After CeBIT 2001's record of almost 850,000 visitors over seven days, due to the continuing telecoms slump attendance at March's CeBIT 2002 in Hanover was down to about 700,000 over its extended duration of eight days.

Despite "Telecoms and Networks" comprising the largest of the new thematic sectors, fibre communications was over-shadowed by the recovering wireless segment. Nevertheless, attention was focused on technology developments such as multi-service metro networks (see page 17), free-space optics, and the convergence of wireless and fibre networks, as well as emerging markets such as Latin America and Asia (see below).

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