It was not intended to become this big. What started 10 years ago as a stage for university students to present their research into telecoms technology has ballooned into the leading conference of its kind in Africa - if not the world.
The Southern African Telecommunication Networks & Applications Conference (SATNAC) was originally meant to showcase the work being done at Telkom's Centres of Excellence.
WHAT IT MEANS
 Where the main role players in telecoms converge to unveil latest trends
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These centres are located at tertiary institutions around the country and focus on promoting research in communication technology and allied social sciences. The centres are funded jointly by Telkom, 27 industry partners and the department of trade & industry, through its Technology & Human Resource for Industry Programme.
The programme was launched in 1997, and there are 16 Centres of Excellence around the country. It was from these centres that about 100 students attended the first SATNAC at the University of Cape Town.
SATNAC has grown rapidly in prestige in the academic world. About 40 researchers from abroad presented papers at this year's conference in Mauritius, says Telkom executive and conference chairman Marius Mostert.
More than 350 people from 22 countries worldwide attended SATNAC 2007, which was held for the first time outside SA. There was a large contingent of students from other African countries - such as Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria, Lesotho, Tanzania, Swaziland, Mozambique, Libya and Tunisia - who are studying in SA.
"This underscores why we felt the need to take this year's conference beyond our borders. SATNAC has definitely evolved into a truly Southern African conference," said Telkom's then acting chief technical officer Bashier Sallie.
"The Telkom Centres of Excellence programme has been recognised as the catalyst for ICT research in Africa and thus it made sense to take the successful conference into Africa," he says.
But SATNAC is no longer just a talk shop. It has become one of the continent's most important telecom-related meet and greet events.
It was not always this way. When it started, few if any of the key role-players in the industry attended. Now it's the must-attend event for all bigwigs.
This year communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri chose it as a venue to unveil new telecom policies. She has not been the only heavyweight to use it as a forum to express a view on what direction the industry should take.
Then Telkom chief operating officer and current CEO Reuben September noted a trend when he said in 2005: "The Internet Protocol presents us with a wonderful opportunity to converge on the network level. IP will be over every-thing and everything will be over IP."
This was at the 2005 conference.
That conference's focus on Internet Protocol (IP) indicated that IP would be the basis for later developments in the sector - as IP provides a neutral medium to transmit large volumes of voice and data traffic. With voice revenue on the decline, having infrastructure in place that can handle sophisticated Internet-based services has become an essential money spinner for telecoms.
Since then all the major telecom players - Telkom, Vodacom, Neotel and MTN - have been building high-speed data networks that can cater for Internet-based services.
Former Telkom CEO Papi Molotsane gave one of his first public addresses at SATNAC, following his appointment shortly before the conference in 2005.
"SATNAC allows industry leaders, academia and operators to showcase their applied research in the ICT sector and also affords a platform for postgraduate students to highlight their research successes. With so many industry leaders attending SATNAC, the conference is also an excellent networking platform for the telecoms industry," says Sallie.
But as much as the industry heavyweights benefit from insights and deal-making at the conference, it's the students who are the real winners.
Among other benefits, they get the opportunity to showcase themselves to prospective employers.
