Plenary Session

Philippe Keryer
Executive Vice President, Alcatel-Lucent, USA
President, Carrier Product Group, USA

Presentation: Beyond Today’s Broadband Networks

Abstract: As end users and enterprises become further immersed in the Web and its ever-expanding possibilities, traffic is expected to grow exponentially over the next years, driven by the new generation web-based applications. Demand for bandwidth — both wired and wireless — is soaring, requiring increased capacities at submarine and terrestrial levels. As end users want seamless and always-on access to services, they also expect a quality of experience (QoE) greater than ever.

For carriers and service providers, this translates into a need to continuously scale the network across multiple dimensions while supporting the lowest total cost of ownership.

Philippe Keryer will talk about those key challenges and Alcatel-Lucent's vision on how current broadband networks have to evolve to a full IP multiservice network -“the Alcatel-Lucent’s High Leverage Network™”, with a focus on the key role optical transport innovations, technologies, and solutions have to play in this transformation.

Biography: Prior to his current role, Philippe Keryer was President of the Alcatel-Lucent Mobile Access Division, responsible for the GSM, UMTS and WiMAX radio access businesses.

Previous to that role he was President of the Alcatel-Lucent GSM/WiMAX Division.

Before Alcatel-Lucent he held several key positions at Alcatel including President of the Mobile Radio Division and President of Evolium™—a joint venture between Alcatel and Fujitsu. In addition, Philippe Keryer held various management positions at Alcatel in tendering, product management, marketing, and strategy.

He holds an engineering degree from Supélec and a “Mastère” from EDHEC, and is a board member of Alcatel Shanghai Bell and Alcatel-Lucent France. Philippe is a member of the Alcatel-Lucent Management Committee.

Brian Herlihy
President, SEACOM, Mauritius

Presentation: Broadband in Africa

Abstract: 17,000 km of undersea fiber optic cable is now linking South Africa to India and Europe via Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Djibouti and Egypt. SEACOM is the first cable to provide broadband to countries in East Africa, the last region in the world to be connected to a submarine fiber optic network. SEACOM is a major catalyst in moving the dynamic African communications market from a voice-centric model to a data-centric model based on broadband technologies. Mr. Herlihy will address the technical achievements that made possible these new milestones of connectivity.

Biography: Mr. Herlihy has extensive experience in mega-infrastructure projects in Africa spanning a number of disciplines including power generation, chemical processing plants, ports, and telecommunications. Mr. Herlihy has worked in Africa for eleven years before founding the SEACOM project in 2006. Mr. Herlihy has experience in project development, financing, and governmental liaison supported by a strong understanding of African economics.

An American citizen, his career began in the UK in 1994 in the health waste sector before joining the Bank of America as a Marketing Analyst in 1997. From 1999 to 2003, he worked on the Africa ONE project where he gained valuable African experience. In 2003 he was appointed Vice President of Development at Global Alumina, a large alumina refinery project in the Republic of Guinea before leaving to initiate SEACOM. As president, he is responsible for overseeing the full funding and implementation of the $600 million fibre optic undersea cable project.

He holds a MSc (Development Studies – African Economics) and BA (Economics and Philosophy) from the London School of Economics and Boston College respectively.

Hideo Miyahara
President, NICT, Japan

Presentation: Challenges for New Generation Networks

Abstract: In this talk, Dr. Miyahara will look back over the past five decades, during which the industry has witnessed dramatic technological changes in information and communication technologies (ICT). Dr. Miyahara will discuss the role ICT should be playing in our society over the next 50 years. Then, from the viewpoint of ICT, he will review the challenges the field will face in developing a new generation network (NWGN), which is envisioned as a post–IP network. In pursuing the NWGN program, Dr. Miyahara has come to believe that the industry needs collaborative research with specialists from various fields. He will introduce, as an example, the interdisciplinary research project currently being pursued by NICT and Osaka University.

Biography: Dr. Hideo Miyahara, born in Osaka, Japan in 1943, has been the president of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) of Japan since September 2007. He was the president of Osaka University from August 2003 to August 2007. He also was a Visiting Scientist at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center from 1983 to 1984.

Dr. Miyahara is a Life Fellow of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers of Japan. His research interests include performance evaluation of computer communication networks and distributed multimedia systems.

Dr. Miyahara has received numerous awards, including the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award in 2008, and the 6th Ericsson Telecommunications Award in 2002. He also received recognition from the Japanese Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications in 2003.