Contributors
Fiber Broadband Association
Fiber Broadband Association

Established in 2001, and the only all-fiber trade association in the Americas, the Fiber Broadband Association provides advocacy, education and resources to companies, organizations and communities who want to deploy the best networks through fiber to the home, fiber to the business and fiber everywhere. Our member-led association collaborates with industry allies to propel fiber deployment forward for a better broadband future here and around the world.

Fiber Broadband Association members represent the entire broadband ecosystem: providers, suppliers, consultants, consumers, policymakers, device makers and application providers. Fiber Broadband Association has partnered with Broadband World News and each month, an association executive or member company executive will contribute a thought-leadership article exclusively on BBWN. Learn more about Fiber Broadband Association by visiting its website here.

Pam Baker
Pam Baker

A prolific writer, Pam Baker's published work appears in many leading print and online publications such as Institutional Investor magazine, CIO, InformationWeek, President & CEO magazine, IT World, and PCMag as well as many others. Formerly Managing Editor for Wireless IQ and Telematics Journal at NY-Based ABI Research, she also served as a freelance analyst for London-based VisionGain and a freelance market research report writer for Evans Data Corporation.

Jeff Baumgartner
Jeff Baumgartner

Jeff Baumgartner is a Senior Editor for Light Reading and is responsible for the day-to-day news coverage and analysis of the cable and video sectors. Baumgartner, who previously had served as Site Editor for Light Reading Cable from 2007-2013, was most recently Senior Content Producer-Technology at Multichannel News, heading up tech coverage for the publication's online and print platforms, and was a regular contributor to Broadcasting & Cable, a sister publication to Multichannel News. Baumgartner was named to the 2018 class of the Cable TV Pioneers.

Alan Breznick
Alan Breznick

Alan Breznick is a business editor and research analyst who has tracked the cable, broadband and video markets like an over-bred bloodhound for more than 20 years.

As a senior analyst at Light Reading's research arm, Heavy Reading, for six years, Alan authored numerous reports, columns, white papers and case studies, moderated dozens of webinars, and organized and hosted more than 15 -- count 'em --regional conferences on cable, broadband and IPTV technology topics. And all this while maintaining a summer job as an ostrich wrangler.

Before that, he was the founding editor of Light Reading Cable, transforming a monthly newsletter into a daily website. Prior to joining Light Reading, Alan was a broadband analyst for Kinetic Strategies and a contributing analyst for One Touch Intelligence.

He is based in the Toronto area, though is New York born and bred. Just ask, and he will take you on a power-walking tour of Manhattan, pointing out the tourist hotspots and the places that make up his personal timeline: The bench where he smoked his first pipe; the alley where he won his first fist fight. That kind of thing.

Jared Brown
Jared Brown

Jared Brown is the Principal Consultant at Fiberrun which specializes in fiber network design and consulting. Connect with him on LinkedIn. Jared really, really likes fiber optics. He first got lit up a couple of decades ago when he built his debut fiber optic network for his house. Since then he's been helping others design and build networks.

Douglas Clague
Douglas Clague

Douglas Clague has more than 20 years of experience in test and measurement, at Viavi Solutions and its predecessor, Wavetek. He has worked for 16 years in T&M for cable, and more than two years in fiber. Doug's responsibilities have included technical support, training, application engineering, solutions consulting and marketing. He is currently marketing manager for Viavi's fiber field test solutions.

Robert Clark
Robert Clark

Robert Clark is an independent technology editor and researcher based in Hong Kong. In addition to contributing to Light Reading, he also has his own blog,  Electric Speech (http://www.electricspeech.com). 

Nick Claxson
Nick Claxson

Nick Claxson is a knowledgeable IT leader with over 20 years' experience at the cutting edge of applying disruptive digital technology to growing UK organisations.  As MD and founder of Comtec Enterprises, Nick remains deeply involved in identifying and perfecting innovative IT solutions and is passionate about the role that cloud technologies can play in boosting the competitiveness of the UK's SME base and public sector institutions. Nick's interests include cricket, polo and actively supporting several children's charities.  He owns numerous other IT and non-IT businesses, and is a former Entrepreneur of the Year finalist.  

Steve Collins
Steve Collins

Steve Collins currently serves as CTO at NetComm Wireless and previously served as its senior vice president of engineering during his seven-plus year career at the developer of fixed wireless broadband, wireless M2M/Industrial IoT, plus fiber and cable to the distribution point (FTTdp / CTTdp) technologies. As CTO, Collins is responsible for NetComm Wireless's strategic technical direction, product innovation and design, with a focus on future technologies. For more than 23 years, he's led teams that specialize in M2M, IoT, 3G and 4G, industrial computing, mobile computing, technical product concept design, hardware and software engineering, GPS, mobile computing and wireless communications. Learn more about NetComm Wireless on its website or via Twitter @NetCommWireless.

Jeremy Coward
Jeremy Coward

Jeremy Coward is Senior Editor and a lead community manager for IoT World News. He specialises in content focusing on connected innovation, specifically concentrating on smart cities, smart homes and keeping the IoT secure. He previously worked in marketing for the UK's National Outsourcing Association, and blogs on literature and politics in his free time. 

Elizabeth Miller Coyne
Elizabeth Miller Coyne

Elizabeth Miller Coyne has been a writer and editor for over 20 years with 16 of those years focused on the telecom sector in a variety of capacities, including journalism, corporate communications, public relations, radio show host and more. Formerly editor of Light Reading's The New IP site, she is now leading the content and direction for Light Reading's new online learning community, Upskill U. In January, she was appointed to the NASA JPL Solar System Ambassadors program -- a public outreach program designed to work with volunteers from across the nation to communicate the excitement of JPL's space exploration missions and information about recent discoveries to people in their local communities.

Mike Dano
Mike Dano

Mike Dano is Light Reading's Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies. He has covered the wireless industry as a journalist for almost two decades, first at RCR Wireless News and then at FierceWireless and recalls once writing a story about the transition from black and white to color screens on cell phones. Mike is based in Denver and can be reached at [email protected]. Follow @mikeddano on Twitter and find him on LinkedIn.

Alison Diana
Alison Diana

Alison Diana has covered technology and business for more than 25 years, focusing extensively on the indirect channel, networking, security and health IT, before moving to Light Reading and the world of broadband transformation. In other words, she’s written about cloud and virtualization for a long, long time. A Brit by birth, she relocated to the United States as a teen, and now calls Florida home, living there with her husband, daughter and two spoiled cats. Alison is a dedicated Yankees fan, swimming and mystery novels.

Verizon Executives
Verizon Executives

Each month, a Verizon executive will share his or her thoughts on one of the many opportunities, challenges or issues shaping the broadband market. From technological advances such as XGS-PON, NG-PON2 and 5G to dark and lit fiber to business topics including recruiting and retaining top talent and the impact of robotics and artificial intelligence on the workforce, Verizon leaders will discuss their strategies, industry shifts and what keeps them awake at night.

Susan Fourtané
Susan Fourtané

Susan Fourtané is a Science & Technology journalist, writer, and philosopher with a life-long interest in science and technology -- and all what is interesting, fascinating, and thought-provoking. 

She has been a technology journalist for nearly 10 years writing and reporting for global print and online publications such as Helsinki Times, UBM DeusM's Internet Evolution (probably the best site dedicated to the analysis of the future of the Internet that has ever existed), Big Data Republic, TheCMOSite, Enterprise Efficiency, HPIO_UK, Global Blue Marketing, SixDegrees Magazine, and World.Edu. 

Currently, she writes for UBM Tech Electronics Division's EETimes and EBN; also for Light Reading and The New IP. Prior to journalism and writing, she worked extensively in the international B2B environment in several countries on two continents specializing in international business communication. 

Susan has been the media advisor for tech startups, European correspondent and media advisory board member for Crypto Biz Magazine. Susan considers herself a citizen of the world who currently tries to split her time between Helsinki, London, and the French Riviera. 

You can find her on Twitter @SusanFourtane

Andy Fry
Andy Fry

Andy Fry is a freelance journalist specializing in all aspects of film and TV rights, financing and technology. He also regularly writes on sports marketing and consumer electronics. Fry has written for numerous TV and marketing trade magazines including Broadcast, MIP Daily News, Lions Magazine, Location International, Marketing, Sport Business, C21 Media (including DramaQuarterly), TBI, DTVE, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, The Knowledge and many more. He also writes reports and has moderated sessions at industry events such as MIPCOM and the Asian Television Forum. He also is co-chair of The UK Sponsorship Awards.

Lawrence Gasman
Lawrence Gasman

Lawrence Gasman has been tracking commercial opportunities in the high-speed networking business since 1985. Over the years, he has covered both the optical networking equipment and optical components market and his recent market analysis work has focused on optical data centers, embedded optics, 5G infrastructure and quantum networking. Lawrence's consulting work has included both major multinationals and high-tech startups as clients and he has also carried out due diligence work for investment banks, venture capitalists and leading management consulting firms. He is also the author of numerous articles on the economics of technology and of four books covering telecommunications and nanotechnology.

Lynn Greiner
Lynn Greiner

Lynn Greiner is an award-winning freelance business and technology journalist who began her career in technical roles in the very industries she now covers. She speaks both business and tech, often serving as an interpreter between management and technical people. 

Follow her on Twitter: @lynngr.

Daniel Grossman
Daniel Grossman

Dan is an analyst, consultant, and technologist, specializing in fixed broadband access technology and markets. He has deep and broad expertise in FTTx, as well as cable, and fixed wireless. Dan has been in the industry for more than three decades, and has focused on consumer broadband access since its beginnings. Over the span of his career, bandwidth in the access portion of the network has increased by eight orders of magnitude.

Dan holds 11 U.S. patents, and is a Senior Member of the IEEE. He received his B.S. in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Phil Harvey
Phil Harvey

Phil Harvey is the Editor-in-Chief of Light Reading. He (barely) manages editorial operations and news coverage for the Light Reading network's digital properties, including Light Reading, The 5G Exchange, Connecting Africa, Telecoms.com and Broadband World News.

Phil rejoined Light Reading in 2018; he's been a member of the LR editorial staff for a combined 15 years. In between stints at Light Reading, he was the news editor at CRN and, before that, the communications director at Metaswitch Networks. During the late 90s, Phil covered networking and telecom in Silicon Valley as a staff writer at Upside (R.I.P.) and (the original) Red Herring magazine.

If you have a breaking news tip, a good podcast guest suggestion, or a three-ingredient cocktail recipe, please get in touch.

Email: [email protected]

Mobile: (202) 649-0373

Signal: (817) 734-6035

Remco Helwerda
Remco Helwerda

Remco Helwerda has more than 25 years of experience in the ICT/telecom sector, always working in areas with the most innovation, from videotex to network virtualization. He has performed different jobs within the KPN Group, ranging from software development and international project management, to product management, general management and strategic consultancy. Currently he focuses on the KPN innovation strategy from the technical and operational perspective, addressing fixed mobile convergence and the consequences for portfolio and organisation of virtualization. 

Li Hongbiao
Li Hongbiao

Li Hongbiao is in charge of planning for ZTE's IP+Optical integrated solution. He specializes in router product R&D and planning, next-generation networks and new technology research.

Michael Howard
Michael Howard

Michael Howard co-founded market research firm Infonetics Research in 1990, and today is recognized worldwide as one of the industry's leading experts in emerging markets, network operator trends and user buying patterns. Nicknamed the "Ethernet pope," Michael leverages 40 years of communications industry experience to author research on carrier Ethernet, cloud access, software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), carrier routers and switches, mobile backhaul, OpenFlow and packet-optical transport. Before founding Infonetics, Michael was an IT director at Tymshare/Tymnet, where he created network accounting and led the First Interstate Bank project that developed the world's first pre-Internet in-home banking system. Prior to that, shortly after majoring in Mathematics at University of California Berkeley, Michael worked for Systems Development Corporation on operating systems and programming language compilers for ARPAnet, which later became the Internet.

Niall Hunt
Niall Hunt

Niall Hunt is digital lead – content & communities, at KNect365. He is an award-winning journalist, digital strategist and content marketer, experienced in creating compelling and engaging content, digital campaigns and developing effective digital teams.

Niall Hunt
Niall Hunt

Niall Hunt is the digital transformation lead for content and communities at KNect365. He is an AOP and BSME winning B2B journalist with more than 16 years' experience across multiple sectors from marketing, technology, and retail to healthcare and finance at titles including the Financial Times.

Aamir Hussain
Aamir Hussain

Hussain leads the product development and technology organization at CenturyLink. Hussain and his team are responsible for design and delivery of next generation products, services and technologies critical to achieving CenturyLink's strategic growth priorities. He has a diverse background in data, security, voice, video and wireless technologies. Prior to joining CenturyLink in 2014, he held senior leadership roles at Liberty Global, Covad, TELUS and Qwest. Hussain sits on several startup and non-profit boards, is technical advisor to technology companies and holds 11 patents in telecommunications.

Gabriella Jeakins
Gabriella Jeakins

Gabriella Jeakins is a Digital Content Marketer at KNect365, based in London. In addition to contributing to UBB2020, she is the editor of the 5G + Virtualisation community which supports the 5G World event series and works on the team behind London Tech Week.

Richard Jones
Richard Jones

Richard Jones is a strategic consultant who has led cutting edge projects including the business case plus rollout strategy for the biggest 4G network in EMEA, the world's first 1 Gbps everywhere FTTH incumbent network and a mini-NBN. The consultancy he co-founded has also bootstrapped its own successful operator in the highly competitive Swedish market – serving 155,000 subscribers (mainly FTTH) and ranked number 4 in the world for broadband service value prior to a sale to TeliaSonera. He is now taking the open access network management elements of the operation global – delivering what is believed to be the first Gigabit services for subscribers in the whole of Africa. He is Chairman of the Smart Cities - Operations and Applications Committee for the FTTH Council MENA. Richard has led under-fire teams across four continents – managing or turning around major technology programs and operations.  He has worked in technology consulting and start-ups for more than 25 years - including designing new businesses for BT and building a number of new operations from scratch.  He has created/helped a number of start-ups achieve returns of up to 75 times for shareholders with one that is on Nasdaq post-acquisition.

Lincoln Lavoie
Lincoln Lavoie

Lincoln Lavoie acts as an industry lead for the executive steering body at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL). In this role, he is responsible for the technical management of the broadband access technology grounds, including digital subscriber line (DSL), gigabit passive optical network (GPON) and Technical Report 069 (TR-069). In addition to his duties with the UNH-IOL, he serves on the Broadband Forum (BBF) Board of Directors and as the Vice Chair of the Metallic Transmission Working Group of the Broadband Forum, and is actively involved in the Full Service Access Network (FSAN) group. With ongoing special interest areas that include analysis of digital signal processing, Linux and embedded-system programming and hardware/software systems integration, Lincoln has a diverse and varied background in technologies and trends of interest to the UNH-IOL's member companies. He is currently involved in the development of testing for VDSL2, G.vector, DSL bonding and the forthcoming Gfast.

Ray Le Maistre
Ray Le Maistre

Don't be fooled by the weird cod-French surname: Ray's as British as corned beef and bad teeth, despite affecting a sheen of Continental sophistication by his constant references to fancy-dan "proper" coffee. He's even trained as a barista, for god's sake.

Ray joined Light Reading in 2002 shortly after being shown the door and a very long corridor at Total Telecom. He has been in technology journalism since 1988, having worked at Computer Weekly, Communications WeekInternational and Communications International.

A slave to fashion, Ray is never seen in the same outfit twice. When not trawling the malls of Epsom, U.K., for the latest in skinny jeans and what-have-you, Ray is often to be heard banging on about SPIT (Service Provider Information Technology), which is also known as TATRTCA (The Acronym That Refuses To Catch On).

As a soccer nut, Ray likes nothing better than cheap jibes about Manchester United. If you bump into him at a trade show, be sure to make some remark about prawn-sandwich-eating supporters or similar – he'll love it!

Don MacLeod
Don MacLeod

Don is an accomplished professional with over 20 of years domestic and international management experience in wireless operations. He has proven his ability to lead multi-million-dollar initiatives; mentor and motivate geographically dispersed direct reports and cross-functional teams, and drive profitability through organic growth, mergers and acquisitions, and launch of cutting-edge services and products. Don is a highly respected industry leader who excels in managing stakeholder communications and expectations. Follow TEKsystems on Twitter @TEKsystems.

Sue Marek
Sue Marek

Follow Sue on Twitter @suemarek

Brian Mecum
Brian Mecum

Brian Mecum is responsible for industry-leading voice and data networks across 28 states, including eight of the ten largest cities in the US. For the last 18 years, he has held network leadership positions across all levels of the organization with proven results in each role. Prior to his current role, he served as Executive Director of Network Implementation for Verizon Wireless, where he had national responsibilities for bringing new products and services to market. Preceding this headquarters-based role, Brian held various network leadership assignments across the nation, including Executive Director of Area Planning for the Midwest Area, Executive Director of Network for the Great Plains Region and Director of Network Engineering and System Performance for the Southern California Region. He joined Verizon Wireless in 1994 as a customer service representative in Seattle.

Robin Mersh
Robin Mersh

Robin Mersh, Broadband Forum Chief Executive Officer, joined the Broadband Forum as Chief Operating Officer in July 2006, and was promoted to Chief Executive Officer in July 2010. Robin has held leadership positions in the telecommunications industry for over 18 years. Robin has worked in business development and alliance management for various OSS software companies in the United States, mainly in network and service provisioning and activation, where he negotiated and managed several large OEM agreements. He is originally from Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London in 1992. His favorite movie is Barbarella (honestly!).

Anne Morris
Anne Morris

Anne Morris is a freelance journalist, editor and translator. She has been working in the telecommunications sector since 1996, when she joined the London-based team of CommunicationsWeek International as copy editor. Over the years she held the editor position at Total Telecom Online and Total Telecom Magazine, eventually leaving to go freelance in 2010. Now living in France, she writes for a number of titles and also provides research work for analyst companies.

Iain Morris
Iain Morris
Iain Morris joined Light Reading as News Editor at the start of 2015 -- and we mean, right at the start. His friends and family were still singing Auld Lang Syne as Iain started sourcing New Year's Eve UK mobile network congestion statistics. Prior to boosting Light Reading's UK-based editorial team numbers (he is based in London, south of the river), Iain was a successful freelance writer and editor who had been covering the telecoms sector for the past 15 years. His work has appeared in publications including The Economist (classy!) and The Observer, besides a variety of trade and business journals. He was previously the lead telecoms analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, and before that worked as a features editor at Telecommunications magazine. Iain started out in telecoms as an editor at consulting and market-research company Analysys (now Analysys Mason).
Stacey Orlick
Stacey Orlick

As Conference Director for Informa's KNect365 division, Stacey oversees multiple technology and communications events designed to bring together the top minds from the vendor, service provider and customer communities. Prior to joining Informa, Stacey held a similar role at Penton, which Informa acquired in 2016. A long-time professional in the events space, Stacey  has more than 20 years experience in tradeshow and conference management, meeting planning, event marketing and communications. In-depth knowledge of conference and speaker organization processes for in-person events, webinars and virtual events. Stacey is based in Connecticut.

Greg Owens
Greg Owens

Greg Owens has 25 years of telecommunications and ICT industry experience. As a Product Marketing Director for the Premises portfolio at Calix, he drives all aspects of marketing for the GigaFamily and EXOS products. Prior to joining Calix, Greg spent 15 years with Alcatel-Lucent, holding positions in marketing and media/analyst relations.

Shrihari Pandit
Shrihari Pandit

Shrihari Pandit is President and CEO of Stealth Communications, the NYC-based ISP he co-founded in 1995. Stealth, having built its own fiber-optic network throughout the city, provides high-bandwidth connectivity services to a broad roster of customers in business, education and government. Prior to Stealth, Pandit was a network-security consultant to various software and telecom companies, including MCI, Sprint and Sun Microsystems. He also was an independent consultant to several US agencies, including NASA and the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), now part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Adrian Pennington
Adrian Pennington

Adrian Pennington is a journalist, editor and copywriter specializing in the creation, business and technology of moving image media. He has had work published in The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Hollywood Reporter, and more. As a copywriter he compiles marketing materials including white papers and blogs for brands and marketing agencies.

Kurt Raaflaub
Kurt Raaflaub

Kurt Raaflaub leads ADTRAN's strategic solutions marketing, and has more than 20 years' experience in telecom. He has global solutions marketing responsibility for the areas of SDN/NFV, Gigabit Broadband, and Customer Connectivity directed at the residential, enterprise and mobile access markets. Prior to his current position, Raaflaub was responsible for directing ADTRAN's Broadband, Carrier Ethernet and Packet Optical solutions marketing activities within ADTRAN's Carrier Networks Division. In 2006, he joined ADTRAN from Nortel where for over a decade, he held various roles focused on marketing and managing new disruptive market opportunities. 

Elliot Richards
Elliot Richards

Elliot has had an interest in technology and electronics for more than 40 years, ever since he held a screwdriver, dismantled the family TV and refused to give it back. He's worked in technology, retail and ecommerce for more than 20 of those years and now covers the ultra-broadband sector for UBB2020. His favourite movie is The Godfather Part II and he flies the flag for Britain by drinking lots of tea.

Thomas Rockmann
Thomas Rockmann

Thomas Rockmann is responsible for all aspects of the Connected Home business at Deutsche Telekom and has been instrumental in growing the business and delivering the white label solution with partners across Europe. 

Keith Russell
Keith Russell

Keith Russell is responsible for global FTTx marketing within Nokia's Fixed Networks business and has over 20 years of experience in fixed access and the telecommunications industry.  Keith has held positions in business management, marketing and applications engineering. 

Steve Saunders
Steve Saunders

Steve Saunders is the Founder of Light Reading.

He was previously the Managing Director of UBM DeusM, an integrated marketing services division of UBM, which has successfully launched 45 online communities in less than three years.

DeusM communities are based on Saunders' vision for a structured system of community publishing, one which creates unprecedented engagement among highly qualified business users. Based on the success of the first dozen UBM DeusM communities, the UBM Tech division in 2013 made the decision to move its online business to the UBM DeusM community platform – including 20 year old flagship brands such as Information Week and EE Times.

Saunders' next mission for UBM is the development of UBM's Integrated Community Business Model (ICBM), a publishing system designed to take advantage of, and build upon, UBM's competitive strengths as a leading provider of live events around the globe. The model is designed to extend the ability of UBM's events to generate revenue 365 days of the year by contextually integrating content from community and event sites, and directories, to drive bigger audiences to all three platforms, and thereby create additional value for customers. In turn, these amplified audiences will allow business leaders to grow both revenues and profits through higher directory fees and online sponsorship. The ICBM concept is currently being discussed with a broad group of business leaders across UBM, and is earmarked to be piloted in the second half of 2013 and early 2014.

UBM DeusM is Saunders' fifth successful start-up. In 2008, he founded Internet Evolution (www.internetevolution.com), a ground-breaking, award-winning, global online community dedicated to investigating the future of the Internet, now in its fifth year.

Prior to Internet Evolution, Saunders was the founder and CEO of Light Reading (www.lightreading.com), Heavy Reading (www.heavyreading.com

Rick Schadelbauer
Rick Schadelbauer

Rick is manager of Economic Research and Analysis at NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association, where he uses his economist skills to determine the impact availability or lack of broadband has on the population, economy, education and other factors. 

Matshepo Sehloho
Matshepo Sehloho

Matshepo Sehloho is a South African-based journalist with over 10 years of experience. She loves everything that has to do with tech news and words in general.

Mari Silbey
Mari Silbey

Mari Silbey is a senior editor covering broadband infrastructure, video delivery, smart cities and all things cable. Previously, she worked independently for nearly a decade, contributing to trade publications, authoring custom research reports and consulting for a variety of corporate and association clients. Among her storied (and sometimes dubious) achievements, Mari launched the corporate blog for Motorola's Home division way back in 2007, ran a content development program for Limelight Networks and did her best to entertain the video nerd masses as a long-time columnist for the media blog Zatz Not Funny. She is based in Washington, D.C.

Anuradha Udunuwara
Anuradha Udunuwara

Anuradha, senior Engineer at Sri Lanka Telecom, is an expert in the field of telecom and technology with 13-plus years industry experience. He is a regular speaker at many conferences. 

Charlie Vogt
Charlie Vogt

Charlie Vogt is responsible for ATX's overall strategic vision, global operations and growth. In 2016, ATX acquired InnoTrans and Pico Digital, respective leaders in optical access, media gateway and broadcast distribution technologies. Today, ATX is a technology leader of media distribution platforms with more than 7 million products connecting smart devices to intelligent networks, delivering 2,500 terabytes of mission-critical content every second of every day for the world's most admired cable, satellite, fixed telecom, wireless and media broadcast service providers.

Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner

San Diego-based Mitch Wagner is many things. As well as being "our guy" on the West Coast (of the US, not Scotland, or anywhere else with indifferent meteorological conditions), he's a husband (to his wife), dissatisfied Democrat, American (so he could be President some day), nonobservant Jew, and science fiction fan. Not necessarily in that order.

He's also one half of a special duo, along with Minnie, who is the co-habitor of the West Coast Bureau and Light Reading's primary chewer of sticks, though she is not the only one on the team who regularly munches on bark.

Wagner, whose previous positions include Editor-in-Chief at Internet Evolution and Executive Editor at InformationWeek, will be responsible for tracking and reporting on developments in Silicon Valley and other US West Coast hotspots of communications technology innovation.

Beats: Software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), IP networking, and colored foods (such as 'green rice').

Jason Walls
Jason Walls

Jason Walls is Director of Technical Marketing for QA Café, co-director of the Broadband User Services Work Area at the Broadband Forum and creator of TR-069, the CPE WAN Management Protocol. You can find out more about the Broadband Forum's work on its website, and Jason can be found on Twitter @JasonSWalls.

Jim Walsh
Jim Walsh

Jim Walsh has over 20 years of technology experience serving in a variety of roles primarily in the semiconductor and telecommunications industries, and is currently a marketing manager for Viavi Solutions focusing on CATV products. Previous roles at Viavi include product line management positions covering Viavi's HFC Monitoring portfolio and overall Software & Services portfolio. Jim has been a frequent panelist at the SCTE Cable-Tech Expo and other international cable events. Prior to Viavi, Jim held various engineering and quality management positions at Intel and Delphi Automotive Systems. 

Mark Weller
Mark Weller

As managing director of UK-based Nextgenaccess, Mark Weller originally trained as a property surveyor, getting involved in the cellular deployment of analog mobile networks in 1993. Mark set up Cellular Design Services in 1995, growing the company from scratch to a turnover of £10 million in 2003 and operating in the UK, Holland and Belgium. Mark sold CDS to merchant bank Interregnum in 2002. In 2012, Mark led the acquisition of the rail business Alan Dick from Lloyds Development Capital, having sourced the funding from Core Investments. Mark was instrumental in growing the business from a turnover of £4.4 million to £22 million, before completing a trade sale to Panasonic in June 2016.

Tao Wenqiang
Tao Wenqiang

Tao Wenqiang has more than 15 years' experience in IP technology research and development. He specializes in product planning and network technology research in ZTE's IP product line. Tao researches high-end router software and hardware system architecture, MAN technologies, IP backbone SDN tech.

Chris Wheal
Chris Wheal

Chris Wheal is an award-winning freelance business and finance journalist. He started writing about technology so long ago that, despite working on Electronics Weekly, he wrote his news on a typewriter. Mobile phones had just been invented and the latest broadcasting technology was RDS (HDTV was just a theory). BT's boss became the first person described by journalists as having a " telephone number salary." He's edited several magazines and websites since then, and now does much of his work from his iPhone. Find Chris on LinkedIn.

Greg Whelan
Greg Whelan

Greg Whelan, Principal at Greywale Insights, has over 25 years of international telecommunication and cable networks experience and is a thought leader in merging Service Provider business drivers and leading edge technologies. His strategic research focus in virtual access networks, CORD, Open Broadband Access, Gigabit Broadband, Community Broadband, and IoT networking.   He's a pioneer in the broadband telecommunications area and drove the first global xDSL standards (ITU and TIE1) and was a co-founder, and Vice President of the Broadband Forum.   He has worked in technical marketing roles for large technology firms including Cisco Systems (San Jose, CA) where he lead award winning global marketing campaigns in telecommunications and cable markets and Analog Devices (Norwood, MA) where he created and lead their successful entrance into the broadband telecommunication market.  He's also spearheaded marketing and products for a number of early stage SP Focused venture-backed start-ups in the Boston area, three of which were acquired by larger tech companies. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA in Innovation from Northeastern University.  He has also studied Digital Video Networking at the MIT MediaLab.

Ken Wieland
Ken Wieland

Ken Wieland has been a telecoms journalist and editor for more than 15 years. That includes an eight-year stint as editor of Telecommunications magazine (international edition), three years as editor of Asian Communications, and nearly two years at Informa Telecoms & Media, specialising in mobile broadband. As a freelance telecoms writer Ken has written various industry reports for The Economist Group.

Carol Wilson
Carol Wilson

After a quarter of a century covering telecom, what Carol doesn't know about the industry can't even be Googled. Carol's CV, which is available as a partwork, includes spells at TelephonyInteractive Week and The Net Economy. She was also the founding of a telecom news website, BroadbandEdge. Prior to covering telecom, she covered higher education, business, politics, the arts, and sports for publications in North Carolina and Wisconsin. [Ed note: Is there such as thing as the arts in Wisconsin, technically speaking?]

Now working for Light Reading from her home aviary with faithful dog Sunny as her executive assistant and personal trainer, Carol welcomes feedback from her readers, particularly if they shout "Go Heels!" in her face at any given trade show.

In her current role, Carol is the link between the editorial team and other parts of the UBM Tech organization, including events. As part of her brief, she will be the Dean of the soon-to-be-launched Light Reading University, so if you were wondering about the outfit, now you know.

Alison’s Wonderland
Alison’s Wonderland

Alison Diana always dreamed of being a veterinarian – until she saw a documentary of a vet removing an alligator's eye. With a love of English but no desire to be a teacher, Alison had no idea what she would do with her love of writing until she earned a four-year, full-tuition journalism scholarship to the School of Visual Arts and discovered feature writing.

An internship at Rolling Stone encouraged Alison to mix her enjoyment of music and writing until she answered an ad for a position at a B2B channel publication. And so her 25-year career covering solution and service providers, enterprises and small businesses using technologies from HPC and UC&C to cloud and security began.

Alison spent 10 years at CRN, before launching a successful freelance career writing for publications including InformationWeek, Bloomberg, Redmond Channel Partner, numerous TechTarget sites, and Florida Today. She later rejoined UBM as part of the DeusM team before heading InformationWeek's health IT section. Alison – who lives on Florida's Space Coast with her husband, teen daughter, and two spoiled cats – became part of the Light Reading team in 2016. As editor of UBB2020, she looks forward to working with the ultra-broadband community to provide year-round coverage of a market that meets at the annual Broadband World Forum, and to further cement ties among the individuals and organizations that create this thriving industry. 

Kelsey Kusterer Ziser
Kelsey Kusterer Ziser

Kelsey Kusterer Ziser studied journalism and mass communication with a second major of Spanish at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but her interest in the telecom world started with a PR position at Connect2 Communications where she worked with a variety of clients focused on communications network infrastructure, including switches, routers, SBCs, data center equipment and systems. There, she witnessed the growing influence of fiber in the industry, as packet optical service delivery platforms transformed network performance and scale.

Her drive for communicating the impact of new technology translated into a communications position at the FREEDM Systems Center, a smart grid research lab at N.C. State University. While at FREEDM, Kelsey orchestrated the center’s webinar program which crossed multiple college campuses and covered research projects like cyber security in the smart grid, the center's smart solid-state transformer, fault isolation devices and distributed energy storage devices. She most recently worked in marketing at a healthcare company and is excited to take on the role of editor for Light Reading's Upskill U website.

Outside the office, she can be found riding her aging Raleigh-brand road bike or dodging snakes on runs through the local Raleigh, N.C., greenways. A glass half-full gal, Kelsey is grateful for the sunning reptiles because they motivate her to improve her timed miles.

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When your broadband business adds new services and connected devices, do they also add complexity, slowing customer support teams as they navigate multiple data sources to uncover connectivity issues? We’ve worked with hundreds of support teams to help them implement a subscriber experience management platform that gives greater visibility into subscriber issues. They can proactively troubleshoot amid complexity—improving the subscriber experience and raising customer satisfaction ratings like Net Promoter Scores.

Join this webinar with experts from Calix and global research leader Omdia who will share exclusive research about how you can:

  • Simplify management of numerous data sources with end-to-end visibility
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  • Avoid common bottlenecks when upgrading to proactive support to ease disruptions to subscribers during implementation


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