Broadband Forum appoints new leaders

Broadband Forum  announced the newly elected and re-elected members of its Board of Directors, re-election of its Technical Chair and the appointment of its Marketing Chair.

Kevin Foster, of BT, is retiring from his role as Chairman of Broadband Forum, a role that he has held since 2012. John Blackford, project lead on the Forum’s Open Broadband – USP Agent (OB-USP-Agent) implementation and Co-director of the BUS Work Area, has been appointed as Chairman. Blackford is involved in some of Broadband Forum’s most innovative work as it prepares fixed networks for the era of 5G and the Connected Home.

Newly appointed to the twelve-member Board: Francisco de Carvalho of BT, Bernd Hesse of Calix, John Blackford of CommScope, David Sinicrope of Ericsson, Frank Van der Putten of Nokia, and
Mauro Tilocca of TIM.

Other members of the Board of Directors include CEO Robin Mersh, Tom Starr of AT&T, Aleksandra Kozarev of Intel, Manuel Paul of Deutsche Telekom, Helge Tiainen of InCoax and Ning Zong of Huawei Technologies.

“As we enter a new era of connectivity, the critically important work within Broadband Forum is helping to shape how broadband evolves,” said Blackford. “I am honored to accept the role of Broadband Forum Chairman and look forward to working with our operator and vendor members and partners to ensure that fixed networks can take full advantage of the myriad of new technologies available in a scalable and cost-effective way through the development of open standards.”

Bernd Hesse was additionally appointed as Marketing Chair. Hesse has been the driving force behind the highly successful Broadband Acceleration Seminar (BASe) initiative at the Forum since 2017. In his capacity as Marketing Chair, he will focus on positioning the work of the Forum in the rapidly changing environment of 5G, high capacity PON, the multi-service Connected Home, SDN and NFV.

At the Q1 meeting, held in Budapest, Hungary, Lincoln Lavoie of the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL) was also re-elected as Technical Chair. Lavoie has participated in many of the Broadband Forum’s initiatives since 2003, such as projects on testing and interoperability of various broadband technologies, including DSL, Gfast, TR-069, GPON, and NFV/SDN.

“With the rise of open source communities, new disruptive technologies and the rapid pace at which the broadband industry is evolving, building strong partnerships with other organizations is a key part of Broadband Forum’s strategy,” said Robin Mersh, CEO of Broadband Forum. “I am delighted that some world-class leaders have been elected, at what is an exciting and pivotal time for the Forum.”