Members from AT&T, Axiros, CommScope, Ericsson, Juniper, Net Reply, Nokia, PNSol and
TIM were among those presented with accolades
Fremont, California, 8 March 2022 – Broadband Forum has recognized and honored a
number of key industry players with a host of awards at its annual Q1 Meeting this week.
Broadband Forum awarded its Distinguished Fellow accolade to CommScope’s John
Blackford. Appointed as the Broadband Forum Chairman in 2020, Blackford has made integral
contributions for almost two decades. He has trailblazed flagship projects such as the TR-069
protocol, and driven the specification and development of the User Services Platform (USP)
in the Broadband User Services (BUS) Work Area and the Open Broadband-USP-Agent (OBUSP-Agent) Project.
“I am grateful to be receiving this esteemed recognition from the Broadband Forum for all my
contributions,” said Blackford, who is a Product Management Director with CommScope’s
Home Networks business segment. “The work of the Broadband Forum is crucial for the
development of open industry standards and an accelerated broadband ecosystem globally. I
am proud to be an active participant, because the Broadband Forum continues to drive
innovation and growth within the industry.”
The Distinguished Fellow award is presented to individuals who have displayed dedicated
service and leadership in the advancement of the broadband networking industry and their
vision that continues to inspire industry growth. Blackford’s leadership, innovation and
contribution since his first participation in 2004 has provided an exemplary and lasting
impact on the Forum and broadband community.
The Q1 Meeting follows another successful year for the Broadband Forum, as it celebrated a
ten-year high in membership numbers, with 178 members involved in driving industry
standards to strengthen broadband deployments worldwide.
Dave Allan, of Ericsson, received the Special Recognition award due to his profound impact
on not only technology and architecture, but the industry as a whole. A Distinguished Fellow
since 2010, Allan has an extraordinary history of accomplishments with the Broadband Forum,
as a technical contributor and ambassador in addition to his formal leadership roles. Across
more than two decades, Allan’s contributions, innovation and leadership have brought the
broadband industry from its start with ATM in the mid 1990s, through Ethernet and MPLS to
its convergence today with mobile networks through all of the enhancements and change in
between.
“One of the great pleasures of my career has been working with the Broadband Forum
community. As a group we’ve managed to produce some industry impacting work and have
always found ways to enjoy the journey wherever it took us,” Allan said.
In recognition of their sustained excellence in advancing the mission of the Broadband
Forum, the Circle of Excellence award was presented to Greg Mirsky, of Ericsson, Rosaria
Persico, of TIM, Richard Holme, of CommScope, and Peter Thompson, of Predictable
Network Solutions (PNSol).
In addition to his dedicated leadership of the Performance, Experience, and Application
Testing (PEAT) Project Stream, Mirsky has made key contributions on notable initiatives
such as TR-390 Issue 2, TR-459, TR-471 Issue 2, and TR-304.
Persico was honoured for her dedication in driving significant work items in the Wireless
Wireline Convergence (WWC) and Access and Transport Architecture (ATA) Work Areas
over a number of years.
Critical to the worldwide adoption of Broadband Forum’s USP, Holme was presented with
the award for his initiative and dedication to the ongoing maintenance of the OB-USP-Agent
project.
Thompson was commended for his instrumental lead throughout the Broadband Quality
Experience Delivered (QED) project, which standardizes improvements for the overall
broadband experience and management of network latency, consistency, and reliability.
Also among the accolades was the Leadership award, which was given to three industry
notables who have led Broadband Forum work in a variety of positions. Barbara Stark, of
AT&T, served as a Work Area leader and Board Member, known for her distinguished work
on the globally deployed TR-069 standard and USP. David Allan for more than two decades
of leadership across multiple Work Areas and George Dobrowski, a Distinguished Fellow
award recipient in 2014, for his continued leadership in the Technical Committee and on the
Board.
“To be awarded this accolade alongside Barbara and Dave is fantastic, and I am confident
that the Broadband Forum will continue to drive innovation in the industry for years to come,”
Dobrowski said. “Following two unprecedented years due to the pandemic, it is more
important than ever to take a step back and celebrate the achievements of such hardworking individuals who are helping to shape the future of the broadband ecosystem.”
The Outstanding Contribution award was presented to individuals who have played an integral
role in driving contributions, innovation and enhancement in Broadband Forum work . The
awards were bestowed to; Al Morton, of AT&T; Antonio Marchetta, of Net Reply; Fabio Giudici,
of Outsys; Ludwig Pauwels, of Nokia; Thales Fragoso, of Axiros; and Venkatesh Padebettu,
of Juniper.
For more information on Broadband Forum and its work, please visit: https://www.broadbandforum.org/.
About the Broadband Forum
Broadband Forum is the communications industry’s leading open standards development organization
focused on accelerating broadband innovation, standards, and ecosystem development. Our members’
passion – delivering on the promise of broadband by enabling smarter and faster broadband networks
and a thriving broadband ecosystem.
Broadband Forum is an open, non-profit industry organization composed of the industry’s leading
broadband operators, vendors, thought leaders who are shaping the future of broadband, and observers
who closely track our progress. Its work to date has been the foundation for broadband’s global
proliferation and innovation. For example, the Forum’s flagship TR-069 CPE WAN Management
Protocol has nearly 1 billion installations worldwide.
Broadband Forum’s projects span across 5G, Connected Home, Cloud, and Access. Its working groups
collaborate to define best practices for global networks, enable new revenue-generating service and
content delivery, establish technology migration strategies, and engineer critical device, service &
development management tools in the home and business IP networking infrastructure. We develop
multi-service broadband packet networking specifications addressing architecture, device and service
management, software data models, interoperability and certification in the broadband market.
Our free technical reports and white papers can be found at https://www.broadband-forum.org/.
Follow us on Twitter @Broadband_Forum and LinkedIn.
For more information about the Broadband Forum, please go to https://www.broadband-forum.org/ or
follow @Broadband_Forum on Twitter. For further information please contact Brian Dolby on +44 (0)
7899 914168 or brian.dolby@proactive-pr.com or Josh Wright on +44 (0)7795 615466 or
josh.wright@proactive-pr.com.
