The Broadband Forum recognized significant contributions made to the successful development of broadband open standards at its first quarterly meeting of the year.
MaxLinear’s Dr. Aleksandra Kozarev was recognized as a Distinguished Fellow for helping drive forward copper technologies including G.fast, G.hn, MoCA, and VDSL2 across the industry. She has also been a driving force behind FANCE (Fiber Access Network Copper Extensions), opening the path for extending fiber fed services into the premises.
“It is a great honor to be recognized as a Distinguished Fellow as this prestigious accolade places me in great company alongside past honorees,” said Dr. Kozarev. “The Broadband Forum allows all members across the globe to learn, collaborate and share knowledge, inspiring passion and allowing us to drive the development of standards across the industry.”
Dr. Kozarev was praised for persistently demonstrating the skills necessary to lead complex projects to fruition for the benefit of the entire global industry and as a member of the Board of Directors for the instrumental role she continues to play in the Broadband Forum.
Circle of Excellence awards were presented to Daniel Egger (Axiros) and Jonathan Newton (Vodafone) for consistently exhibiting leadership and diligence in pursuit of advancing the Forum’s mission. Mr. Egger’s key contributions to many areas of the Connected Home, Open Source projects and expertise in remotely managing Connected Home devices were recognized. He was also recognized for his leadership in the Broadband User Services Work Area and for championing the Connected Home Council and User Services Platform (USP), taking a key role in educating the wider industry.
Mr. Newton was thanked for his contribution and leadership in the Access and Transport Architecture Work Area’s Disaggregated Broadband Network Gateway (DBNG) and Quality of Experience Delivered (QED) projects over the past few years. Newton’s contributions to the marketing of the Forum’s work on these two projects helped broaden the industry exposure and engagement within the work. Newton also actively contributed to ‘5G Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) Architecture’ (TR-470) and ‘Access Gateway Function (AGF) Functional Requirements’ (TR-456) to help Broadband Forum provide a practical roadmap to deliver 5G convergence.
Outstanding Contributor awards were given to; Al Morton (AT&T), Peter Thompson (PNSol), David Woolley (Telstra), Mateusz Lech (Orange), Marcos Martinez Vazquez (MaxLinear), Ruobin Zheng (Huawei Technologies), Nick Hancock (Adtran) and Rosaria Persico (TIM). The award is given to individuals who went above and beyond the call of duty with the quality and quantity of their contributions, as well as moving the consensus process forward throughout the year within the Forum work areas.
“2020 was a year full of challenges and saw the broadband community come together as one to continue to work together constructively and collaboratively to keep the industry progressing and thriving,” said Broadband Forum Chairman John Blackford. “It goes without saying that we are delighted to recognize the important contributions these individuals have made in helping the Forum break into new areas of technology, and their vision continues to inspire our industry’s growth.”
The Q1 meeting saw Broadband Forum celebrate multiple successes, including an increase in the number of new members participating in its work that culminated in the publication of a new Technical Report every two weeks last year. The Forum notes that its certification programs continue to gain industry-wide traction, and its vBASe sessions attracted nearly 400 registrations on average per event and more than 4,000 downloads.
For more information on Broadband Forum and its work, please visit: https://www.broadband-forum.org/.