Skip to content
HomeAbout the SIP ForumAnnual Meetings and Reports2018 Annual General Meeting Notice

2018 Annual General Meeting Notice

Meeting Date: Thursday, 14 March 2019

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:

Thursday, 14 March 2019
1:00pm – 2:30pm 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 2018, 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 two items.

2.1 – Voting Items

Two official voting items are on the agenda:

Please note:

As the 2018 Annual General Meeting will be held remotely, via WebEx, all Full Member Representatives must submit their email 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 in order to have a valid vote regarding the Discharge item.

The deadline described below for returning ballots via surface mail is Monday, 11 March 2019 and via fax or email Tuesday, 12 March 2019.

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 six (6) Board seats opening this year. They include six seats held by current directors Victor Pascual Avila, Mary Barnes, Martin Dolly, Andy Hutton, Robert Kinder, and Chris Wendt.

The seats held by Russ Penar, Gary Richenaker, Greg Rogers, Gernot Scheichl and Richard Shockey are not expiring.

3.1 – Voting Limits

Our current Bylaws indicate that only four Directors may be Participant Members at any one time. Since the seats occupied by two participant members (Victor Pascual Avila and Martin Dolly) are up for election, and the seats held by Richard Shockey and Gernot Scheichl are Participant board member seats, up to two Participant (Individual) Members can be elected in this election (which includes Martin Dolly if re-elected).

As there are six candidates for six open board seats, each candidate will be elected as long as they receive votes from at least 50% of the total number of eligible, voting Full Members. On the voting form, you will be voting by expressing a preference order for candidates.

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 via email, 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 (via email) can utilize the proxy voting form provided with this general meeting announcement package to vote via Fax or by sending the completed form by mail. 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.

The Board strongly urges you to submit the voting form via email, submitted directly to Marc Robins, the SIP Forum Managing Director at marc.robins@sipforum.org.

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 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 – Mary Barnes – iconectiv

3.4.1.1 – Statement of Candidacy

I have been working with SIP and other Internet protocols since 1998, having developed specifications in various SDOs and forums including IETF, 3GPP, ATIS, MWIF (since merged with OMA), IMTC (since merged with MEF) and UCIF. I have been involved in the SIP Forum since 2001 and previously chaired the User Agent Configuration Profile Task Group. My primary motivation in continuing in my SIP Forum BoD position is to ensure that the interoperability of SIP continues to improve. SIPconnect 3.0 is on the horizon and I think it will be important to consider the role of video in this specification.

As has been shown, the SIP Forum IPNNI task group (joint with ATIS) is essential to ensuring that we as an industry continue to work towards interoperability supporting an all IP infrastructure and of course continuing the development of a solution for Secure Telephone Identities and mechanisms to prevent caller ID spoofing. We have completed major milestones towards this in the past two years and need to continue the momentum to complete solutions for enterprise scenarios.

I believe that the SIP Forum has an important role in continuing to define interoperability specifications, profiles and certification to facilitate the further deployment of SIP infrastructure and endpoints. And, last, but certainly not least, I think we need to continue to evolve the SIPNOC event as we’ve now established a solid level of participation, and after the 2018 event it is likely to continue to grow.

3.4.1.2 – Biography

Mary Barnes is an Industry Relations Senior Advisor with iconectiv. Mary has been involved in system architecture and product development for real-time communication systems for over 25 years, focusing for the past 20 years on IP communications and standards development. She has been an active contributor and document editor for the ATIS/SIP Forum IPNNI task group, serving as editor of ATIS-1000080 (Certificate Management) and ATIS-1000084 (Operational Considerations for the Certificate Management and Policy Administrator).

She is an active contributor to the IETF. She is the author of RFCs/specifications relating to the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Centralized Conferencing, NAT/Firewall traversal, Geographic Location Delivery, Telepresence, Automated Certificate Management (ACME) and Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR).

She currently serves as chair of the DISPATCH working group in the Applications and RealTime (ART) Area. She is a past board member of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and past chair of the IETF CLUE (telepresence) WG and the SIPPING WG. Mary also served as the Vice-chair of the Technical WG in the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF) (since merged with the IMTC who has since merged with MEF).

Prior to iconectiv, Mary worked as a consultant for a broad range of organizations including a startup, a cable service provider and the UK government. Prior to setting up her consultancy, her experience included a position as Principal Engineer in the Video Solutions Group at Polycom and various positions at Nortel. Her final role was as Senior Advisor for Nortel, leading the IETF standards strategy for the Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions business unit (now Genband). She was also a senior manager/advisor for Nortel’s 3G IP research, participating in industry standards forums and prototyping a mobile IP based system.

She is the inventor of several patents related to this work. She also designed and developed real-time software for Nortel’s DMS-based GSM and Enterprise products. Prior to her 22 years at Nortel, Mary developed real-time embedded software for GPS and video reconnaissance systems for Texas Instruments. Mary has a BS in Computer Science with a minor in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.

3.4.2 – Martin Dolly – AT&T

3.4.2.1 – Statement of Candidacy
3.4.2.2 – Biography

Martin has been with AT&T Bell Laboratories/AT&T Labs for 33 years, where his areas of expertise being in security, signaling, and services, particularly Government Priority Services.

As Lead Member of Technical Staff, Martin is responsible for Signaling and Security Standards representing AT&T and DHS/OEC in 3GPP CT 1/3/4 (Signaling) Working Groups, 3GPP SA3 (Security), and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). In addition, Martin chairs and is one of the main contributors to the anti-Robocalling standards efforts in the ATIS-SIP Forum Task Force.

Martin has represented AT&T and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) on multiple Working Groups of the FCC’s CSRIC, mostly recently on Working Group 8: “Priority Services,” and CSRIC Working Group 10 – SS7/Diameter Vulnerabilities of the FCC’s CSRIC V, and the 5G (IoT)and Software-Defined Network & Network Function Virtualization Sub-Working Group’s of the Cybersecurity Working Group of the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council.

3.4.3 – Andrew Hutton – Atos

3.4.3.1 – Statement of Candidacy

For many years I have been actively involved in the development and deployment of SIP based products and seen SIP move from the early adopter phase to the current position in which SIP is widely deployed and the real-time communications protocol of choice. I have actively participated in the development of SIP protocol standards in the IETF and other standards bodies and chaired the IETF Working Group for SIP based media recording (SIPREC).

I was first elected to the SIP Forum board in December 2012 and at that time I stated that I would help to extend the reach of the SIP Forum in to Europe and that I would work to keep SIPconnect relevant and current. I therefore developed links with other industry forums in both Germany (BITKOM) and the UK Telecom Standards body (NICC) both of which endorsed SIPconnect for their national SIP Trunking specifications.

I am currently working with the NICC (UK) on UK Telecom standards related to the deployment of SIP by UK Telecom Service Providers, Next Gen Emergency Services, and the PSTN shutdown.

Regarding the SIP Forums SIP Trunking specification (SIPconnect) then I was a co-editor in the development of SIPconnect2.0 and actively supported the development of SIPconnect1.1 and the associated certification program.

I would very much appreciate your support.

3.4.3.2 – Biography

Andrew Hutton is an Atos Distinguished Expert and Head of Standardization at Unify the Communications and Collaboration division of Atos.

Andy has over 25 years experience within the communications industry and is an experienced software engineer with extensive knowledge of communications protocols. Within Atos he now leads the Atos Expert Community in the domain of Telecom & Network technologies.

Andy has many years’ hands on experience developing SIP based communications products (SIP Phones, Gateways and Servers) and has been engaged in many projects related to SIP based multi-vendor interoperability.

An active supporter of open standards based communications; Andy is active in the IETF as well as in other international standards organizations and forums.

Andy is a Chartered IT Professional member of the British Computer Society (MBCS CITP).

https://twitter.com/huttonandy

3.4.4 – Philip Linse – CenturyLink

3.4.4.1 – Statement of Candidacy

There is little in life that is not somehow connected with communications and most people have some personal history with communications, many who have at least one relative that has worked or is working in Telecommunications.

I am the third generation in my family to work in telecommunications. From cord board to electro-mechanical to modern digital circuit switching, and now VoIP. Today, SIP is the dominant signaling protocol for voice communications over IP and is leading the way to the transition away from legacy circuit switch services both to serve the consumer as well as the enterprise markets.

I see the SIP Forum as the interoperability liaison between the private enterprise networks and the carriers that are the service providers that connect businesses with their customers, further paving the way for the transformation of communications networks worldwide.

Over the last six years I have become increasingly involved in the efforts addressing robocall issues that have confronted CenturyLink such as the SIP Forum/ATIS IPNNI’s Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs (SHAKEN) standards development, Co-Chair of the ATIS Test bed Landscape Team (TLT), FCC’s Industry Robocall Strike Force and the FCC’s Call Authentication Trust Anchor Working Group. The SIP Forum has been an ideal partner in this effort and I feel will be the key to propagating the benefits of the SHAKEN technology beyond what would have otherwise been unknown to those other than the service provider community.

With a diverse background from outside plant engineering to unbundling the local switching and signaling networks to divesting the Bell Operating Companies from their Toll Free administration obligation and now the transition to an all IP based voice network, I would consider it a tremendous opportunity to serve on the SIP Forum Board.

I appreciate your consideration and look forward to working with the extraordinary and equally diverse team that makes up the SIP Forum Board.

3.4.4.2 – Biography

Philip Linse, Director of Public Policy represents CenturyLink in various industry standards forums such as INC, SNAC, NGIIF, PTSC, IPNNI and as Co-chair of the FCC’s North American Numbering Council’s Contract Oversight Subcommittee as well as providing CenturyLink with policy consult on the technology transformation as the result of the ongoing transition to IP technology.

Mr. Linse’s background spans over 20 years in telecommunications consisting of, intercarrier and vendor contract negotiations, economic analysis and modeling, OSP engineering, and subject matter expert on network issues associated with interconnection, switching, signaling, and signaling databases. Philip currently serves on the board of directors with the Telecommunications History Group LLC. He also holds a Bachelors degree from the University of Northern Iowa.

In previous roles with CenturyLink (formerly Qwest), Philip represented Qwest in regulatory hearings, intercarrier contract negotiations, industry standards groups, and FCC NRIC focus groups as a subject matter expert on network issues associated with interconnection, switching, signaling, and signaling databases.

Philip also developed network strategies and policies that directed the unbundling of Qwest’s networks pursuant to the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Philip began his career as an Outside Plant contract drafter in Montana and Loop Technology Planning Engineer for Pacific Bell in California.

3.4.5 – Chris Wendt – Comcast

3.4.5.1 – Statement of Candidacy

My entree into the service provider and SIP telephony world began 13 years ago when joining Comcast. Probably not the most traditional path for most currently in the telecommunications industry, over my years at Comcast I have worked closely with many SIP/IMS equipment providers and have in-depth first hand design experience of deploying large scale IMS and SIP services for both residential and commercial.

As one of the first service providers to fully deploy IMS, I was deeply involved with design and architecture of our primary vendors’ IMS implementations and covering the deployment issues not covered in IMS specs particularly around scale, HA, failover, geo-redundancy, LEA, and device management and provisioning. As part of my role, I also worked closely with CableLabs and the definition of the PacketCable 2.0 specification with its eventual integration into 3GPP specifications.

Most of my focus for the past 8 years has been on the vision of extending communications beyond just voice and the telephone. Exploring technologies like WebRTC, push notification, multi-user chat, video conferencing, and CPaaS architectures, I have been leading the definition and implementation of Comcast’s next generation communications infrastructure as a platform for building communications into applications on mobile and set-top box devices, and extending communications as a platform for building communications capabilities into new applications and on new devices.

Recently, as co-author of many of the IETF STIR specifications as well as co-chair and co-author of many of the SHAKEN specification, I have been at the forefront of driving and guiding how we implement call validation and consumer protection around illegitimate calling techniques an critical and important topic for keeping the telephone network safe and viable as a usable consumer service.

I bring to SIP Forum my past SIP deployment experience as well as some of the perspective on how “real-time communications” is evolving and how it impacts the communications service provider world to the SIP Forum, and hope my position and perspective can be a positive influence on the direction of the SIP Forum going forward.

3.4.5.2 – Biography

Chris Wendt is currently Director of Technical R&D for Comcast IP Communications platform services. For much of Chris’s 20+ year professional career, he has been involved in multimedia communications, from early work at Bell Labs on DSP algorithms for 3D positional audio and low-bitrate voice codec work using the MBone VoIP network, to RTSP streaming of MPEG-4 video, audio, and 3D facial animation, to his current work with Comcast on one of the largest current deployments of IMS/SIP and latest focus on RTC-based next generation communications and applications.

Chris has held positions including software architect of mobile chipset multimedia solutions, leading startup software engineering teams building video streaming services, and spent 4 years as an independent consultant on many projects involving video/audio codecs and IP streaming.

Chris is currently a co-chair of the ATIS/SIP Forum IP-NNI Joint Task Force, co-chair of the STI-GA Technical Commitee and follows closely activities in the 3GPP, IETF and W3C. He holds a BS in Music, and a BSEE, and MSEE from Drexel University in Philadelphia.

3.4.6 – Clark Whitten – Cox Communications

3.4.6.1 – Statement of Candidacy

I am focused on SIP voice with many years of design, engineering, integration, test and leading carrier service deployments. I am prepared to contribute to the SIP Forum where I can deliver value through my deep technical expertise and operational understanding. I have participated on the ATIS-SIP Forum NNI Task Force for several years and am very knowledgeable about STIR/SHAKEN.

3.4.6.2 – Biography

Clark Whitten is Principal Engineer with Cox, where he is responsible for solution architectures, service infrastructure core specifications, and CPE specifications supporting Cox’s residential and business voice services.

With over 20 years of experience, Clark previously held positions as a Sales Engineer, Systems Engineer, System Integrator, Tester, Designer, Project Manager (former PMP), and Architect. Clark has worked with two start-ups that were acquired by larger organizations; Media4, a data-over-satellite company, was acquired by EchoStar; and Future Network, a voice and data CPE design and development company, which was acquired by Tellabs.

Clark has been with Cox for 15 years in various roles, initially supporting integration of MGCP/NCS for Cox’s initial deployment of PacketCable 1.0 & 2.0 voice over cable services. Clark has also supported Cox’s venture into LTE mobility, SIP peering, and many other SIP-based solutions. Clark has been awarded several patents for voice and non-voice related technologies.

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. 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 – Procedure for Voting

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

5.1 – Voting by Written Proxy via Surface Mail or Fax

Included in the bundle distributed to the Full Members with this Annual General Meeting Notice is a voting form (in PDF file format) entitled “2018-sf-ballot.” If a Full Member intends to submit a ballot to vote by written proxy sent by surface mail or fax (instead of submitting one via return email), each Full Member should do the following as described immediately below in Section 5.1.1.

5.1.1 – Minimal Procedure for Proxy Voting

The Full Member shall mark the aforementioned voting form (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 the board recommends you vote for all 6 candidates.
  • Approve or reject the discharge of Directors’ liability.
  • 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 document. Please note that if surface mail is used, the Voting Form must be sent to arrive NO LATER THAN MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2019 or if Fax or email delivery is used, the Voting Form must be sent to arrive NO LATER THAN TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2019.

5.2 Electronic Voting via Email

The Board has concluded that one method is acceptable for electronic voting via email:

  • Full Members will 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.

5.2.1 Email Ballots

Follow this procedure to vote by email:

  • Print a copy of the voting form entitled “2018-sf-ballot“.
  • Mark the Voting Form by ranking your votes for Board Member candidates, and check the box to vote Yes or No on the Liability Discharge question.
  • Sign the copy of the marked voting form.
  • Scan the marked and signed voting form, and attach the associated document file to an email addressed to Marc Robins, the SIP Forum Managing Director at marc.robins@sipforum.org. (PDF, JPG, TIFF, or GIF are all acceptable electronic formats)

5.3 – Deadline for Ballot Return for Proxy Voting

Voting Form ballots sent to the Managing Director by Fax or Email to be handled by proxy must be received:

ON OR BEFORE TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2019 in order to be counted.

5.4 – 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 2018 General Meeting Notice
February 12, 2019

Document number: GA-33-0

Upcoming Events