Optical Connections Webinar Series: Support Systems

Webinar 2: Why we need new architectures and support systems

Wednesday 21st June 2023 13:00 – 15:00 (BST) / 14:00 – 16:00 (CEST)

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Speakers:

Glenn Wellbrock, Verizon
Erik Pennings, Ensure
Johan Hjalmarsson, NetAdmin
Andrea Di Giglio, Telecom Italia

Moderators: Daryl Inniss, OFS – Karen Liu, Nubis Communications Inc

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Abstracts

Rural Broadband, The Final Chapter in FTTP!
Glenn Wellbrock, Verizon

The technology is available, but the business case is challenging hence the need for Government intervention / incentives. Hear how Verizon is approaching the unique nature of these rural builds by modifying existing architectures and support systems to serve both residential and business customers in remote communities!

How to stretch limits of PON networks by deploying novel splitting structures
Erik Pennings, Business Development Manager, Ensure

It is an important goal for many to create an increasingly interconnected world. High-speed internet has allowed us to stay connected, to work from home, and much more. Now that PON networks are going up in speed and/or reaching more of us, e.g. also in rural areas, there are situations where carriers can be short on fiber or run into power budget issues. For these situations, deploying novel splitting structures, such as asymmetric splitters, can offer great benefits. In the webinar, it will be detailed how these components can help and a number of interesting use cases will be discussed.

What should you consider when choosing an OSS/BSS for your fiber business?
Johan Hjalmarsson, NetAdmin

Johan discusses what to consider when choosing an OSS/BSS for a fibre business. He emphasizes the importance of OSS/BSS in the industry and highlights key factors to consider, including important processes and how fibre networks differ compared to other access technologies. Johan suggests that investing in the right tools from the beginning is crucial for building a successful fibre network.

Evolution of long-haul optical network decision support systems, adopting AI/ML
Andrea Di Giglio, Telecom Italia

The design of optical lightpaths is a complex task, involving different expertise. Often, an important margin is a part of the project both to face of the ageing of the system and to be robust to unpredictable characteristics of the components. For this reason, machine learning techniques, based on learning on set-up lightpaths can be useful for new design or for a quick recovery after a fault. Furthermore, the growing occurrences of hacker attacks on optical layer can be faced by a classification and root cause analysis based on AI/ML techniques.

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Biographies of speakers

Glenn Wellbrock is the director of optical transport network architecture, design and planning at Verizon, where he is responsible for the development and deployment of new technologies for both the metro and long haul transport infrastructure. Prior to this position, Wellbrock ran the advanced technology lab, established evaluation criteria and set engineering guidelines for all backbone transport equipment as well as various positions within network operations. In addition to his more than 20 years at Verizon (1984-2001 and 2004-present), Wellbrock was responsible for product architecture within the U.S. optical networks group at Marconi and product planning at Qplus Networks with a specific focus on developing alternative modulation techniques.

Erik Pennings is Business Development Director at Ensure, which he joined with the mission to help grow its premium connectivity business.
Prior to this, Erik worked for over 30 years in executive sales, marketing, and product management roles at companies such as Philips, JDSU (now Lumentum), CyOptics (now Broadcom), and Eudyna (now Sumitomo) as well as various business development consulting roles for 7 Pennies Consulting.
Throughout his career, Erik has been able to take a product from the initial idea, get it developed, introduce it to the market, and lead it to multimillion dollar revenues.
Erik says: “Our economy depends on people who come up with new inventions or ideas for innovative products or services and have the drive to bring them to the market. Having invented new technologies and having brought them successfully to the market myself, I very much enjoy working with entrepreneurs in order to help them reach their business goals”.
Erik has a MSc degree (Cum Laude) in Physcis, a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, and Executive MBA degrees from Simon Business School as well as Nyenrode Business University.

Johan Hjalmarsson has been working with OSS/BSS for almost 20 years and is keen to share his knowledge based on experience from fibre rollout in several countries across Europe. Johan works at Netadmin, which provides software purposefully built for the fibre journey – network operators starting, transitioning to, or operating a fibre network business.

Andrea Di Giglio (Dr.Eng) received a Dr. Eng. degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pisa (Italy) and the Engineering License degree from Scuola S. Anna. He joined Telecom Italia Lab (formerly CSELT), that is the Telecom Italia Group’s Company for study, research, experimentation, and qualification in the field of Telecommunications and Information Technology. The fields of his research are addressed toward Internet Security, Storage Area Networks and Optical Networks Architecture. He was involved in the architectural Work Package of the IST Project Nobel (Phase 1 and 2) “Next generation Optical networks for Broadband European Leadership” as Work Package leader and ICT STRONGEST as project coordinator. Dr. Di Giglio is the author of dozens of publications, including books, conference papers and workshops and it is currently the project coordinator of 5G-SOLUTIONS, flagship project for European Commission research for the Verticals’ usage of 5G Connectivity.