VoIP, Convergence Gain Focus at ATIS TechThink

March 21, 2006, TelecomNEXT, Las Vegas – The convergence of legacy and IP-based communications networks were the major focus of the second day of programming at ATIS TechThink, the premier technology conference partner at TelecomNEXT.

The Convergence Challenge conference program line-up included panel sessions on VoIP and QoS and a keynote by Augie Cruciotti, COO of IP Unity, on “Getting Beyond the ‘5-9s,’” and the challenge of bringing new IP-based applications to carrier-grade reliability.

The interplay of the Next Generation Network technologies and services was apparent in the overlap in the discussions of new services, with IMS being mentioned across the board and IPTV network requirements coming up during the VoIP session.

“We’re not talking about only voice, we’re talking communications, and voice is one application,” said Mark Wegleitner, senior vice president for technology and chief technology officer (CTO) of Verizon during a discussion of network planning and build-out during the ATIS TechThink session entitled VoIP – Where Do We Go From Here?

Wegleitner was joined on the panel by Eric Shepcaro, vice president of Strategy and Business Development for AT&T; Mark Fruehan, senior vice president and general manager, Verisign; Jeff Bonforte, senior director, Voice Product Management of Yahoo!; and Charlie Vogt, CEO, GENBAND.

A concurrent session on QoS in a Converged World was moderated by Ross Ireland, former SBC CTO and featured Chris Rice, executive vice president, Network Planning and Engineering, AT&T; Scott Stevens, vice president, Systems Engineering for Juniper; Jeff Schmitz, vice president, Marketing for Spirent Communications; and Paul Sanchirico of Cisco Systems.

IMS and IPTV were recurring features from Monday, with panel sessions on each. The industry strategy for the migration and deployment of IMS was discussed by Don Sparks, CTO of GENBAND; Mark Driedger, vice president of the IMS Product Management Team, Nortel Networks; Hermon Pon, vice president of Corporate Development, Tekelec; and Nicolas Mercouroff, vice president of Fixed Mobile Convergence for Alcatel.

The IPTV session included Rice; Bill Smith, CTO, BellSouth; Chris Coles, president, Myrio; and Christine Heckart, general manager, MicrosoftTV.

About ATIS

ATIS is a technical planning and standards development organization that is committed to rapidly developing and promoting technical and operations standards for the communications and related information technologies industry worldwide using a pragmatic, flexible and open approach. Participants from more than 350 communications companies are active in ATIS’ 23 industry committees and Incubator Solutions Program. www.atis.org

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