I spent most of last week in Hong Kong at the immense ITU Telecom World expo and conference. ITU --the International Telecommunications Union-- is the global standards-setting body for the telecommunications industry, and Telecom World, its triennial conference, is one of the industry's biggest events. This was the first time ITU Telecom World has been held in Asia. China is one of the world's largest and most interesting telecommunications markets, and with China's 3G license announcements expected any day, the industry is on tenterhooks.

So why did so many people I talked to at the show think it was a disappointment?

Since this was my first Telecom World I had nothing to compare it to. The conference was large and seemed well attended. But many of the journalists and execs I spoke to said it felt subdued compared to prior years. I overheard one exec from a global company complaining that the organization of the show in Hong Kong seemed sloppy. Certainly I'd had a similar thought waiting in line for an hour to register as an exhibitor on the opening morning of the show. It was early in the morning and exhibitors grumbled and jostled in the immense queue, while dozens of visitor registration stands stood empty.

Other people thought that maybe the venue, the colossal Asia World Expo Center, was too large and the crowds had thus been spread too thin, diluting the energy. Still, the exhibition halls were full and the crowd never looked sparse. True, it was a ways from downtown, but that didn't stop people stampeding into Lan Kwai Fong for drinks every night.

Another theory was that the show this year was too political. "To many sellers, not enough buyers," one exec grumbled. He thought many exhibitors had shown up simply to score points with the Chinese Government, which was heavily represented at the expo, along with all of China's major telecom carriers and equipment makers. Certainly you'd think anyone with big operations in China would take care to be seen supporting Telecom World's Asian--and Chinese--debut. But Nokia, owner of the biggest handset market share in China, still gave the show a miss.

I think the real reason people were disappointed was that the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), China's telecoms regulator, didn't announce its 3G licensing decisions at the show. There had been rumors that would happen, and with the 2008 Olympics already publicly announced as the deadline for commercial 3G services in China, the time for an announcement was running out rapidly. A licensing announcement would reveal a lot about how China's gargantuan telecoms market will evolve over the next few years. It would also help clarify the prospects for China's problematic TD-SCDMA 3G standard.

Anyone who does telecoms business in China wants to see how this will pan out.

But the announcement didn't happen. MII continues to sit like a sphinx on China's 3G licenses. And anyone who came to ITU hoping for the big news was destined to go away disappointed.

Now everyone's expectations are on an announcement in the "first quarter of 2007". We can hope. As can the poor souls who will have to build a functional network by August 2008.

Note: See also this post from my CNET Asia blogging colleague Doug Crets. It is official that ITU 2009 will be back in Geneva.