Date: February 27, 2025
Time: 8:30 - 18:00 CET
Location: Virtual Event
Organized by: O-RAN ALLIANCE’s Next Generation Research Group (nGRG)
Workshop Chairs: Qinqtian Wang (China Telecom), Dr. Lopamudra Kundu (NVIDIA), and Dr. Tao Chen (VTT), Ravi Sinha (Reliance Jio)
Admission: Interested public is free to attend online. Registration prior to the event is mandatory.
Dr. Chih-Lin I, O-RAN ALLIANCE TSC co-chair (IEEE Fellow) China Mobile, China
Dr. Harri Holma, Senior Advisor, Nokia, Finland (Bell Labs Fellow)
The keynote illustrates the main learnings from 5G deployments globally including the success stories and challenges, and outlines the main targets for 6G system design. The keynote also shows the key benefits that 6G can provide over 5G in terms of efficiency and new use cases and shows the main new technology requirements to make 6G happen.
Dr. Yue Wang, Chief Technologist,China Telecom, China
Network evolution is shifting beyond enhanced connectivity to fundamentally transforming network operations and services through AI integration. This transition extends past traditional connectivity goals—such as low latency, high reliability, and energy efficiency—toward a paradigm shift in network design, automation, and monetization. By deeply embedding AI across terminals, networks, and the cloud, the network evolves into an intelligent platform unifying AI, Information Technologies (IT), andCommunication Technologies (CT), a convergence we terms as AICT. AI-nativeRadio Access Network (RAN) is at the forefront of next-generation wireless innovation, enabling end-to-end intelligent network operations and supporting emerging AI-driven services such as autonomous systems and embodied intelligence. This talk explores the role of AI-native RAN in O-RAN’s evolution towards 6G, analyzing its architectural advancements and service capabilities.
Prof. Raymond Knopp, Eurecom, France (IEEE Fellow)
This talk will highlight avenues for using and further developing open-source tools for communities aiming at prototyping during the 3GPP and ORAN 6G standardization period. In particular we will discuss strategies for 6G air interface community development and benefits for academic and industrial research labs wishing to contribute to 3GPP and ORAN study items. We will then shift focus to make the case for developing real-time emulation tools for large-scale prototyping combining digital twins and real radio systems. In particular we discuss the benefit for communities such as the O-RAN ALLIANCE aiming to prototype controller functions for fine-grain management of radio-resources trained on large synthetically-trained datasets.
Dr. Julien Boudani, Strategy Manager for Standardization & Open Source, Orange, France
The presentation explores the evolution of mobile network architecture with a focus on use cases for “6G” and the role of Open Radio Access Networks (O-RAN) in this transformation. It highlights the importance of cloud-native infrastructure, automation, and interoperability in achieving efficient and resilient network operations. The O-RAN Alliance is positioned as a key player in defining open interfaces and cloud orchestration, while the collaboration between O-RAN and 3GPP is essential for standardization efforts. Key objectives for “6G” include enhanced performance, sustainability, and the introduction of innovative services such as immersive communications and ambient IoT. The presentation also discusses the Sylva initiative, which aims to create a sovereign Telco Cloud infrastructure, emphasizing the need for open-source solutions and standardized APIs to facilitate the deployment and management of multi-vendor cloud environments. Overall, the transition towards automated, open, and cloud-native networks is crucial for the future of telecommunications, enabling operators to meet the demands of next-generation services.
Mr. Riccardo Guerzoni, Director, Core Network Group, DOCOMO Euro-Labs, Germany
The new capabilities specified by ITU-R for IMT-2030 challenge the telco ecosystem to design effective network architecture solutions. In addition, enhancements of IMT-2020 capabilities (higher data rate, higher area traffic capacity and higher reliability) imply network densification. Meanwhile, 5G Standalone deployments struggle to fly.
To make 6G a success, the telco ecosystem needs to offer innovative communication services while ensuring cost effectiveness and environmental sustainability. The presentation analyses how the mobile architecture design can address these challenges. The approach considers two viewpoints: infrastructure/platform perspective and 3GPP/O-RAN network perspective. In the last 10 years, Tier 1 Mobile Network Operators adopted virtualization and cloud technologies for their network infrastructures: this trend should be taken as a baseline for the next generation telco systems to make efficient use of infrastructure resources. O-RAN, ETSI NFV and 3GPP should align on open standard interfaces to realize a coherent framework. On the other hand, the mobile network should enable co-creation of added-value services with verticals, by exposing new functionalities (including AIaaS) and integrated resources (for instance, offloading mobile device from demanding compute tasks).
The telco ecosystem should aim at 6G as a technology that can be globally adopted as a common platform for service providers and verticals, attracting investments on eco-friendly infrastructures.
Dr. Fayçal Aït Aoudia, Senior Researcher, Nvidia,France
Radio digital twins are digital replicas of physical wireless networks. Their applications range from use as “gyms” for training of environment specific communication schemes over network monitoring and control to “what-if” analyses. They allow for the design and operation of future wireless networks, such as 6G. We present the tools required for creating physically accurate and environmentally specific radio digital twins. This includes accurately capturing the scene geometry and additional processing to facilitate the simulation of radio waves. Differentiable ray tracing has become the method of choice for learning electromagnetic material properties from channel measurements. The simulation of radio wave propagation is expedited by fast raytracing. We discuss the application of radio digital twins to enable site-specific neural receivers and the creation of digital twins of wireless networks through integration with network simulators.
Prof. Mehdi Bennis, Oulu University, Finland (IEEE Fellow)
Dr. Thomas Rondeau, Principal Director for FutureG & 5G, OUSD (R&E), USA
What will 6G become? Will it be faster? Probably. Will it involved AI and ML? Almost certainly. Will it be about THz and sub-THz communications? No (ok, probably some good research here). These are, not to be crude about it, obvious. But 6G can be and will be so much more. 5G has laid an incredible technological base for us to build from. As we enter the midpoint of the 5G era, we are seeing a more robust, accessible, reliable high-capacity network. In fact, 5G will have more capacity at its peak than we will know what to do with. Instead of focusing just on technological advances, the core difference between the 5G era and 6G era will be how the networks are used. In this talk, we will explore some of the trends we are seeing towards the 6G era and the values and direction that the US Department of Defense is working towards with others in the US government to craft the open, transparent, and resilient by design network of the future. We will then cover a few projects the FutureG Office is investing in to promote these principles.
Prof. Tommaso Melodia, Northeastern University,USA (IEEE Fellow)
6G networks will be foundational to the development and deployment of large-scale world models, serving as a key enabler of a global edge inferencing engine for agentic AI. With ultra-low latency, massive connectivity, and ubiquitous coverage, 6G has the potential to power real-time AI applications in robotics, autonomous systems, and industrial automation. However, realizing this vision requires a flexible, high-performance compute infrastructure at the edge, alongside automation frameworks that support the dynamic deployment of bespoke AI-driven services.
This talk will explore advances within the Open6G center at Northeastern, focusing on the seamless coexistence of sensing, inference, and RAN workloads at the edge, novel approaches to flexible spectrum utilization, automation-driven network orchestration, and the integration of terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks to enable AI-native 6G architectures.
Dr. Riikka Susitaival, Manager on Network Automation, Ericsson, Finland
6G will bring new capabilities and support for new use cases. When the complexity of the network grows over the generations, one of the paradigms is the management of capabilities in a sustainable manner. Many standardization organizations are working on network automation and management, however, there is also a risk of fragmentation. In this presentation, we talk about how to achieve a sustainable and manageable network architecture that leverage current technologies such as AI and intent based management. We also talk about the role of key standardization ecosystems in this journey.
Dr. Dominic Schupke, Airbus, Germany
While aerospace offers many use cases for 6G, it also becomes an integral part of its architecture. The talk will highlight 6G research areas such as Non-Terrestrial Networks, Moving Networks, and Joint Communication and Sensing.
Prof. Serge Fdida, Sorbonne Université, France (IEEE Fellow)
The scientific community engaged in the research of future generation networks and systems is lacking advanced and sustainable tools to evidence their research, accelerate the discovery process by sharing their data as well as support reproducibility. This first implies that academic research hardly competes with large industry. Second, it becomes almost impossible to handle the pace of academic scientific production, largely data-driven thanks to the fast application of AI/ML, but that is hard to validate.SLICES is the first initiative structured as a scientific instrument, under the umbrella of the European ESFRI framework, sustainable, aiming to cover the full research large cycle. SLICES-RI is intent-driven and facilitates the entire lifecycle of thought experiments. This is achieved by enabling reproducible deployment of experiments over the infrastructure using blueprints and by systematically collecting and archiving all outputs through a clear and structured methodology for experimentation. Our SLICES-RI Post5G Blue Print encompasses all the needs for Post-5G experimental research that is meant to beO-RAN compliant.
This talk will introduce the instrument, its community, academy and roadmap. It will emphasize its openness and potential for cooperation for O-RAN research and development.
Prof. John Cioffi, Stanford University, USA (IEEE Fellow)
Congested spectra arise when the number of active wireless users exceeds the channel spatial degrees of freedom (≤ # 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑛𝑎𝑠). Present best cellular physical-layer resource allocation (energy and user data rates) is well below optima in such congested situations. Present congestion's address has requested instead new spectral allocations that significantly increase cost and may not be possible. This talk describes how improved physical-layer choices can also dramatically improve all users' through puts within the existing spectra. Such improvement requires augmentation of existing physical-layer systems to include better physical-layer signal processing but also describes challenges in mobile-edge computing requirements that would need to support this improvement.
Mr. Ravi Sinha, Reliance Jio, USA
Dr. Thomas Rondeau, Principal Director for FutureG & 5G, OUSD (R&E), USA
Dr. Harri Holma, Senior Advisor, Nokia, Finland
Prof. Raymond Knopp, Eurecom, France
Dr. Julien Boudani, Strategy Manager for Standardization & Open Source, Orange, France
Mr. Riccardo Guerzoni, Director, Core Network Group, DOCOMO Euro-Labs, Germany
Dr. Riikka Susitaival, Manager on Network Automation, Ericsson, Finland
Dr. Simona Marinova, Bell Canada, Canada
Prof. Tommaso Melodia, Northeastern University, USA
Dr. Douglas Knisely, Qualcomm, USA
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Prof. Raymond Knopp, Eurecom, France
Professor Raymond KNOPP received his PhD degree in Communication Systems from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne in 1997. His current research and teaching interests are in digital communications, software radio architectures, and implementation aspects of signal processing systems and real-time wireless networking protocols. He is current head of the Communication Systems Department at EURECOM, Sophia Antipolis, France. He is a leading figure in the OpenAirInterface (OAI) Community and has been instrumental in making open software for Radio Access Networks a reality through contributions over two decades. He is one of the very first and one of the most significant contributors to the OAI codebase. He was elected as the President of the OpenAirInterface Software Alliance (OSA), a non-profit organization federating the OAI and Mosaic5G codebases in December 2018. He is a fellow of the IEEE. He is a recent co-inventor of over 15 patents targeting ongoing 3GPP 5G standardization and participates in technical contributions to 3GPP RAN study and work items on behalf of EURECOM.
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Dr. Yue Wang, ChiefTechnologist, China Telecom, China
Dr. Yue Wang is a Chief Technologist – Network and AI atChina Telecom. Prior to this role, Yue held various leadership, strategy, and research positions in the US and UK, including Head of 6G Research and Head ofAdvanced Network Research at Samsung Research UK.
Yue is widely recognised globally for her technical, strategic and thought leadership in 5G, 6G, and AI within the telecommunication industry. She has been appointed as the Chair of UKTIN AI Expert Working Group and also led large scale European projects. She is an inventor of numerous patents, and a frequent speaker in conferences, including MWC and TMF DTW. Yue has contributed to multiple SDOs, including O-RAN, and served as Secretary and Rappetour of ETSI ENI in 2017-2019. She received the ETSI ENI Award for her “extraordinary contributions” in 2019.She is also elected as the Board director 2024-2026 of O-RAN ALLIANCE. Yue obtained her PhD from University of Victoria, Canada.
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Dr. Julien Boudani, Strategy Manager for Standardization & OpenSource, Orange, France
Julien Boudani is working for Orange Innovation as a strategy manager for Standardization and Open Source. He is currently involved in many Programs/projects related to the evolution of mobile networks, platforming, Telco AI and Telco cloud. Julien is member of the O-RAN ALLIANCE Open-sourceCommittee. He is coordinating Orange activities in many SDOs like TIP, 3GPP and the Linux foundation projects.
Julien is an experienced Senior Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the telecommunications industry and business development. He worked for more than 25 years in R&D for BuyIn (the procurement joint venture between Orange and Deutsche Telekom), Technicolor, CISCO, and as assistant professor at the University of Rennes (France).
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Mr. Riccardo Guerzoni, Director, Core Network Group, DOCOMO Euro-Labs, Germany
Riccardo Guerzoni is Director of the Core Network Group at DOCOMOEuro-Labs, Munich, Germany. Riccardo contributed to standardizing the 5G core network in 3GPP since Release 15, with special focus on Edge Computing and Industrial IoT. At DOCOMO Euro-Labs, Riccardo coordinates a research team that contributes to standardization in 3GPP, ETSI and O-RAN ALLIANCE. He is currently active in 6G pre-standardization research initiatives including one 6G Association, where he is member of the board.
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Dr. Fayçal AïtAoudia, Senior Researcher, Nvidia, France
Fayçal Aït Aoudia is a Senior Research Scientist at NVIDIA working on the convergence of wireless communications and machine learning. Before joining NVIDIA, he was a Research Scientist at Nokia Bell Labs, France. He is one of the maintainers and core developers of the Sionna open-source link-level simulator. He obtained the diploma degree in computer science from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon, France, in 2014, and the PhD in signal processing from the University of Rennes 1, France, in 2017.
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Dr. Thomas Rondeau, Principal Director for FutureG & 5G, OUSD (R&E), USA
Dr. Tom Rondeau is the Principal Director for the FutureG Office for the US Department of Defense, serving in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)). In this role, Dr. Rondeau is responsible for the research, funding, and execution of programs to advance warfighting capabilities using future-generation wireless technologies.
Before assuming his role as Principal Director of the FutureG Office, Dr. Rondeau spent more than six years as a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) program manager, where he led efforts that challenged and advanced studies in a variety of warfighting domains, earning him the Distinguished Public Service Medal.
Prior to joining DARPA, Dr. Rondeau led the GNU Radio project, consulted on wireless communications problem sets, and worked as a visiting researcher with the University of Pennsylvania and as an Adjunct with the IDA Center for Communications Research in Princeton, NJ.
Dr. Rondeau holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech, where his dissertation won the Council of Graduate Schools’ 2007 Outstanding Dissertation Award in math, science, and engineering.
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Dr. Riikka Susitaival, Manager on Network Automation, Ericsson, Sweden
Riikka Susitaival is working as a manager for network automation, coordinating Ericsson standardisation activities across different standardisation organisations like 3GPP, O-RAN and TM Forum. She received herM.sc. and Ph.D degrees in electrical and telecommunications engineering from Helsinki University of Technology in 2002 and 2007, respectively. Her major in both degrees was teletraffic theory. She joined Ericsson in 2007 and has worked with research and standardization in the area of wireless access networks over 18 years. She has worked as head of Ericsson 3GPP RAN2 delegation and was active contributor for creating 3GPP NR specifications. She has also coordinated Ericsson 3GPP RAN level topics across RAN working groups.
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Prof. Mehdi Bennis,Oulu University, Finland
Dr Mehdi Bennis is a full (tenured) Professor at the Centre forWireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland and head of theintelligent connectivity and networks/systems group (ICON). His main researchinterests are in radio resource management, game theory and distributed AI in5G/6G networks. He has published more than 200 research papers in internationalconferences, journals and book chapters. He has been the recipient of severalprestigious awards including the 2015 Fred W. Ellersick Prize from the IEEECommunications Society, the 2016 Best Tutorial Prize from the IEEECommunications Society, the 2017 EURASIP Best paper Award for the Journal ofWireless Communications and Networks, the all-University of Oulu award forresearch, the 2019 IEEE ComSoc Radio Communications Committee Early AchievementAward and the 2020-2021 Clarviate Highly Cited Researcher by the Web ofScience. Dr Bennis is an editor of IEEE TCOM and Specialty Chief Editorfor Data Science for Communications in the Frontiers in Communications andNetworks journal. Dr Bennis is an IEEE Fellow.
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Prof. Serge Fdida, Sorbonne Université, France
Serge Fdida is a Professor with Sorbonne Université since 1995. His research interests are related to the future internet technology and architecture. He has been leading many research projects in Europe, notably pioneering the activity on federated Internet test beds. He established PlanetLab Europe in 2007 and the OneLab and FIT facilities. He was one of the initiators of the ACM Co next conference, general chair of ACM Mobicom 2015, IEEE Infocom 2019 and in 2021 and started the Networking Channel online program. Serge Fdida has also developed a strong experience related to innovation and industry transfer, - he was the co-founder of the Qosmos and Hopcast companies, - one of the active contributors to the creation of the Cap Digital cluster in Paris and President of EIT HealthFrance. He is currently coordinating SLICES, the first large-scale scientific instrument in Digital Sciences, supported by the EU ESFRI framework. Serge Fdida received his PhD from Université Pierre & Marie Curie (UPMC), Paris in 1984. He received his Habilitation in 1989. Assistant Professor UPMC(1983-1987). Associate Professor UPMC (1988-1991). Professor Université Paris Descartes (1991-1995). Sabbatical at IBM Raleigh in 1995. Professor Sorbonne Université. Adviser ITC Department CNRS (2000-2005). Vice-President European affairs of UPMC (2014-2018). VP International Development of Sorbonne Université (2018-2021). Serge Fdida is anIEEE Fellow and an ACM Sigcomm Distinguished Scientist.
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Prof. John Cioffi, Stanford University, USA
John M. Cioffi: Stanford Professor since 1986 (now recalled emeritus), and Chairman of ASSIA Inc (2003-present). BSEE- Illinois, MSEE andPhDEE-Stanford. Cioffi's experience includes 6 years at Bell Laboratories(Member Technical Staff), 2 years at IBM Research (Research Staff Member), 8 years at Amati (Founder and CTO; Later Texas Instruments Broadband Group), and12 years at ASSIA Inc as full time CEO. Cioffi received the 2023 United States Medal of Technology from the US President. Cioffi's other awards include IEEEAG Bell (2010), Millennium, and L.K. Kirchmayer (Graduate Teaching) (2014) Medals, IEEE Armstrong (2013) and Kobayashi (2001) awards, US National (2001)and UK Royal (2009) Academies of Engineering, Marconi Fellow (2006), InternetHall of Fame (2014), Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame (2018), 2018 IEEE Women-in-Communications-Mentoring Award, and many IEEE best-paper awards.Broadband World Forum Lifetime Achievement Award (2014) and American National Standards Outstanding Achievement Award 1996. Cioffi has served 12 boards of directors of public and private companies, including presently ASSIA (Chair), PhyTunes (Chair), Fiberify, and the Marconi Society (nonprofit). See alsohttps://profiles.stanford.edu/john-cioffi?tab=bio and https://cioffi-group.stanford.edu.
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Mr. Ravi Sinha, Reliance Jio, USA
Ravi Sinha is working with world’s fastest growing telco brand Reliance Jio as Vice President 5G/ 6G Technology and Product Development. He is a versatile R&D Executive serving leadership roles in wireless industry with expertise in product development and technology strategy, business analysis, M&A assessments, Strategy planning that enables Jio to achieve its long-term objectives. He brings over two and half decades of experience and working with some of the world’s largest telecom companies and service providers. For two successive years, Ravi Sinha is also listed among top 50 influencers who generated the most engagement on #LinkedIn and #Twitter on the subject of 5G. In his previous role, he spearheaded efforts to innovate cutting edge projects around small cell solutions and Cloud Native Infra assets for Telco Consumptions. Ravi Sinha is leading global SDOs in Open-Source Paradigm. He is the Co Chairman of O-RAN Next Generation Research Group (6G and beyond)as well as the Chairman of Small Cell Forum (SCF) Emerging Technology Group. He is leading multiple teams from Telco and Service verticals in 6G, 5G and High Compute Edge Fabric related to Use cases, Architecture, Advance Radios, Native AI Automation and Native Security.
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Harri Holma acts as Senior advisor in Nokia for guiding the company technology development for mobile networks. Harri is an influential expert also externally with frequent connections to mobile operator executives globally. Harri provides public presentations, co-operates with regulators and universities, and shares the latest learnings in LinkedIn with more than 6000 followers. Harri Holma has edited the books WCDMA for UMTS, HSDPA/HSUPA for UMTS, LTE for UMTS, Voice over LTE, LTE Advanced, HSPA+ Evolution, LTE Small Cell Optimization, 5G Technology and 5G-Advanced, and contributed to number of other books in the radio communication area.
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Dominic A. Schupke is a research leader in reliable communication networks, currently focusing on Wireless Communications at Airbus, Munich, Germany. He is also a lecturer in Network Planning at Technical University of Munich (TUM). Prior to Airbus, he was with Nokia, Siemens, and TUM. He studied Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at RWTH Aachen, Imperial College London, and TUM, from where he received a Dr.-Ing. degree (summa cum laude). Dominic is a Senior Member of IEEE and author or co-author of more than 150 journal and conference papers (Google Scholar h-index 32). His recent research addresses aerospace networks.
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Dr. Simona Marinova currently serves as a Solution Architect at Bell Canada. In this role, she is responsible for network strategy, including the development of new architectures and proof of concept validations. She is currently focused on intelligence and automation aspects in the network domains, especially opportunities brought by Open RAN. Simona holds PhD and MASc degrees from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. She is a sports enthusiast, passionate public speaker, and aspiring intrapreneur.
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Tommaso Melodia is the William Lincoln Smith Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston. He is also the Founding Director of the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things and the Director of Research for the PAWR Project Office. He received his Laurea (integrated BS and MS) from the University of Rome - La Sapienza and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2007. He is an IEEE Fellow, an ACM Distinguished Member, and a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award. He received several best paper awards, including at IEEE Infocom 2022. Prof. Melodia is the Editor in Chief for Computer Networks and a co-founder of the 6G Symposium, and served as the Technical Program Committee Chair for IEEE Infocom, and General Chair for ACM MobiHoc, among others. Prof. Melodia’s research on modeling, optimization, and experimental evaluation of wireless networked systems has been funded by many US government and industry entities.
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Doug is a seasoned thought leader in the Wireless Telecommunications Industry and is globally recognized for his experience as a specialist instandardization of radio access technology. Currently Senior director of technical standards at Qualcomm and Standarization Delegate at several standardization fora representing his organization, he was formerly VP of Technology at Airvana and prior to that a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs.
