OFC/NFOEC Keynote Speakers Announced

High-speed broadband deployment challenges, software-defined networks and cloud services are keynote topics to be discussed by three industry leaders at the 2013 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition/National Fiber Optics Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC) in Anaheim, Calif., in March.

The preliminary lineup of speakers for the plenary session includes Caio Bonilha and Nick McKeown; Joe Weinman will deliver the keynote address at the Service Provider Summit, OFC/NFOEC’s flagship show floor program. Their talks will highlight developments in optical communications technology, discuss current industry trends and provide insight into the field’s future growth.

Bonilha, a 30-year veteran of the telecommunications industry and president of Telebrás in Brazil, will give a plenary presentation titled, “Telebrás National Backbone: Deployment Challenges.” The talk will focus on the company’s deployment of Brazil’s 20,000 miles of national broadband backbone. The project is part of Brazil’s national broadband plan, which aims to significantly expand broadband density and support local telecom technology deployment as well as act as a neutral network.

The second plenary talk will be presented by McKeown, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University who is known for his pioneering work to develop software-defined networking (SDN) and OpenFlow. His presentation, “Software-Defined Transport Networks,” will cover the development of SDN and OpenFlow and their potential impacts on the future of optical networking. SDN is an emerging approach to network architecture that separates control from the hardware and gives it to a software application.

Weinman, senior vice president of cloud services and strategy at Telx, will present the Summit keynote presentation titled, “The Impact of Cloudonomics on the Network.” The talk will focus on potential advancements and technology developments in the fast-growing cloud computing business.

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