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 (OB-USP-Agent) Project.
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.
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.
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.
