Ambassador Working Group
DSL Forum Ambassadors
Dov Zimring
DSL Forum Ambassador Committee Chairperson
Director, Strategic Technology and Solutions, Occam Networks
Languages Spoken: English
Dov Zimring joined Occam Networks in 2000 as a Software Engineer helping to pioneer the Broadband Loop Carrier
product category. Zimring's expertise with IP Multicast and Multimedia Networking led him to the field, in support
of Occam's first IPTV deployment. As a result of his first-hand experience with the challenges and opportunities
service providers face when deploying IPTV and other emerging bandwidth and media rich services, Zimring began
focusing on operational Best Practices, editing multiple works in the area of Best Practices for IPTV deployments,
while also co-authoring the On-Line Reconfiguration Test Suite at the University of New Hampshire's DSL Interoperability
Labs. In addition, Zimring plays a key role in guiding Occam's future product offerings.
Zimring is a veteran technical
lead in over 40 commercial IPTV deployments, has a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Computer Science from UCSB and an MBA
from UCLA.
Yue Chen
DSL Forum Marketing Committee Chairperson
Sr. Manager, Systems Engineering, Juniper Networks
Languages Spoken: English, Chinese Yue Chen has been with Juniper Networks for 10 years, where he is a Senior Manager of
Systems Engineering. Prior to that, Yue developed networking equipment for Nortel/BNR, Motorola Codex, Wellfleet Communications / Bay Networks,
and Arris Communications / Cascade Communications. Yue was part of the founding team of two successful startup companies, Arris Communications,
and Redstone Communications; the latter was acquired by Siemens in 2000 to form its U.S. subsidiary, Unisphere Networks, which was later acquired
by Juniper Networks.
Yue holds Master of Science in E.E. from Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, New York, and Bachelor of Science in E.E. from Zhejiang University, China.
With over 18 years of industry experience, he participates and contributes to DSL Forum Architecture and Transport working group. He currently serves as
the chairman of Marketing Committee at DSL Forum.
Steve Kingdom
DSL Forum Marketing Committee Vice Chair
Technical Manager, Broadband Access, NEC Europe
Languages Spoken: English
Steve Kingdom joined NEC in 2007 as Technical Manager for Broadband Access products, covering primarily xDSL, GPON and IPTV. He previously worked for 10 years for KTL, an independent test laboratory, where he was responsible for business development. In this role, he had responsibility for developing services in DSL and GPON technologies for major network operators both within Europe and in North America.
Steve graduated from the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside with a BA (Hons) in Accountancy & Finance and a HND in Business & Finance. When he first joined KTL, he took up the role of Approvals Specialist where he became an expert in Global regulatory requirements for telecoms products. He has lead technical training courses on DSL technologies and held several management positions within KTL.
Over the past 10 years, Steve has been an active member of the DSL Forum, chairing various groups, serving on the Board of Directors from 2002 – 2006 and was the President of the DSL Forum from 2005 – 2006. In 2005, Steve also took the role of technical lead for the DSLHome™ Roadshow. In addition to the DSL Forum, Steve has also been active at several other industry forums including ITU, ETSI, DLNA and WiMAX Forum.
George Dobrowski
Member, DSL Forum Chairman & President
Director, Technology and Product Planning, Conexant
Languages Spoken: English
Keeping a pulse on technology trends and on service provider/operator networking needs, George is involved in technology and product planning at Conexant, multi-vendor interoperability programs, and positions in standards and industry forums. Previously was CTO of a startup called Ficon Technology, acquired by Conexant/GlobeSpan, which developed and licensed ATM and IP software protocol stacks. George's roots go back to Bellcore (now Telcordia) and Bell Labs where he was involved in research and development of advanced communication systems technologies and their application to large scale operator/telco networking.
In parallel with corporate responsibilities, George has held positions in industry and standards organizations such as President of The ATM Forum, on the Board of Directors, and was Chairman of the ATM Forum Worldwide Technical Committee during the 1993-1998 timeframe. George has also had leadership positions in the development of national and international broadband networking standards, T1S1.5 and ITU-T respectively.
Co-author of two books "Principles of Signaling for Cell Relay and Frame Relay" published in 1995, and "ATM and SONET Basics" published in 2000; author of numerous articles and conference papers. George has an MSEE from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, a BSEE from Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, and Assoc. Engineering Technology from New Hampshire Technical Institute, Concord, N.H.
Robin Mersh
DSL Forum Chief Operating Officer
Languages Spoken: English
Robin Mersh joined the DSL Forum as Chief Operating Officer in July 2006 and is the senior full time executive. He has worked in the telecommunications industry for over 14 years, starting in sales and sales management for Cable & Wireless and then moving on to BT before meeting his wife and moving to the US in 1999. He now lives in North Carolina. Robin has worked in business development and alliance management for various OSS software companies in the United States, mainly in network and service provisioning and activation for companies like Astracon, TTI Telecom and Evolving Systems, where he negotiated and managed several large OEM agreements. He is originally from Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London in 1992.
Tom Starr
DSL Forum Vice President and Secretary
DSL Forum Board of Directors
AT&T, Lead Member of Technical Staff
Languages Spoken: English
Tom Starr serves as DSL Forum Vice President and Chairman Emeritus, and has served as a member of the DSL Forum Board of Directors from the inception of the DSL Forum in 1994 to the present. Tom Starr is a Lead Member of Technical Staff in SBC Laboratories in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Tom is responsible for the development and standardization of new local access technologies for SBC's network. These technologies include ADSL, HDSL, and VDSL. From 1988 to 2000, Tom has served as Chairperson of ANSI accredited standards working group T1E1.4 which develops xDSL standards for the United States, received the Committee T1 Outstanding Leadership Award in 2001, and now serves at ATIS-NAI Vice-chair. Tom participates in the ITU SG15 Q4 group on xDSL international standards. Tom is a co-author of the books "DSL Advances" published by Prentice Hall in 2003, and "Understanding Digital Subscriber Line Technology" published by Prentice Hall in 1999. Tom previously worked 12 years at AT&T Bell Laboratories on ISDN and local telephone switching systems. Twelve US patents in the field to telecommunications have been issued to Tom. Tom holds a MS degree in Computer Science and a BS degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois in Urbana, IL.
Frank Van der Putten
DSL Forum Vice President and Treasurer
Standards Manager, Alcatel-Lucent
Languages Spoken: English, Dutch
Frank Van der Putten was born in Aalst, Belgium in 1963. He
obtained an Electronic Engineering Degree in Communication Techniques
from the Ghent University in 1986 and a Business Management Degree
from the Leuven University in 1991. In 1986, he joined the Ghent
University Communications and Information Transmission Laboratories
to work on image processing.
In 1988, he joined the Alcatel Research Center to continue image
processing and evolved into home networking and DSL access technologies.
From 1994, he was involved in the DAVIC standardization activities,
where he chaired the physical layer working group until end 1996.
Since then, he has been involved in DSL standardization within
the ANSI (T1.413-1998 editor), ETSI, ITU-T and the DSL Forum.
He is currently serving as Alcatel Standards Manager for wired
access networks, as ITU-T ADSL recommendations editor and as member
of the DSL Forum Board of Directors.
David Greggains
Lifetime Ambassador
Director, Greggains Management Ltd.
Languages Spoken: English
Management consulting as a director of Gorham & Partners Ltd.,
led David Greggains to become one of the originators of DSL Forum,
organizing - together with Motorola - the first exploratory meeting
in London in October 1994. Since then, Mr. Greggains has remained
active in the DSL Forum's Marketing Committee, as Chairman of
the Emerging DSLs Study Group and as an elected Director, Treasurer
and Secretary to the Board. He is a CPA (in US terms), a Certified
Management Consultant and a former Vice President of the UK Institute
of Management Consultants.
Recently, Mr. Greggains has conducted a large number of consulting
assignments for companies active in the DSL and telecommunications
fields and regularly speaks at, and Chairs, relevant conferences
and meetings. This work was preceded by a career in engineering,
complemented by work in computing, communications and accounting.
David Greggains graduated from Liverpool University, in England,
with a degree in engineering. After a short time working in consulting,
he went on to the University of California at Berkeley where he
gained the degree of Master of Science.
Kevin Foster
Member, DSL Forum Board of Directors
BT
Languages Spoken: English Bio coming soon!
Christophe Alter
Member, DSL Forum Board of Directors
France Telecom
Languages Spoken: EnglishBio coming soon!
Les Brown
Member, DSL Forum Board of Directors
Infineon Technologies
Languages Spoken: English Bio coming soon!
Phil Skeba
Member, DSL Forum Board of Directors
Business Development Director, Intel Corporation
Languages Spoken: English
Phil Skeba joined Intel in 2000 as Business Development Director for Intel's Residential Access Division and was responsible for broadband access development with major service providers (Telco, ISP and Cable) in Europe and the Americas. To take advantage of his expertise with technology, service delivery models and consumer markets, he was named to lead Digital Home Working Group (DHWG) efforts for Intel's Consumer Electronics Group (CEG) in July 2003. In this position he represents Intel CEG with customers, standards bodies and key industry associations involved in development of the digital home and associated products and technology.
In the past 15 years, Phil has compiled, and demonstrated, an impressive list of accomplishments with industry, technology and consumer associations. This background includes ongoing leadership engagements with the DSL Forum, UPnP Forum, DHWG, CEA, ATIS Committee T1 and the IEEE.
Prior to joining Intel, he was employed by SBC in a variety of management capacities including General Marketing Manager and Product Technology Division Manager for voice, data and wireless business and residential products. He is married, and the father of two sons. Skeba serves on the Board of Directors for Christian Athlete Hockey Camps, and has volunteered time to run a weeklong ice hockey camp for 150 aspiring skaters for the past 13 years.
Heather Kirksey
Member, DSL Forum Board of Directors
DSLHome-Tech Co-Chair
Senior Manager, Standards and Emerging Technologies
Languages Spoken: English
Heather Kirksey directs strategy and execution of Motive¹s device management and digital home standards initiatives, including work within the DSL Forum, UPnP Forum, Digital Living Network Alliance and Home Gateway Initiative. She currently serves as co-chair of the DSLHome Technical Working group within DSL Forum and DSL Forum liaison officer to the Home Gateway Initiative. In these capacities, Heather has been editor for numerous DSL Forum documents including WT-121: TR-069 Implementation Guidelines, WT-123: TR-069 Interoperability and Conformance Test Plans, and WT-131: ACS Northbound Interface Requirements, and also helped organize first industry-wide TR-069 plugfest. Heather joined Motive from BroadJump, where she worked in business development managing CPE partnerships and product integration efforts.
Greg Bathrick
Member, DSL Forum Board of Directors
DSLHome-Tech Co-Chair
PMC-Sierra, Ltd.
Languages Spoken: English
Greg Bathrick has been involved with the DSL Forum for over nine years and is currently on the Board of Directors. He also serves as the Co-chair of the Forum's DSLHome Technical working group. For PMC Sierra, Bathrick is involved in strategic marketing activities. He has extensive product experience in the networking and broadband market segments with a solid record of delivering network technology to broadband system vendors and network carriers. He has also held product management and engineering roles with Texas Instruments, Nokia, Alcatel, and Lucent; as well as earned a patent for improved techniques for video deployment. He holds an Engineering degree from University of New Mexico. In parallel with corporate responsibilities, he has also had leadership positions in the development of broadband networking standards with IETF and OpenView Forum.
Mauro Tilocca
Member, DSL Forum Board of Directors
Telecom Italia
Languages Spoken: English
Mauro Tilocca graduated in electronic engineering at the Politecnico of Turin in 1994. He joined CSELT, former Telecom Italia’s R&D center, the same year dealing with transport network aspects. He has been also an ETSI technical editor.
Since 1998 Mauro began working in the access network department with a main focus on xDSL. He has been involved in the specification and implementation of Telecom Italia’s DSL validation framework, lab facilities and in the scouting and qualification of DSL technologies and commercial products. He collaborated with chipset vendors within framework projects and was in charge of Telecom Italia’s Independent Test Lab third-party service. He currently manages a project supporting the engineering of Telecom Italia’s broadband network and the NGN2 platform. Mauro is responsible for the interoperability and assessment of DSL products, for the engineering of evolutionary infrastructural components
Marcin Drzymala
Member, DSL Forum Board of Directors
Telekomunikacja Polska
Languages Spoken: English Bio coming soon!
Gavin Young
DSL Forum Technical Committee Chairperson
C&W Access
Languages Spoken: English Gavin Young was a founding director of the DSL Forum and served on the board of the Forum for six years. Gavin has previously led the Network Migration and VDSL working groups within the Forum and is currently overall technical chairman of the DSL Forum.
Gavin is originally from the Isle of Wight. He received the B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University College of Swansea, Wales, in 1985, and the M.Sc. degree in Communications Engineering from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London University in 1986.
From 1986-2000 he worked at BT, first in the Laboratories then named Technical Area Leader for BT's Copper Access team covering all DSL technologies before taking over leadership of a new Access Architecture & Design team within BT. This team covered IP and ATM aspects of access systems (copper, radio & fibre) together with local loop unbundling issues.
Gavin joined AdEvia in 2000, and subsequently was promoted to CTO where he led the design of pan-European broadband networks. He then moved to Bulldog Communications (now acquired by Cable & Wireless) where he has held a variety of responsibilities from heading product development through to network operations and CTO. Gavin is currently heading the engineering team focusing on the design and architecture of the national broadband network and associated network products.
Lynn R. Merrill
Service Provider Action Council Chairman
OPASTCO Representative
President and CEO, Monte R. Lee Company, Consulting Engineers
Languages Spoken: English
Lynn is a Professional Engineer and advises clients on telecommunication issues. As President of Monte R. Lee and Company, Lynn organizes and oversees the staff's technical designs and implementation for all areas of communication including voice, video and data. Monte R. Lee and Company specializes in providing technical expertise to communication companies operating in rural areas.
Lynn is Past President and serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of Communication Engineers (ACE), serves on OPASTCO's Technical Committee and has served as Chairman of NTCA's Associate Member Advisory Council. He has also served as Secretary of the Oklahoma Power & Communication Association, and as Chairman of the Oklahoma Telephone Association Technical Education Committee. Lynn graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in engineering and holds professional licenses in thirteen states.
Laurie Gonzalez
DSL Forum Marketing Director
Languages Spoken: English, Spanish
Laurie Gonzalez joined DSL Forum in May 2000 as Marketing Director.
In this current role, she is responsible for managing all strategic
and tactical global marketing efforts, including both Marketing Communications
and classical Marketing initiatives.
DSL Forum is a large international non-profit organization, made
up of over 400 DSL vendor and service provider companies. These companies
are dedicated to collectively furthering the adoption of standards,
interoperability, flow through provisioning, and enhancing awareness,
demand and successful delivery of all forms of DSL.
From 1998 to May 2000, Mrs. Gonzalez was the lead DSL Wholesale
Product Manager for BellSouth. From 1992 to 1998, Mrs. Gonzalez was
a Senior Account Manager, handling Sprint, MCI, AT&T and Qwest's data
needs for BellSouth Interconnection Services.
William Lupton
Standards Engineer, 2Wire
Languages Spoken: English
Subject Matter Area: TR-069
William Lupton is a Standards Engineer at 2Wire. He is a key contributor to the DSL Forum's family of DSLHome standards and is co-editor of several active documents, including PD-128 (Interoperability Test Plan for TR-069 Plugfests) and WT-135 (Data Model for a TR-069 Enabled STB). He also plays an active role in the Home Gateway Initiative and monitors activity in the UPnP Forum, the DLNA, and other standards organizations. In addition, he spends part of his time developing management software for 2Wire's Home Gateway. He received the DSL Forum's Circle of Excellence award at the recent Q1 2006 meeting in Vienna.
Prior to working at 2Wire, William worked at Conexant Systems, where he was co-chair of the UPnP Forum Gateway Working Group, at the AT&T Cambridge Research Laboratory, and at a variety of observatories in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. William holds an MA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge in England.
Christele Bouchat
Standarization Expert and R&I Project Leader, Alcatel
Languages Spoken: English, French, Dutch
Subject Matter Area: DSLHome
Christele Bouchat is leading projects in the area of Home Networking and End-to-End Services in the Research and Innovation department of Alcatel, Belgium. She is also responsible for the Standardization Strategy in the area of home networks and remote management of home devices and services.
She graduated as Civil Engineer in Physics from the University of Liege, Belgium, and joined the Research and Innovation center of Alcatel in 1998.
Christele gained strong expertise during the years in a broad technical area: DSL, PON, Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing, Ethernet aggregation, data and control layer architectures and protocols, Quality of Service, Home network and services management, end-to-end architecture and Solutions.
She is actively participating at the DSLHome group of DSLForum and is editor of key technical reports and working texts. She authored many papers in various Journals and presented publications at different international conferences. She issued 15 patents in the telecommunication field.
Sven Ooghe
Network Analyst, Office of the CTO, Access Network Division, Alcatel
Languages Spoken: Dutch, English, French
Subject Matter Area: TR-101, WT-126 Sven Ooghe received an MS degree in computer science from the University of Ghent (Belgium) in 2000. He studied telecommunication networks and computer architectures at the Faculty of Applied Sciences.
In 2000, he joined Alcatel's Network Strategy Group in Antwerp, where he initially worked on Policy Based Networking and Quality of Service in access networks. Currently, he works in the Office of the CTO of the Access Networks Division, determining the access strategy and coordinating access architecture related standardization initiatives. He is also actively involved in standardization, mainly in the DSL Forum.
Peter Macaulay
DSL Forum Member
Principal Consultant, ZDSL.com (East by North, Inc.)
Languages Spoken: English
Peter Macaulay has been a member of the DSL Forum for the past 10 years and was recently
given the Outstanding Service Award by the DSL Forum for many years of service in tutorial
teaching excellence. Peter is an independent trainer and consultant focused on the successful
deployment of DSL.
Amit Cohen
Associate Vice President of System Design, ECI Telecom
Languages Spoken: English, Hebrew
Subject Matter Area: TR-101
Amit Cohen is an Associate Vice President of System Design for ECI Telecom's Broadband Access Division. Since he joined ECI Telecom in 1998 as a system architect, he has played a leading role in the design and implementation of ECI's broadband access product lines, as well as in their deployment in leading telecom operators worldwide.
In the past few years, Amit has been instrumental in the standardization of network architectures that enable the delivery of multimedia services over DSL access networks. As part of this effort, he was co-editor of ITU-T H.610 (Full-Service VDSL - System Architecture and Customer Premises Equipment) and DSL Forum TR-101 (Migration to Ethernet Based DSL Aggregation).
Amit holds a B.A. and M.Sc. in Computer Science from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.
Kevin Xu
DSL Forum Member
Senior Marketing Manager, Network Product Line, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Languages Spoken: English, Chinese
Mr. Kun Xu is Huawei’s Senior Marketing Manager of Network Product Line responsible for the marketing communications of access
network portfolios including FTTx, DSLAM, Multi-Service Access Node (MSAN) in the global marketplace. Previously, he was Huawei’s
Senior Mechanical Engineer focusing on the R&D of Telecommunication enclosure. He holds 6 patents in the Telecommunication
enclosure field. Mr. Xu has over 10 years of experience in the marketing, R&D and operations in the Telecommunication and
Automobile industry. Prior to joining Huawei, he had 3 years of teaching and research experience in university.
Mr. Xu holds a Master of Management degree from McGill University (Canada). He also obtains Master and Bachelor degrees in Engineering.
Bill Welch
DSL Forum Member
Product Line Manager, Juniper Networks
Languages Spoken: English
Bill has attended and contributed to DSL Forum since 2005 in areas of policy management and is the current editor of WT-134. Bill holds MBA from Boston College and Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston Massachusetts. With 15+ years of industry experience, he actively participates and contributes in standards activity at DSL Forum, Broadband Services Forum and CableLabs.
Bill has held Sales, Marketing and Professional services positions at Bay Networks, Nortel Networks and Unisphere Network. He currently holds a Product Line Manager position at Juniper Network for the E Series Broadband Services Router.
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