IWCS 2018 Providence had over 160 unique
presentations, along with 8 Professional
Development Courses led by industry experts over
the 4 days of the Symposium. These included 29
Poster Papers and 12 New Product Introductions. The
conference also offered a 2-day Supplier Exhibition
with 105 exhibitors. The exhibits included exciting
new innovations to support the growth and
advancements in the cable and connectivity industry. industry,” mentioned David B. Kiddoo, CEO/Director
of IWCS. “Of great interest and importance is that
over 33% of our attendees this year indicated that
they were attending the IWCS Cable & Connectivity
Symposium for the very first time and greater than
30% indicated that they were under 40 years of age.”
Kiddoo added, “This certainly bodes well for the
prospects of our industry and of our IWCS events in
the future.”
Technical Session topics for IWCS 2018 included
Optical Cable Manufacturing; Advances in Optical
Connectivity; Copper Cable – Design, Model, & Test;
Long Haul and Submarine Network
Systems; Optical Fiber Manufacturing Technologies;
Extrusion and Processing Technology; Microcable
Design, Installation & Process; and many more. The Plenary Keynote Speaker was Rich Baca,
Microsoft Azure senior optics hardware
engineer, who presented an insightful vision on
the Future Technology Trends and their Impact
on Data Center and Network Connectivity. Rich
described many of the drivers for more data /
bandwidth, including connected cars and the use of
Artificial Intelligence in classroom education.
The Executive Session, a perennial highlight, included
CRU’s Richard Mack providing an overview of the
global markets for metallic wire and cable as well as
optical fiber markets. John D’Ambrosia, president
of the Ethernet Alliance, discussed Ethernet
Technologies and Robert Fry, Robert Fry Economics,
LLC, gave an economic outlook. Robert Canny, TE
Wire and Cable, led the Executive Panel Session,
which included a lively discussion between Rich Baca,
Microsoft; John D’Ambrosia, Ethernet Alliance; Peter
Jones, Cisco Systems; and Michael Render, Fiber
Broadband Association.
Presenters and attendees came from 27 countries
with 80% of attendees from the Americas,
while Europe and Asia each contributed over 9% of
the attendees.
“This conference gave attendees a unique opportunity
to gain insight from top engineers, researchers
and executives from the cabling and connectivity
At the Plenary Session, Kiddoo mentioned that for
the third year IWCS is producing the UL and IWCS
China 2019 Cable & Connectivity Symposium, to be
held March 25-27, 2019, at the Shanghai Marriott
Hotel City Centre. “This dynamic conference has
rapidly become recognized by the Chinese cabling
& connectivity industry as the premier technology
event in China, supported and sponsored by many
regional stakeholders and trade associations,” he
stated. L.F. Lai, VP and general manager of UL’s
Wire and Cable division spoke more about it at the
Plenary Session, encouraging companies to present
and mentioning the benefits for attendees. The Call
for Papers is still underway and abstracts can still be
submitted through the ulandiwcschina.org website.
This regional conference has its own
websites in both English and Chinese,
which are also linked from the IWCS main
website. Always a highlight of the Plenary
»
WIRE NEWS EVENTS December 2018 11