bring to the industry.

Celia Desmond, President of World Class - Telecommunications, which provides training in telecommunications management, has lectured internationally on programs for success in today’s changing environment. As a Director at Stentor Resource Center Inc., she was instrumental in establishing culture and new processes for service/product development and for project governance. At Bell Canada, Celia provided strategic direction to corporate planners, ran technology/service trials, standardized equipment, and provided technical and project management support to large business clients. She has held numerous senior management positions at IEEE including Project Director for Certification in Wireless Engineering Technology for IEEE, managing a team of over 100 people in 8 different development areas, Director and Secretary of IEEE, IEEE Vice President - Technical Activities, President of IEEE Communications Society. President of IEEE Canada, and Region 7 Director, Division III Director, and IEEE Canada Foundation Board member and previous Donations Chair. Celia holds MSc. Engineering, B.Sc. Mathematics & Psychology, Ontario Teaching Certificate and PMP certification. Celia has taught kindergarten, high school, and university at Ryerson School of Business, Stevens Institute of Technology, and University of Toronto. She is author of Project Management for Telecommunications Managers (Springer). Her pocket book Project Management for Telecommunications Projects is expected to be published by Wiley in 2009.