It is now official: the 43rd International Conference on Communications, ICC 2008, will be held in Beijing, China on May 19-23, 2008.

This will be the first time that IEEE's most influential conference on communications is held in China. Wu Jichuan, a deputy of the National People's Congress Committee, will work as the chairperson of the conference with Lou Qinjian, vice minister of the Ministry of Information Industry; Sun Anmin; Zhou Deqiang; Lin Jintong; Wang Xiaochu; Wang Jianzhou; Zhang Chunjiang; and Chang Xiaobing, all of whom are celebrities of China's communications industry, being the co-chairpeople.

With the theme "Communications: Faster-Higher-Stronger", the conference will feature major symposia, application sessions, tutorials, and panel discussions on communications service reliability and performance construction.

Initiated in 1965, the IEEE International Conference on Communications is one of the Communications Society's flagship conferences. It takes place annually, typically in May or June. Since its inception, it has been held in many U.S. cities and in other countries like Switzerland, Canada, Finland, and France.