Fierce Telecom Presents:
Telecom Blitz Week
Winter Edition
January 19-21, 2021 Free Virtual Event
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
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Agenda

TUESDAY,
JANUARY 19
11:00AM-12:00PM ET:
The WFH Revolution: Network Strategies

TUESDAY,
JANUARY 19
2:00PM-3:00PM ET:
Access Network Evolution: What's Next?

WEDNESDAY,
JANUARY 20
11:00AM-12:15PM ET:
The Telco Edge Cloud Opportunity

WEDNESDAY,
JANUARY 20
2:00PM-3:15PM ET:
Network Disaggregation and Virtualization

THURSDAY,
JANUARY 21
11:00AM-12:10PM ET:
Closing the Digital Divide
AGENDA
TUESDAY, JANUARY 19
11:00AM-12:00PM ET:
The WFH Revolution: Network Strategies
In the telecom world, two big things became apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic: 1) the wired connection to the home and the associated Wi-Fi service are critical; and 2) enterprises must connect their employees to work from home (WFH). What steps are service providers taking to ensure that home broadband connections, are robust enough for the lingering WFH phenomenon? What did they learn from the experience of setting up employees to WFH? How did SD-WAN, VPN and security technologies play into WFH?
11:00AM-11:15AM: Keynote Interview with Masergy's Vice President of Innovation
11:15AM-12:00PM: Panel Discussion
Speakers

KEYNOTE INTERVIEW
Ray Watson
Vice President of Innovation
Masergy

KEYNOTE INTERVIEW
Mike Robuck
Editor
Fierce Telecom

PANELIST
Mike Frane
Vice President, Product Management
Windstream

PANELIST
Aryo Kresnadi
Technical Director
FedEx

PANELIST
Mike Lawson
Manager, SD-WAN Solution Architecture
Lumen

PANELIST
Pascal Menezes
Chief Technology Officer
MEF

MODERATOR
Mauricio Sanchez
Research Director
Dell'Oro
AGENDA
TUESDAY, JANUARY 19
2:00PM-3:00PM ET:
Access Network Evolution: What's Next?
Perhaps the most valuable asset owned by the telcos and cablecos is their last-mile connection to homes and businesses. In fact, the big cloud providers are partnering with service providers to gain access to those homes and businesses. But these access connections rely on a variety of technologies, some of which are very complicated and asymmetric. Based on conversations at Cable-Tec Expo, operators are forging ahead with DOCSIS 3.1 and 4.0. But are telcos and cablecos also making headway by rolling out fiber in the last mile? What’s the status of PON technologies in all its various flavors? Which operators are pursuing distributed access architectures (DAA)? And how does virtualization play in the access network?
2:00PM-2:15PM: Keynote with Comcast's SVP Next Generation Access Networks
2:15PM-3:00PM: Panel Discussion
Speakers

KEYNOTE
Elad Nafshi
SVP Next Generation Access Networks
Comcast

PANELIST
Jan Ariesen
Chief Technology Officer
Technetix

PANELIST
Jeff Finkelstein
Executive Director Advanced Technologies
Cox Communications

PANELIST
Michael Scardina
Director of Network Strategies and Technologies
Armstrong

MODERATOR
Jeff Heynen
Vice President and Analyst, Broadband Access and Home Networking
Dell'Oro Group
AGENDA
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20
11:00AM-12:15PM ET:
The Telco Edge Cloud Opportunity
Distributed networking means there will be more telco edge clouds that provide compute, storage and networking closer to end users. But telcos will have to compete with others who are building edge clouds, including edge-as-a-service vendors, public cloud providers and data center/co-location hosts. What do these telco edge clouds look like? What advantages do telco edge clouds have over edge clouds from other entities? Where do partnerships between public cloud providers and service providers make sense? And what are the tradeoffs between processing data at the edge versus more central locations?
11:00AM-11:15AM: Keynote Interview with Vodafone's Head of Cloud Portfolio
11:15AM-11:30AM: Partner Keynote with IBM's Global Director for Cloud, 5G Network and Edge Computing
11:30AM-12:15PM: Panel Discussion
Speakers

KEYNOTE INTERVIEW
Jennifer Didoni
Head of Cloud Portfolio Management
Vodafone Business

KEYNOTE INTERVIEW
Linda Hardesty
Editor-in-Chief
Fierce Telecom

PARTNER KEYNOTE & PANELIST
Bill Lambertson
Global VP for Cloud, 5G Network and Edge Computing
IBM Telecommunications, Media and Entertainment Industry

PANELIST
Ron Lev
Executive Director of New Growth
Cox Communications

PANELIST
Renu Navale
Vice President/GM of Edge Computing & Ecosystem Enabling
Intel

MODERATOR
Roy Chua
Founder and Principal
AvidThink
AGENDA
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20
2:00PM-3:15PM ET:
Network Disaggregation and Virtualization
Following the trend of the big cloud players, telcos are finally getting on board with network disaggregation by decoupling hardware from software. This network disaggregation allows telcos to use generic hardware, running the most up-to-date software. At the same time, they’re also virtualizing their core network infrastructure, oftentimes skipping the virtual machine (VM) phase and moving straight to containers. Are the data center vendors in the telco ecosystem helping to drive these new technologies? Is there a struggle at service providers to get their teams up-to-speed on new technologies such as Kubernetes for container management? What new applications will telco network virtualization enable?
2:00PM-2:15PM: Keynote with Linux Foundation's GM Networking +Edge/IoT
2:15PM-2:30PM: Partner Keynote with Google Cloud's Global Head of Networks Cloud, Telecom Industry Solutions
2:30PM-3:15PM: Panel Discussion
Speakers

KEYNOTE
Arpit Joshipura
GM Networking +Edge/IoT
Linux Foundation

PARTNER KEYNOTE
Dr. Ramesh Nagarajan
Global Head of Network Cloud, Telecom Industry Solutions
Google Cloud

PANELIST
Run Almog
Head of Product Strategy
DriveNets

PANELIST
Rajesh Gadiyar
Vice President of Data Platforms Groups & CTO Network Platforms Group
Intel

PANELIST
Randy Levensalor
Principal Architect
CableLabs

PANELIST
David Shacochis
VP of Enterprise Technology and Field CTO
Lumen

MODERATOR
Zeus Kerravala
Founder and Principal Analyst
ZK Research
AGENDA
THURSDAY, JANUARY 21
11:00AM-12:10PM ET:
Closing the Digital Divide
The COVID-19 crisis has finally brought “closing the digital divide” to top of mind for everyone, from the FCC to the big cable and telecom operators. Which technologies will be best for bringing broadband to rural areas? Will tier-1 cablecos and telcos be getting into the fixed wireless access (FWA) action? Is this new focus on rural areas just the opportunity that satellite operators have been waiting for? And what funding opportunities such as Universal Service Funds (USF) and the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) could propel the progress?
11:00AM-11:25AM: Keynote Interview with Facebook's VP for Connectivity
11:25AM-12:10PM: Panel Discussion
Speakers

KEYNOTE INTERVIEW
Dan Rabinovitsj
VP for Connectivity
Facebook

KEYNOTE INTERVIEW
Sue Marek
Contributing Editor
Fierce Telecom

PANELIST
Jeff Austin
Senior Director of Field Operations
Consolidated Communications

PANELIST
Shirley Bloomfield
CEO
NTCA

PANELIST
Jim DaBramo
President, Broadband Solutions
NRTC

MODERATOR
Jeff Heynen
Vice President and Analyst, Broadband Access and Home Networking
Dell'Oro Group