2020 Annual General Meeting Notice
Meeting Date: Tuesday, 26 January 2021
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, 26 January 2021
1:00pm – 2:30 pm U.S. Eastern Standard Time
Via GoToMeeting. Login URL, and Dial-In Number/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 for fiscal year 2020 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 2020 Annual General Meeting will be held remotely, via GoToMeeting, all Full Member Representatives shall 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.
Votes must be received from > 75% of Full Members in order to have a valid vote regarding the proposed changes to the Bylaws.
The deadline described below for returning ballots via surface mail is Tuesday, 19 January 2021 and via fax or email Friday, 22 January 2021.
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 five seats held by current directors Mary Barnes, Martin Dolly, Philip Linse, Chris Wendt and Clark Whitten. In addition, one seat occupied by Gary Richenaker will be open due to his retirement.
The seats held by Russ Penar, 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 three participant members (Mary Barnes, Martin Dolly and Phil Linse) are up for election, and the seat held by Richard Shockey is a Participant board member seat, three Participant (Individual) Members can be elected in this election (or re-elected).
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 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 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, via email, as described in Section 5 of this notice.
The Board strongly urges you to submit a vote via email, submitted directly to Marc Robins, the SIP Forum Managing Director.
3.3 – Candidates for Election
- Martin Dolly – AT&T (current board member standing for re-election)
- Chris Drake – iconectiv
- Phil Linse – Lumen (current board member standing for re-election)
- Christopher Oatway – Verizon
- Chris Wendt – Comcast (current board member standing for re-election)
- Clark Whitten – Cox Communications (current board member standing for re-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 – Martin Dolly – AT&T
3.4.1.1 – Statement of Candidacy
3.4.1.2 – Biography
Martin Dolly is an AT&T Lead Member of Technical Staff, currently assigned to the Core & Government/Regulatory Standards organization. Martin has been with AT&T Bell Laboratories/AT&T Labs for 31 years, where his areas of expertise being in security, signaling, and services, particularly Government Priority Services.
As a Technical Consultant in the Strategic Standards Division, Martin’s focus is on the development of necessary standards for LTE/IMS deployments, Security and Identity Management, IP carrier interconnection, IP-GETS/WPS, Public Safety, signaling control protocols, and IP Network Management controls. In this capacity, Martin represents AT&T’s interests on IP signaling, security and services issues in telecommunications standards bodies such as the Packet Technologies and Systems Committee of Service Committee (PTSC) of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), NPSTC QoS and Security WG, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) CT Protocol and SA3 Security groups, as well as Study Groups in the Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T).
In addition, Martin contributes to various government Cybersecurity activities, FCC TAC & CSRIC Cybersecurity, DHS/NCS NGN GETS Security, CTIA Cybersecurity WG, and DISA LTE Security Profile.
Martin was hired into AT&T Bell Laboratory on July 8th, 1985, at AT&T Microelectronics he was part of team that developed a radiation hardened Integrated Circuit for the US Navy. In the early 1990, Martin transferred from AT&T Microelectronics to AT&T communications in Holmdel, where he worked on SS7 protocol and standards. In this role, he was a major contributor to SS7 Network to Network Interconnection (NNI) effort in support of IS 41 & GSM MAP, 8YY, Calling Card, Operator Services and voice.
Martin has contributed to many of AT&T’s SIP deployments since 2000. He is co-author of 5 IETF RFCs and contributed to many others. He contributed to and lead efforts on ISUP to SIP interworking including those in 3GPP, i3 Forum, ITU and ATIS.
Currently Martin is a driving force behind IP Interconnection, co-chair of the ATIS-SIP Forum NNI Task Force where is also the editor and major contributor to the IP NNI Profile standard and . Martin is currently co-chair of the FCC Strike Force on Robo-calling, where he is a major contributor, as well as leader.
3.4.2 – Chris Drake – iconectiv
3.4.2.1 – Statement of Candidacy
As a telecommunications executive committed to goals that advance our industry, I have had the privilege of working with top industry leaders and organizations in a collaborative effort to establish standards for interoperability, security and scale for new networking capabilities. In the process, I have gained invaluable insight into the communications landscape, which is undergoing seismic shifts. While new technologies and communications platforms continue to revolutionize the way brands and consumers connect and engage with one another, they also give rise to unforeseen challenges. The SIP Forum continues to contribute significantly to address these issues, and I would take great pride in joining the board in that mission.
With extensive telecom experience—from many years working in engineering on numerous networking protocols at Bell Northern Research to product management, operations and sales—I have sought to contribute to advancing the industry from every angle. In addition to authoring numerous papers and articles, speaking at industry events and mentoring and advising both business and consumer-facing technology start-ups, I have served on a number of influential boards including the Security and Software Engineering Research Center (S2ERC) at Georgetown University, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the Pace University Cybersecurity program. I have been contributing to the SIP-NNI taskforce since its very inception, both personally and with the broader resources at my disposal in iconectiv. As an industry, we have accomplished so much, yet there is still much more to be done. I consider the SIP Forum a very powerful vehicle for evangelizing key items such as the adoption of rich call data and delegation of SHAKEN certificates to the business sector. Ultimately, both inbound and outbound enterprise traffic have a dire need to convey end-to-end trust, an endeavor to which I wholeheartedly offer my energy, experience and even broader resources to the SIP Forum to advance.
Boards hold great potential to drive real change that positively impacts all stakeholders. Serving as a Board Director of the SIP Forum is both an honor and a responsibility I welcome.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit my Statement of Candidacy. I look forward to contributing my time, expertise and passion for an industry group that keeps the world connected securely, and at scale.
3.4.2.2 – Biography
Chris Drake, Chief Technology Officer at iconectiv, is responsible for internal and external technology initiatives including emerging opportunities in trusted communications, cybersecurity, mobile content, mobile identity, virtualization and M2M/IoT.
Chris Drake began his career at Bell Northern Research and has over 25 years in the Telecommunications industry. Prior to iconectiv, Chris held executive positions at Neustar, Sonus Networks, Telcordia Technologies as well as other companies. Drake is also an executive advisor to technology startups and had worked with the Canadian Consulate Tech Accelerator @ NYC for many years.
Chris Drake is on the board and executive committee of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and chair of the ATIS TOPS Council. Drake is a longstanding member of the CTIA cybersecurity working group and the Cybersecurity Advisory Board for the Pace University Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. He has also served on the Industrial Advisory Board for the Security and Software Engineering Research Center for Georgetown and Ball State Universities through the National Science Foundation, as well as currently serving the FCC Federal Advisory Committee, the North American Numbering Council.
3.4.3 – Phil Linse – Lumen
3.4.3.1 – 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 eight years I have become increasingly involved in the efforts addressing robocall issues that have confronted Lumen 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 continue 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.
3.4.3.2 – Biography
Philip Linse, Director of Public Policy represents Lumen 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 Lumen 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.
3.4.4 – Christopher Oatway – Verizon
3.4.4.1 – Statement of Candidacy
As a Board member, I would bring a law & economics perspective to the Forum that would hopefully be a constructive complement to other board members’ expertise. For example, as STIR/SHAKEN becomes a reality, I believe the Forum can benefit from consideration of the legal and policy backdrop within which ongoing and future technical initiatives take place.
The Forum can be most successful if its activities include exploring ways to address industry collectively challenges as well as the legal and regulatory obstacles standing in the way of the IP transition. It would be an honor to collaborate with colleagues on the board to continue the Forum’s excellent work.
3.4.4.2 – Biography
Chris Oatway is Associate General Counsel at Verizon with responsibility for cybersecurity policy as well as his company’s project of restoring trust in voice communications. Prior to Verizon, Chris was an antitrust litigator at Covington & Burling in Washington, DC, and his early legal career included stints at major law firms in Brussels and Mexico City. Before attending law school he worked as an economic consultant, providing antitrust analysis for litigation purposes and to risk arbitrageurs.
Chris has extensive experience with the legal, regulatory, and policy issues associated with robocall mitigation, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and the Truth in Caller ID Act. In addition to drafting dozens of FCC filings and interfacing extensively with various enforcement agencies and state attorneys general, earlier this year he filed a brief at the Supreme Court brief on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. He is a board member of the Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority and is a member of the Industry Traceback Group advisory committee.
3.4.5 – Chris Wendt – Comcast
3.4.5.1 – Statement of Candidacy
My entree into the voice service provider and SIP telephony world began 15 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 services.
As one of the first voice 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 10 years has been on the vision of extending communications beyond just voice and the telephone. Exploring technologies like WebRTC, pub/sub, multi-user chat, video/audio conferencing, and other CPaaS applications and 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 services, applications and on new devices.
Recently, as co-author of many of the IETF STIR specifications as well as co-chair of the IPNNI Joint Task Force and co-chair of the STI-GA Technical Committee, 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 and IP telephony deployment experience as well as some of the perspective on how new “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 25 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 multicast VoIP network, to RTSP based 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, pioneer in the securing of the telephone network with STIR/SHAKEN and 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 Committee 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 will 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, CPE specifications, and 3rd party integration 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 nearly 17 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 – Modification of Bylaws
Aside from a number of minor editorial and grammatical corrections, and a couple of minor modifications to the timing of some actions, the SIP Forum Board of Directors has proposed a number of material changes to the SIP Forum Bylaws as follows:
a. Addition of a new, fourth Participant Plus membership category that shall be non-voting but include an annual membership fee and associated benefits as determined by the SIP Forum Board of Directors.
b. An increase to the maximum number of total board seats from 11 to 15.
c. An increase to the maximum number of participant member board seats from 4 to 7.
d. Inclusion of a clause granting the Board of Directors the ability to allow individuals who are non-Directors and who are interested in serving as Directors in the future to attend informal portions of board meetings as observers.
Please review the proposed draft v.8 of the Bylaws (changes are redlined), which is available here:
The Board recommends a Yes vote on this item.
6 – 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.
6.1 – 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 “2020-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 6.1.1.
6.1.1 – 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.
- Approve or reject the the adoption of the revised SIP Forum By-Laws.
- 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 TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2021 or if Fax or email delivery is used, the Voting Form must be sent to arrive NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2021.
6.2 – 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.
6.2.1 – Email Ballots
Follow this procedure to vote by email:
- Print a copy of the voting form entitled “2020-sf-ballot.
- Mark the Voting Form by ranking your votes for Board Member candidates, check the box to vote Yes or No on the Liability Discharge question, and check the box to vote Yes or No on the Bylaws 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)
6.3 – 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 FRIDAY, 22 JANUARY 2021 (one business day before the Annual General Meeting) in order to be counted.
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 2020 General Meeting Notice
December 22, 2020
Document number: GA-37-0