The SIP Forum Announces CRTC Chairman and CEO Ian Scott, and Current and Former FCC Chief Technology Officers Dr. Eric Burger and Dr. Henning Schulzrinne as Keynote Speakers at SIPNOC 2018
Extraordinary Lineup of Keynote Speakers to Take the Podium at SIPNOC 2018, the 8th Annual SIP Network Operators Conference, December 4-6, 2018
NORTH ANDOVER, MA (September 26, 2018) – The SIP Forum announced today an extraordinary lineup of keynote speakers at the association’s annual 2018 SIP Network Operators Conference (SIPNOC 2018) that includes Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Chairman and CEO Ian Scott, current United States Federal Communications Commission Chief Technology Officer Dr. Eric Burger, and former FCC CTO Dr. Henning Schulzrinne. The eighth annual SIP Network Operators Conference (SIPNOC 2018) is being held at the Hyatt Regency Dulles Hotel in Herndon, VA, December 4-6, 2018.
CRTC Chairman and CEO Ian Scott has over 25 years of policy and regulatory experience in broadcasting and telecommunications both in the public and private sectors. After working at the Competition Bureau, he joined the CRTC from 1990 to 1994, where he collaborated on the development of a framework for long-distance telephone service competition in Canada. Between 2007 and 2008, as part of the Executive Interchange Program, he was Senior Policy Advisor to the Chairman at the CRTC.
Before rejoining the CRTC in 2017, Mr Scott held various executive positions in the communications industry, including at Telesat Canada, Telus and Call-Net Enterprises, one of the first companies to offer competition in the Canadian long-distance market. He also provided leadership on broadcasting policy and regulatory issues as an executive at the Canadian Cable Television Association.
“The damaging and deceptive effects of unsolicited communications undermines citizens’ trust in their communications networks, and more broadly, in the digital economy,” said Mr. Scott. “The CRTC is committed to combating unsolicited communications – whether in the form of nuisance calls, spam, malware, or botnets. I look forward to updating the SIP community about our work in this area.”
“We are thrilled and delighted Chairman Scott has agreed to keynote SIPNOC for 2018,” said Richard Shockey, Chairman of the SIP Forum. “Chairman Scott will bring a fresh international perspective to our program.” Shockey also added, “The SIP community will be particularly interested in progress on the implementation of CRTC Decision 2018-32 which mandates the IETF-ATIS-SIP Forum STIR/SHAKEN framework to combat Robocalls and Caller ID spoofing.”
The United States Federal Communications Commission’s Chief Technology Officer Dr. Eric Burger serves as an advisor to the Chairman and as the senior technology expert in the agency.
Prior to joining the Commission, Dr. Burger served as director of the Security and Software Engineering Research Center in Washington, DC. The center helps propose solutions to network problems like Robocalling, rural call completion, accessibility of communications for Americans with hearing and speech impairments, reducing the cost of deploying and operating communications networks, and ensuring communication network security and stability. He holds patents in telecommunications and is an expert in standards for telecommunications, network, and Internet technologies.
Dr. Burger has also held senior engineering and technology positions in various telecommunications companies and served as a technology consultant to others. He is also the Former Chairman of the SIP Forum, and he has taught computer science at Georgetown University, George Mason University, and The George Washington University. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Illinois Institute of Technology, an MBA from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, and bachelor’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“Network operational and technical professionals play an important role in combating robocalling, an issue that cannot be solved in a day, by decree, or alone,” said Dr. Burger. “I’m excited to represent the FCC and talk about the current technical challenges and opportunities available as part of this forum and learn from the international community as we work together to implement approaches to make this problem tractable.”
“It is an honor to have our former SIP Forum Chairman Dr. Burger reprise his keynote at this year’s SIPNOC event, especially in his current capacity as FCC CTO,” said Marc Robins, SIP Forum President and Managing Director. “We look forward to Dr. Burger’s update on the latest trends in the industry and challenges we all face as the pace of IP communications technology adoption continues to accelerate. Eric is universally acclaimed as a leading IP Communication expert and major supporter of the SIP standard and we look forward to hearing his insights.”
Serving as CTO and in various other roles at the FCC from 2010 to 2017, Dr. Schulzrinne guided the organization’s work on technology and engineering issues, together with the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology.
Dr. Schulzrinne holds the Julian Clarence Levi Chair of Mathematical Methods and Computer Science at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering at Columbia University. Over the course of his career, he has published more than 250 journal and conference papers and more than 70 Internet Requests for Comment (RFCs) – working to shape the key protocols for enabling voice-over-IP (VoIP) and other multimedia applications, including the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) which have become Internet Standards. His research interests include Internet multimedia systems, applied network engineering, wireless networks, security, communication policy, and performance evaluation.
“Open standards ensure that people can connect with others by voice, text and video, regardless of whether using a mobile device, an office phone or a traditional landline,” said Dr. Schulzrinne. “Emergency calls and texts have to work from any device and anywhere. Phone numbers have become the universal identifier. But usability, interoperability and universal access challenges remain, and while the SIP community can be proud of 20 years of progress, we can learn from the past and continue to make human-to-human communication work better for all users.”
“The SIP Forum is very proud to have Henning return to keynote this year’s SIPNOC event,” said Richard Shockey, Chairman of the Board of the SIP Forum. “Henning is universally acclaimed as the Father of the SIP standard. The past year has been full of important developments in the IP communications industry, and we’ve come a long way since the first SIP specification was adopted in 1999. We look forward to hearing Henning’s insights on these developments.”
ABOUT SIPNOC 2018
Now in its eighth year, SIPNOC 2018 will host an international audience focused on the operational and technical aspects of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) in service provider networks and issues critical to the reliable and successful deployment and operation of SIP-based services in carrier networks.
The SIPNOC 2018 agenda will feature special presentations, tutorials, panel discussions and workshops covering key topics related to SIP-based services, applications, and infrastructure.
As part of SIPNOC 2018, the SIP Forum will host a special Robocall Summit to be held on Tuesday, December 4th, 2018, focused on Robocall and Caller ID Spoofing elimination and mitigation and specifically developed for industry stakeholders in that ecosystem, including service providers seeking to deploy new solutions, governmental regulators and agencies, equipment manufacturers, enterprise and government agency contact centers, application providers and data analytics firms.
To address unwanted and illegal Robocalls and Caller ID Spoofing, the SIP Forum and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) formed the Network to Network Interface (NNI) Joint Task Force to develop standards to verify and authenticate caller identification for calls using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The outcome of this effort has been the STIR / SHAKEN Call Authentication Framework. This joint effort has produced a number of industry-adopted profiles.
The Robocall Summit, comprised of presentations and panel discussions, will examine in detail the work and milestones of this Task Force, as well as the efforts of various industry stakeholders. With currently more than 150 participants, the NNI Task Force has been meeting regularly for the past four years. The Task Force is comprised of telecommunications technical experts representing a range of telephony service providers and suppliers, both large and small, which serve both consumers and businesses. Information about the NNI Task Force and links to the documents can be found at https://www.sipforum.org/activities/nni-task-force-introduction/.
Attendees at SIPNOC 2018 will include engineers and network architects from telecommunications providers, major backbone operators, interconnect and wholesale solution providers, ISPs, cable operators, wireless network operators as well as large enterprises deploying major SIP initiatives.
Current corporate sponsors of SIPNOC 2018 include Diamond Sponsor Ribbon Communications, Platinum Sponsor Neustar, Inc., and Gold Sponsors ECG, SecureLogix, and TelcoBridges. For more information about SIPNOC 2018 sponsors, please visit https://www.sipforum.org/news-events/sipnoc-2018-overview/#sponsors.
For more information about SIPNOC 2018, please visit www.sipnoc.org or send an email to sipnocinfo@sipforum.org.
CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
For information about corporate sponsorship opportunities at SIPNOC 2018, please contact Marc Robins, SIP Forum President and Managing Director, at +1-203-829-6307 or email marc.robins@sipforum.org.
ABOUT THE SIP FORUM
The SIP Forum is a leading IP communications industry association that engages in numerous activities that promote and advance SIP-based technology, such as the development of industry recommendations; interoperability testing events including SIPit, and special workshops, educational activities, and general promotion of IP communications standards, services, and technology for service provider, enterprise and governmental applications. The SIP Forum is also the producer of the annual SIPNOC conferences (for SIP Network Operators Conference), focused on the technical requirements of the service provider community. One of the Forum’s technical activities is the development of the SIPconnect Technical Recommendation – a standards-based SIP trunking recommendation that provides detailed guidelines for direct IP peering and interoperability between IP PBXs and SIP-based service provider networks, and the SIPconnect Certification Testing Program, a unique certification testing program that includes a certification test suite and test platform, and an associated “SIPconnect Certified” logo program that provides an official “seal of certification” for companies products and services that have officially achieved conformance with the SIPconnect specification. Other important Forum initiatives include work in security, SIP and IPv6, and IP-based Network-to-Network Interconnection (IP-NNI). For more information about SIP Forum initiatives, please visit: https://www.sipforum.org.
MEDIA CONTACT
Marc Robins
SIP Forum
+1(203) 829-6307
# # #