High-Level Global Communications Strategy
Forum To Be Held at U. T. Dallas May 5-7

Experts To Discuss Many Challenges Their Industry Faces

RICHARDSON, Texas (April 5, 2004) – In one of the most comprehensive and star-studded conferences of its kind ever held in the Southwest, experts and leaders in the burgeoning -- and in recent years often beleaguered -- area of worldwide communications will debate the many challenges and choices their industry faces at a Global Communications Strategy Forum May 5-7 at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD).

The forum, which is being sponsored by UTD’s School of Management (SOM) and will be held in the school’s new 204,000-square-foot building on the southern end of campus, will offer participants an opportunity to hear – and to interact with -- influential CEOs and other senior executives, entrepreneurs, policymakers and academics as they assess the future of the ever-changing telecommunications industry.

Dr. Sumit Majumdar, an SOM professor of technology strategy who will chair the high-level conference, said the forum’s program was designed to air debates on industry fundamentals, based on academic, practical and industry perspectives. Majumdar said his expectation was that the resulting “discussions will provide a significant contribution to revitalization strategies of many firms in this industry.

“We’ve created a forum that is issue-driven and topical, one that will focus on key problems confronting the telecommunications sector and try to plot a reality-based road map for future development,” Majumdar said.

The forum’s various panels will address such critical issues as the major concerns of corporate chief executive officers, the way that digital-services markets are evolving, how technology is shaping next-generation networks, how to make sense of the merger wave that some experts believe is “waiting to happen” in the wake of the recent Cingular and AT&T Wireless deal, and dealing with the reality of the Internet Telephony phenomenon that is threatening to overturn a century-old established order of legacy networks that most of the world has grown up using.

The panels will feature many of the most prominent names in the communications industry, including: Sanjiv Ahuja, chief executive officer of Orange; Robert Crandall, senior fellow, Brookings Institution; David Farber, considered the “father of electronic switching” and now Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University; Paula Kruger, executive vice president, Consumer Markets Group, Qwest Communications; W. Eric Mentzer, vice president and chief technology officer, Communications Group, Intel; Robert Pepper, chief of policy development for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC); C. K. Prahalad, the Harvey C. Fruehauf Professor of Business Administration and professor of corporate strategy and international business at the University of Michigan and co-author, with Gary Hamel, of the popular business strategy book, “Competing for the Future;” Martin Perry, chief economist for the FCC; Sam Pitroda, chairman of WorldTel and “father of India’s telecommunications sector;” Mike Quigley, CEO of Alcatel USA; Angel Ruiz, president and CEO of Ericsson North America; Dave Schaeffer, CEO of Cogent Communications; Sue Spradley, president of Wireline Networks, Nortel Networks; and Lester Taylor, professor of economics at the University of Arizona.

UTD President Dr. Franklyn G. Jenifer said the forum was important to the university as well as to the communications industry, explaining that UTD recognizes the critical role telecommunications plays in the digital economy and has made telecommunications a core academic discipline and business competency.

“UTD is located in the Telecom Corridor of North Texas, and it was the first university in the United States to have an accredited telecommunications engineering degree,” Jenifer explained. “The telecom revolution is far from over, however, and this forum is intended to provide insights into where it may take us with the next generation of products, services and innovative new strategies.”

SOM Dean Hasan Pirkul noted that in the last decade his school had invested significantly in the field of telecommunications knowledge.

“With that in mind, we are pleased to be able to present a forum that can attract the best and the brightest minds from academia, government and industry,” Dr. Pirkul said. “With stimulating discussions and high-powered panels, we feel this conference has something significant to offer everyone interested in the past, present or future of communications technologies.”

The fee to attend the Global Communications Strategy Forum is $495 for academics and $895 for non-academics.

About The UTD School of Management

The School of Management is the largest of UTD’s seven schools, with an enrollment that has increased 92 per cent over the last seven years to more than 4,300 students. ORMS Today, a publication of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS), ranks the SOM sixth worldwide in business school research productivity in the fields of operations management and management information systems between 1996 and 2002. The school’s new building — featuring classrooms with state-of-the-art audio and visual equipment, wireless connectivity, video-conferencing facilities, two computer labs, faculty offices, meeting rooms and an executive education center — opened last summer.

About UTD

The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor®, enrolls more than 13,700 students. The school's freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please visit the university's web site at www.utdallas.edu.