SIP Forum Names Spencer Dawkins Technical Director
NORTH ANDOVER, MA (May 7, 2012) – The SIP Forum announced today the selection of Spencer Dawkins as its new Technical Director. A longtime member of the SIP Forum and major contributor to Forum work, Dawkins brings to this role about a decade of leadership experience helping to advance SIP and SIP-related technologies within industry and international standards bodies.
As Technical Director of the Forum’s Technical Working Group, Dawkins will work with SIP Forum Chairman Richard Shockey and President and Managing Director Marc Robins to translate strategic priorities from the SIP Forum Board of Directors into action, developing these directives into key SIP Forum technical initiatives for implementation by SIP Forum task groups. Dawkins will work closely with each group including theSIPconnect Task Group, new SIPconnect Interoperability Certification Task Group(SIPconnectIT), User Agent Configuration Task Group, Fax over IP Task Group and theTest Event Working Group (SIPit).
“SIP continues to serve as the main engine for IP communications innovation and is helping drive the rapid pace of change in today’s telecom world,” said Dawkins. “As SIP Forum Technical Director, I look forward to working with SIP Forum key stakeholders – leadership, our task groups and members – to ensure the Forum continues to fulfill its mission of advancing the global adoption of SIP. My role will be to help our task groups continue to deliver sound technical recommendations and guidance to the industry which answer important questions, eliminate roadblocks, solve problems and ultimately address outstanding issues that might otherwise slow SIP adoption in enterprise and carrier IP networks.”
Dawkins is currently Senior Standards Manager at Huawei Technologies in Plano, Texas, where he serves on the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG), and participates in several standards bodies, including the IETF and W3C, providing technical leadership during the protocol development process. Previously, he has served as software developer, manager, systems architect and product planner at Nortel, Fujitsu Network Communications, Cyneta Networks and Inet/Tektronix.
Dawkins has been developing computer networking products since 1986, working in TCP/IP-related protocols since 1989, and participating in the IETF since 1996. He has also served in the IETF as four-time working group chair and on the General Area Review Team and General Area Directorate, and has co-authored several RFCs. Dawkins also served as the chief document editor for the SIP Forum’s SIPconnect Technical Recommendation.
Dawkins earned his bachelors and masters degrees from the University of North Texas in Business Administration and Economic Research.
About the SIP Forum
The SIP Forum is an IP communications industry association that engages in numerous activities that promote and advance SIP-based technology, such as the development of industry recommendations, the SIPit interoperability and testing events, special interoperability workshops, educational seminars, and general promotion of SIP in the industry. One of the Forum’s notable technical activities is the development of the SIPconnect Technical Recommendation – a standards-based recommendation that provides detailed guidelines for direct IP peering and interoperability between IP PBXs and VoIP service provider networks. The SIPconnect Compliant Certification Program is an associated program through which eligible companies can gain SIPconnect validation and the right to license the use of the SIP Forum’s ‘SIPconnect Compliant’ certification mark – the official brand of the leading standard for SIP Trunking products and services. Other important Forum initiatives include work in Fax-over-IP interoperability, User Agent Configuration, video interoperability, and SIP and IPv6. For more information, please visit: https://www.sipforum.org.
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