The amount of hosting-related information and exhibitors continued to increase compared to past ISPCON events, reaffirming the booming hosting market as a fundamental Internet service.

"What we focus on is what's making money for anyone in the Internet services industry," says John Price, ISPCON managing director and CEO of conference organizers The Golden Group.

The exhibitor's hall featured a range of representatives, from newcomers to some of the industrys's top players, including HostMySite, AT&T, GeoTrust, Hostopia, PEER 1, Motorola, Top Layer, Sendmail, Coyote Point Systems and GlobalNet.

The theme of the conference was "On your mark. Get set. Succeed." It featured a variety of sessions that shared the successes of ISPs such as Mango Bay Internet, Web hosts such as C I Host, ServerBeach, EasyStreet and Hostway and wireless services providers including Renaissance Networks, Northwest Info Net, Cyberlink International and Community WISP.

"A lot of our efforts were focused on going after the top 50 companies in every single [industry] segment," says Price. "We went after the different people who are more or less are the leaders - the success stories - in the industry."

Other session highlights included topics as diverse as managing services and IT outsourcing, e-commerce, dedicated and VPS hosting strategies, hosting reliable and profitable exchange services, exploiting the boom in managed security services, VoIP strategies that work, peering problems, SME and SOHO services and strategies and secrets to marketing a hosting company.

The event also featured two keynote addresses, which took place during the first two days of the conference. In the first keynote, entitled "Muni Networks: Partnering for Affordable Broadband," Earthlink's Donald B. Berryman and Motorola networks' Raghu Rau highlighted how the ISP industry could help drive the use of wireless networks, build stronger partnerships and achieve affordable broadband.

Day two's "Neutrality Reality" keynote session saw Isen principal and "The Stupid Network" author David Isenberg discuss the growing resistance against the all-powerful telecommunication companies and the growing effort to work towards a more free Internet experience for all end users.

Though it is difficult to gauge the impact ISPCON had on its attendees, Price says that the energy exuding from participants at the event's networking sessions gave some indication as to its success.

"Even in the [CEO networking] session last night, people were yelling at each other," says Price. "That's great! A glass was broken, so it was a good party. That's what you want. You want that type of fist pounding and people really caring a lot about what's going on. And that to me is [an indication] that we've done our job."

The Fall edition of ISPCON will take place from November 7 to 9 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California.