CenturyLink's (NYSE: CTL) Industry Standards Program Manager Michael Fargano has been tapped by the Broadband Forum as its new Technical Committee Chair to spearhead the development of standards required for software defined virtualized networking in broadband networks.
The new standards work will address SDN and NFV and programmability in the Multi-Service Broadband Network, FTTdp management, fixed access network sharing, hybrid access for broadband networks and TR-069 development.
While the implementation of SDN and NFV are still in early stages, service providers like AT&T (NYSE: T) and CenturyLink have made it clear that they are keen to implement more software capabilities into their network to enable businesses and consumers to get more control over their service experience.
AT&T has set a goal is to virtualize and control over 75 percent of its network using this new architecture by 2020, for example.
Working in tandem with Fargano will be William Lupton, who will lead the Broadband Forum's Software Group to create future document structures for the Forum's NFV and SDN activities.
The forum also tasked Mark Fishburn (contracted with MarketWord) to head up strategic marketing, positioning and messaging efforts.
In addition to the new technical work, the Forum elected its 2015 Board members at its first quarter meeting. The members include Tom Starr (AT&T), Lowell Lamb (Broadcom Corp.), Manuel Paul (Deutsche Telekom), and Les Brown (Huawei Technologies). Kevin Foster (BT) and Thomas Starr (AT&T) were re-appointed as Chairman and President, respectively, of the Forum.
For more:
- see the release
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