OFC/NFOEC 2010 Announces Plenary Session Speaker Lineup

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22 January 2010

OFC/NFOEC 2010 Announces Plenary Session Speaker Lineup

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Lyndsay Meyer
OFC/NFOEC
+1.202.416.1435
lmeyer@osa.org

OFC/NFOEC 2010 Announces Plenary Session Speaker Lineup

Speakers from across the globe include Brian Herlihy, Philippe Keryer, Hideo Miyahara

The 2010 Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC) – the world’s leading international conference for optical communications and networking professionals – will feature three premier optics and telecommunications industry leaders. Brian Herlihy, SEACOM; Philippe Keryer, Alcatel-Lucent; and Hideo Miyahara, NICT, will present the keynote addresses at the OFC/NFOEC Plenary Session Tuesday, March 23 in San Diego. Their presentations will provide important insights into the state of the optical communication industry, advances in worldwide broadband technology, the latest in new generation networks, industry trends and global perspectives of the future of optical fiber communication.

In addition to the keynote presentations at this year’s Plenary Session, a special presentation will take place to dedicate OFC/NFOEC 2010 to Charles K. Kao, recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication”. In 1966, Kao, known in the industry as the “Father of Fiber Optics,” carefully calculated how to transmit light over long distances via optical glass fibers. This discovery laid the foundation for today’s fiber optic networks.

WHO:	OFC/NFOEC Plenary Session keynote speakers are: Brian Herlihy President, SEACOM, Mauritius Presentation: Broadband in Africa Presentation Overview: 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. Herlihy will address the technical achievements that made possible these new milestones of connectivity. Philippe Keryer Executive Vice President, Alcatel-Lucent, USA President, Carrier Product Group, Alcatel-Lucent, USA Presentation: Beyond Today’s Broadband Networks Presentation Overview: 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 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. 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, with a focus on the key role optical transport innovations, technologies and solutions has to play in this transformation. Hideo Miyahara President, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan Presentation: Challenges for New Generation Networks Presentation Overview: In this talk, Miyahara will look back over the past five decades, during which the industry has witnessed dramatic technological changes in information and communication technologies (ICT). 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, 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.

WHEN:	OFC/NFOEC 2010 will be held March 21–25 (Plenary Session: Tuesday, March 23, 8–11 a.m. PDT)
WHERE:	San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California, USA

About OFC/NFOEC
Since 1985, the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) has provided an annual backdrop for the optical communications field to network and share research and innovations. In 2004, OFC joined forces with the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (NFOEC) creating the largest and most comprehensive international event for optical communications. By combining an exposition of more than 600 companies, with a unique program of peer-reviewed technical programming and special focused educational sessions, OFC/NFOEC provides an unparalleled opportunity reaching every audience from service providers to optical equipment manufacturers and beyond.

OFC/NFOEC, www.ofcnfoec.org, is managed by the Optical Society (OSA) and co-sponsored by OSA, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/Communications Society (IEEE/ComSoc) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Photonics Society. Acting as non-financial technical co-sponsor is Telcordia Technologies, Inc.

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