Skip to content
HomeAbout the SIP ForumAnnual Meetings and Reports2011 Annual General Meeting Notice

2011 Annual General Meeting Notice

Meeting date: Tuesday, 13 December 2011

1 – Announcement: Annual General Meeting

Section 12 of the By Laws of the SIP Forum (the “Forum”) provides that the Forum hold an Annual General Meeting that is open to all members.  In accordance with the By Laws, this document shall serve as official notice for the Annual Meeting of the SIP Forum to be held as follows:

1.1 – Date / Time of meeting

The general meeting will be held:

Tuesday, 13 December 2011
1:00 – 3:00 pm U.S. Eastern Standard Time
Via WebEx
Login URL, Dial-In Number and Passcode: To be sent in follow-on message via the mailing list

2 – Subject Matter for the Meeting

In the meeting, a review of the financial operations, including a review of the audit for fiscal year 2011, will be provided, as well as a review of the operational activities that have occurred since the last General meeting.

In addition, Full Members will be asked to vote on three items.

2.1 – Voting Items

Three official voting items are on the agenda:

Please note:

As the 2011 Annual General Meeting will be held remotely, via WebEx, all Full Member Representatives must complete the online ballot or fax or email their Proxy vote using the Voting Form Proxy document prior to the AGM.

Votes must be received from > 50% of Full Members in order to have a valid election, and 75% of Full Members in order to pass the Dissolution of the Swedish Shell Corporation proposal.

The deadline described below for returning ballots via surface mail is Friday, 09 December 2011 and via fax or email Monday, 12 December 2011.

3 – Board Member Elections

Members of the Board of Directors serve for two-year terms, with terms expiring at the general meeting that takes place at the end of this term. Elections for new board members will take place at this general meeting.

There are three Board seats expiring this year. They are the seats currently held by Eric Burger, Alan Johnston, and Richard Shockey. The seats held by Mary Barnes, Chris Gatch, Steve Johnson, Hadriel Kaplan and Glenn Russell are not expiring.

3.1 – Voting Limits

Our By Laws indicate that only two Directors may be Participant Members at any one time. Since the seats occupied by two participant members (Eric Burger and Richard Shockey) are now open,
up to two Participant Members can be elected in this election.

You will be voting by expressing a preference order for candidates. This preference order will be used to tally the Directors who are elected.

3.2 – Who Can Vote

Each Full (paying) Member is entitled to a single vote on the matters being presented for a vote.
Each Full Member has the right to vote either electronically, or by an agent authorized by a proxy validly executed by the Full Member. A proxy shall be executed by written authorizations signed by the Full Member, giving the proxy holder the right to vote the vote.

Full Members not voting electronically (using the online voting method) can utilize a proxy form provided with this general meeting announcement package.  The proxy provides a method to vote for the Director candidates, and grants to the Managing Director of the SIP Forum the right to cast the vote on behalf of the Full Member giving the proxy. Alternately, a Full Member can cast a vote electronically, as described in Section 5 of this notice.

The Board strongly urges you to submit an online vote via the SIP Forum website.

3.3 – Candidates for Election

3.4 – Candidate Statements and Biographies

The statements by the candidates about their desire to serve on the board, along with their biographies, are shown here as provided by each candidate. The Board strongly recommends you read these, as we seek Directors who will add substantial value, so it is crucial your vote is well informed.

Candidates are listed in alphabetical order by last name.  Please do not allow this order to influence your voting.

The Board has not endorsed any slate of candidates.

3.4.1 – Rouzbeh Farhoumand – Huawei Technologies

3.4.1.1 – Statement of Candidacy

If elected, my goals for SIP Forum are as follows: To serve the Board and the SIP Forum community to the best of my ability; Assist governing the organization by establishing broad policies and enforcing them; to support SIP Forum’s events and activities, and ensure Huawei’s participation when relevant; To promote the SIP Forum and its deliveries in the industry; To promote SIP Forum in Asia and specifically within China; and to influence the 3GPP leadership and community when and if necessary, and act as liaison between the two organizations when need be.

3.4.1.2 – Biography

Rouzbeh Farhoumand is Senior Director of Core Network Standards at Huawei Technologies Inc. His current responsibilities include, but are not limited to developing and executing strategies, providing technical expertise and leadership in the advocacy of Huawei’s technical and business interests in specific national and global Standards and Industry organizations (3GPP, IETF, ATIS, SIP FORUM, CABLELABS, GSMA, 4G-AMERICAS, NGMN, IMTC, etc), dealing with GSM, GPRS, 3G/UMTS, IMS, and SAE technologies critical to the company’s business and product strategies. At present, Mr. Farhoumand is also the Vice Chairman of the 3GPP TSG-CT, and the 3GPP – ITU-T Liaison, as well as attending the 3GPP PCG/OP (Board). He is also a Board of Directors member in the IMTC.

Mr. Farhoumand has 16 years of R&D experience in Telecommunication starting with Ericsson in Sweden where he lived for 10 years until 1994 before relocating to Dallas, Texas. He is a highly accomplished individual with a long track record and demonstrated leadership in standards and leading high caliber cross-functional international teams. He has extensive personal networking in the 3GPP community as he started attending it from the very first meeting, as well as with European, North American and Asian operators and suppliers.

3.4.2 – Andrew Hutton – Siemens Enterprise Communications

3.4.2.1 – Statement of Candidacy

For over 12 years I have been actively involved in the development of SIP based products of all types and seen SIP move from the early adopter phase to the current position in which SIP is widely deployed and the protocol of choice in many markets.

Despite the wide deployment of SIP based products and the increasing adoption of SIP trunking there are still challenges in the area of interoperability and manageability of SIP products. The SIP Forum has a major role in helping the industry to overcome theses issues.

The development of SIPconnect 1.1 was a major achievement and the SIP Forum must now work to promote SIPconnect 1.1 and interoperability between products. The SIPconnect 1.1 specification needs to be backed up by interoperability and conformance testing. I believe the SIP Forum can do more to provide the means to make this happen. If elected I will support the SIP Forum in helping to make conformance testing for SIPconnect 1.1 happen.

Other areas in which SIP interoperability issues can still be found include IPv6, Video and Security. The SIP Forum has a major role in getting industry consensus in these areas and providing input to standardization bodies.

The SIPNOC event appears to have been a very worthwhile event and I congratulate the SIP Forum board on making this happen. SIPNOC is an ideal opportunity to increase awareness of SIPconnect and for the industry to work together to reduce the barriers and costs of SIP deployment. I fully support SIPNOC and would like to see it develop further into a successful series of events.

I would very much appreciate your support.

3.4.2.2 – Biography

Andrew Hutton is Head of Standardization at Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co. KG and has over 25 years experience within the communications industry. Andy is an experienced software engineer with extensive knowledge of communications protocols for use within enterprise communications systems and for interconnecting enterprise systems with carrier networks.

Prior to joining the CTO organisation at Siemens Enterprise Communications, Andy gained many years hands on experience of developing SIP based communications products (IP Phones, Gateways and Servers) and of deploying these in the field. Furthermore, Andy has been engaged in many projects related to SIP based multi-vendor connectivity and interoperability.

An active supporter of Open Standards based communications; Andy is active in the IETF as well as in other international standards organisations and industry fora. Andy is co-chair of the IETF SIPREC (SIP Based Media Recording) working group.

Andy is a Chartered IT Professional member of the British Computer Society (MBCS CITP) and has a 1st Class Honours degree in Computer Science.

3.4.3 – Vijey Jenkal – Comcast

3.4.3.1 – Statement of Candidacy

With the widespread use of SIP across multiple communication product lines – Wireless and Wired, Residential and Commercial, Voice, Video and Unified Communications, I strongly believe we are at an important juncture where SIP can become the de facto standard for customer facing and inter-carrier communication.

But for this to happen, there is going to be a need for several carrier leaders to collaborate on the right peering architecture, services and processes that will allow for seamless migration from the current model to a future where SIP enables the seamless communication between product lines, carriers and countries. It also requires adoption of SIP with each of the product lines to become simpler and standardized, so that the flat nature of SIP can allow for a good customer experience.

Over the last 10 years, I have advocated for and helped build SIP based solution both on the customer facing and the inter-carrier realm. My experience working on these technologies in the service provider space has helped me understand many of the real-life challenges associated with the integration of multiple vendor platforms – especially when IMS comes into play. It has also given me an opportunity to work with multiple carriers in the standardization of SIP peering solutions. Most of all, it has helped me see firsthand the cost savings, simplicity and redundancy that can be gained by using a SIP based solution. If I am elected into the Board, I hope to bring this experience from a service provider point of view to the board.

3.4.3.2 – Biography

Vijey Jenkal is the Director of Product Development Engineering at Comcast. In his current position he is responsible for the architecture and design of business voice and messaging services for Comcast.

Prior to leading the business services engineering team, Vijey led the development of a SIP and ENUM based interconnection solution for both internal and external usage at Comcast. Before joining Comcast, Vijey worked for Sprint as a lead engineer in the carrier interconnection space. Vijey has a MS EE from University of Kansas.

3.4.4 – Alan Johnston – Avaya

3.4.4.1 – Statement of candidacy

I have been actively involved in the SIP Forum since its inception, serving on the Board of Directors from 2004 until 2006, and my current term on the board from 2009 to the present.

The SIP Forum continues to serve our industry with the publication of the SIPconnect 1.1 SIP trunking recommendation, the successful launch of our SIPNOC conferences, and the continuing success of the SIPit SIP interoperability events. Our current challenge is to get the word out on SIPconnect 1.1 and drive industry adoption and interoperability. I have been actively involved in all of these areas.

I have considerable experience in SIP standards, and with interoperability and conformance testing of SIP which I believe will be valuable in charting the course for this organization. In addition, I plan to continue to work with the IETF in terms of identifying and fixing SIP interoperability issues. Finally, I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on the board to further the interests of SIP and our industry.

3.4.4.2 – Biography

Dr. Alan Johnston, Distinguished Engineer in Avaya’s Technology and Strategy group, has been involved with SIP and VoIP since the mid 1990s. While a Distinguished Technical Member at MCI, he served as an architect of the first enterprise SIP VoIP product in the United States. He is also an adjunct assistant instructor of electrical and systems engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a co-author of the SIP protocol specification RFC 3261, and editor of the Basic and PSTN call flows BCP (Best Current Practices) documents, RFC 3665 and RFC 3666 and several other RFCs.

His recent areas of work include SIP call control user-to-user transport, SIP recording, and WebRTC. Dr. Johnston has authored or co-authored four books on SIP including the best selling “SIP: Understanding the Session Initiation Protocol”, “Understanding Voice over IP Security” “SIP Beyond VoIP” and “Internet Communications Using SIP”. He also wrote the Foreword for Avaya’s “SIP Communications for Dummies”.

He holds a Bachelor’s of Engineering degree with Honours from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA.

3.4.5 – Gonzalo Salgueiro – Cisco Systems

3.4.5.1 – Statement of Candidacy

The goal of eventual PSTN replacement and the widespread adoption of SIP as the technology of choice for real-time IP communications is well in hand. Focus needs to shift to the next generation of transformational goals for SIP. The SIP Forum must be at the forefront of that effort and use its considerable influence and penetration in the industry to drive awareness and facilitate solutions. A Board of Directors position in the SIP Forum is the ideal pulpit to advocate for this evolution and growth.

If elected to serve on the Board of Directors, it is my intent to focus attention in two key areas. (1) The proliferation of voice endpoints and the ubiquitousness of SIP-enabled mobile video solutions requires a new level of engagement across the board from the SIP Forum. I would work with the Board of Directors on the formation of a dedicated Video Task Group to research, identify, analyze and address for the industry the major challenges facing the deployment video in SIP multimedia networks. Central to that work would be the definition of deployment profiles to mitigate the myriad of interoperability issues as well as an increased presence in interoperability test events like SIPit.

(2) The second point of emphasis would be to raise awareness about the dire need to improve the inherent serviceability and troubleshooting preparedness capabilities of SIP at a protocol level. I believe there is tremendous value in the creation of a feedback channel that reaches out to vendors, carriers, SIP network operators and implementers (i.e., taps into participants of SIPit and SIPNOC) and can be effectively targeted to have an impact in prioritizing and driving standards development efforts in the IETF in this area (e.g. the newly proposed Session-ID WG).

I greatly appreciate the opportunity and your consideration for this position.

3.4.5.2 – Biography

Gonzalo Salgueiro is a technical leader in the area of Unified Communications at Cisco Systems. As a member of the Global Technical Center (GTC), Gonzalo drives engineering excellence and customer success as a senior advisor and escalation point for many of Cisco’s largest and most critical Unified Communications networks. Gonzalo’s highly technical responsibilities coupled with his Services background give him a unique perspective on real-time communications architectures and how they can deliver customer value and ROI through strategic extensibility and effective product serviceability.

Gonzalo is an established member of numerous industry organizations and is a regular presenter at a variety of technical industry conferences and Cisco events around the world. He currently serves as co-chair of the FoIP Task Group in the SIP Forum and is an active contributor to various standardization activities in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). After nearly 15 years of work in real-time communications, Gonzalo has co-authored a book, technical papers, is co-inventor of several patents (pending), and has contributed to various open source development efforts. He holds an M.S. in Physics from the University of Miami.

3.4.6 – Richard Shockey – Shockey Consulting

3.4.6.1 – Statement of Candidacy

The “Islands of SIP” are a continuing reminder that SIP forum still has much work to do, but I believe we may be reaching a significant turning point in the industry. The advancement of SIP into the network is proceeding at a accelerated pace. Market statistics indicated that interconnect SIP is rapidly approaching 35% in the US alone and with the advent of VoLTE we should see that deployment past 50 % in the next 3-4 years. Of greater significance are moves by both the industry and government to finally tackle the issue of turning off the classic Class5/SS7/PSTN infrastructure. This would make SIP THE principal protocol of choice for all real-time communications.

But we cannot declare victory yet. We should look back on several significant achievements the SIP Forum has made in the last few years and outline what our plans look like for the future.

First, we finished SIPconnect 1.1, and as the chair of the TECHWG task group, I’m grateful for all the hard work and participation that made the document such as success. SIPconnect is continuing to receive positive coverage in the press and industry and is still the only comprehensive specification detailing how PBX’s should interconnect with service provider networks. We intend to advance that work one step further by working on a formal interoperability event called SIPconnectIT in partnership with CableLabs.

We are re-energizing our task groups on SIP user agent configuration. We are awaiting finalized test results and documentation from the FoIP Task group on potential solutions for Fax in SIP networks. We are planning on further task groups on SIP/IPv6 profiles. I am especially proud of SIPNOC — our first conference bringing together hundreds of engineers from service providers around the world dedicated to promoting the interoperability of SIP and share real experiences in the network.

We are not a Standards Development Organization but our structure and commitment can permit the SIP community to develop requirements and practical use cases that the IETF can use to develop further solutions.

Of course, our most important commitment as the SIP Forum is to continue the work of SIPit. No other forum has been devised that advances the interoperability of SIP more that SIPit and I believe the role of SIPit(s) may expand into separate interoperability test environments as carrier to carrier SIP interconnection projects begin to deploy.

I look forward to the opportunity to continue to serve the SIP Forum and the overall SIP community.

3.4.6.2 – Biography

Richard Shockey is an internationally recognized expert on Data Communications, Voice over IP Technology, Numbering and Signaling, and is currently the Principal of Shockey Consulting, a private firm advising telecommunications companies and the investment community on any number of issues related to Next Generation Networks.

Mr. Shockey also currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the SIP Forum, and chair of the Forum’s Technology Working Group (TECHWG).

Mr Shockey is also a member of the United States Federal Communications Commission’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC), an FCC advisory council tasked with advising the federal agency regarding best practices and practical actions pertaining to the security, reliability, and interoperability of communications systems.

Mr. Shockey has spoken countless times at industry events on SIP, ENUM and Next Generation Networks and led the architecture and design of several commercial products based on ENUM. ENUM [RFC6116] has been frequently mentioned in the media as a key enabler in the convergence of the PSTN and VoIP and the principal technology service provider’s are considering for VoIP Network to Network Interconnection, Peering and SS7 avoidance.

Mr. Shockey was a founder and Co-Chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force ENUM Work Group and is an author of several IETF RFC’s Active in IETF affairs since 1998 he also participated in numerous other WG including FAX, SIP, SIPPING, SPEERMINT, SIMPLE, and its management nominating committee NOMCOM. He is also co-founded the IETF working group DRINKS on the provisioning of data for VoIP Peering Federations.

He has recently worked on several projects involving White Space Databases using unlicensed spectrum, enterprise interconnection federations and communications systems used in Smart Grid systems. His current interest is in the retirement of the Public Switched Telephone network and ending the scourge of SS7 from planet Earth.

Mr Shockey was formerly Director & Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at NeuStar, Inc. [www.neustar.biz] based in Suburban Washington, D.C.

4 – Discharge of Liability for Board Members and Managing Director

The By Laws of the SIP Forum require that, at each general meeting, the members vote on whether to discharge the Board Members and the Managing Director from liability for actions or inactions resulting from their service to the SIP Forum over the prior year. This discharge is a normal practice for non-profit organizations based in Sweden. In all annual general meetings to date, this has been presented, and the Board Members have been accordingly discharged. At this time, the Board represents that the Directors and Managing Director have collectively performed all required responsibilities for this past year, and requests discharge from liability. Full Members shall vote Yes or No on their ballots to so discharge the Board and Managing Director.

The Board recommends a Yes vote on this item.

5 – Dissolution of the Swedish SIP Forum Shell Corporation

The SIP Forum Board of Directors has proposed that the Swedish SIP Forum Shell Corporation be dissolved, and that all association management and administrative functions be officially transferred to the U.S.-based SIP Forum LLC.

This proposal requires minor changes to the SIP Forum Bylaws, a draft of which is located HERE. And because the ByLaws will be amended, this proposal requires approval by at least 75% of SIP Forum Full Members in order to pass.

The rationale for this change is as follows:

  1. The SIP Forum now operates exclusively out of the United States, under the SIP Forum LLC based in North Andover, Massachusetts and created in 1996.
  2. As a result, the SIP Forum corporation in Sweden is merely an empty shell company, and conducts no business of any kind.
  3. By dissolving this shell company, the association will save the unnecessary expenses required to maintain it, which include accounting, records storage, and Swedish non-profit income taxes.

The Board highly recommends a Yes vote on this item.

6 – Procedure for Voting

The By Laws permit voting by proxy, using paper ballots or electronically submitted ballots that are returned using a method that the Board deems sufficient to establish the authenticity of the ballot

6.1 – Written Proxy

Included in the bundle distributed to the Full Members with this Annual General Meeting Notice is a ballot document entitled “Voting Form.” If a Full Member intends to submit a ballot to vote by written proxy (instead of using the online voting application), each Full Member should do the following as described immediately below in Section 6.1.1.

6.1.1 – Minimal Procedure for Proxy Voting

The Full Member shall mark the ballot (either by modifying the document to indicate the mark, or by printing the document and marking it in ink) to:

  • Rank your votes for Director’s candidates. Mark your first preference “1”, your second preference “2”, and so on.  You may vote for as many candidates as you wish, but we recommend you vote for at least 5.
  • Approve or reject the discharge of Directors’ liability.
  • Approve or reject the proposal to Dissolve the Swedish SIP Forum Shell Corporation.
  • Deliver the Voting Form to the SIP Forum Managing Director prior to the date of the Annual General Meeting by sending the Voting Form via surface mail to the address listed on the ballot, or send a facsimile to the fax number listed on the first page of the ballot form. Please note that if surface mail is used, the Voting Form must be sent to arrive NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, DECEMBER 09, 2011 or if Fax delivery is used, the Voting Form must be sent to arrive NO LATER THAN MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2011.

6.2 Electronic Voting

The Board has concluded that two methods are acceptable for electronic voting:

  • Full Members may cast their vote on an Internet web page supplied by the SIP Forum for this purpose. The web page voting method must (a) assure only one vote per Full Member, and (b) permit only one, Member-designated representative of the Full Member to cast the vote, and (c) the voting interface must be password-protected. The SIP Forum has implemented a web interface that meets these requirements, and which will be used for the voting for this year. A URL for this voting method is supplied immediately below in Section 6.2.1.
  • Alternately, it is sufficient for Full Members to mark the paper Voting Form ballot, and return it to the Managing Director via electronic mail as a scanned image file or PDF. The Managing Director shall use reasonable efforts to assure that the received email has been sent from a domain name that appears to be from a Full Member organization. The 2011 Voting Form is attached to this Meeting Notice.

6.2.1 Web Ballots

Full Members wishing to vote by electronic ballot shall vote at the following URL:

https://www.sipforum.org/vote

Because this URL is actually login-protected, the actual procedure to vote is as follows:

  1. Log in. Login to the SIP Forum website using the username of your designated voting representative.
    (Please contact the SIP Forum Managing Director to confirm, or change, the name of this representative.)
  2. Find the ballot. When logged in, a menu entry entitled “2011 Gen’l Meeting Vote” will appear in the User Menu in the upper left corner. Click this entry. A ballot form will appear.
  3. Board candidate question. Please rank your vote for Board Member candidates. Note that the candidate list will be dynamically rearranged to show your ranking as you rank each candidate. Please do NOT rank two candidates equally.
  4. Liability Discharge question. Vote Yes or No on the liability discharge question.
  5. Dissolution of the Swedish SIP Forum Shell Corporation question. Vote Yes or No on the proposal to dissolve the Swedish SIP Forum shell corporation.
  6. Vote. Click Submit Vote to complete your vote.

You may then log out of the website.

6.2.2 Email Ballots

Follow this procedure to vote by email:

  • Mark the Voting Form ballot (as above)
  • Print, and sign a paper copy of the marked ballot document
  • Scan the marked ballot document, and email the scanned, signed document to Marc Robins, the SIP Forum Managing Director. (PDF, JPG, TIFF, or GIF are all acceptable electronic formats)

Please note that you may NOT simply send an email with your voting choices in the email body.

6.3 – Deadline for Ballot Return for Proxy Voting

Ballots sent to the Managing Director to be handled by proxy must be received

ON OR BEFORE MONDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2011 (one business day before the Annual General Meeting) in order to be counted.

Ballots cast via the web page method may be cast at any time up until the Managing Director calls for the voting time to be closed at the Annual General Meeting. (This will permit electronic votes to be cast after Board candidates have answered questions from members at the general meeting.)

6.4 – Ballot Counting

Ballots, including those received in email, via fax, and those cast on the web interface, will be counted when the vote is called in the Annual General Meeting.  Results will be announced at the meeting (assuming the tally method results in clear winners), and official minutes taken to reflect the voting.

– END –

SIP Forum 2011 General Meeting Notice
November 13, 2011

Document number: GA-21-0

Upcoming Events