VON Europe 2005 Conference and Expo - produced by pulver.com

VON Europe 2005 Expo Hours:
Tuesday May 24th: 6:30pm-8:30pm (with Welcome Reception)
Wednesday May 25th: 10am-4pm
Thursday May 26th: 10am-4pm
WiFi VoIP / 3G
Tuesday, May 24, 2005, 1:40pm - 2:55pm
Voice over WiFi is starting to roll out as a complementary access method to the traditional “on the desk” wired handset. With the widespread availability of “hotspots” for mobile computing, does WiFi VoIP compete with or complement the traditional cellular mobile phone service? Is it a better medium for mobile integrated media applications than 3G? Other issues addressed by the panel:
· Handset convergence
· Roaming
· Authentication and security

Steve Blumenthal, SVP of Engineering, BridgePort Networks
Steve Blumenthal, SVP of Engineering, is responsible for BridgePort Networks’ technology roadmap. Mr. Blumenthal’s background includes stints at Genuity where his group designed and built one of the first voice over IP networks; and BBN, where his group built and ran many government global networks such as the DARPA Wideband Network, the nationwide IP backbone for BBN's commercial Internet services, and a large part of AOL's dialup network. Mr. Blumenthal was formerly chairman of one of the White House Office of Cyberspace Security's Internet Working Groups and represented Genuity to the FCC's NRIC. He holds BS and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.

Brian Day, VP, Wireline Solutions, Nortel
Brian Day has worked in Nortel for 18 years. At present he is the VP responsible for the Carrier Voice portfolio business in Europe, Middle East and Africa, he has held this responsibility for the last 3 years. He was appointed to this role after being responsible for the PLM for the carrier switching portfolio in Europe, Asia and Latin American. Prior to this he worked in a number of roles from product planning through to marketing, working with the mobile division and the enterprise division of Nortel.

Hans Eriksson, CTO, Xtrafone
Hans Eriksson is currently CTO at Xtrafone AB, a Swedish consumer VoIP Service Provider. Hans' history with VoIP started at Telia in 1997 and he quickly became their leading innovator and spokesperson regarding VoIP. He left Telia in 2000 for pulver.com and started Digisip, Sweden's first commercial VoIP operator, in 2002. After a short spell in 2004 with the Norwegian operator Telio he is now pushing the limits of VoIP again as the Xtrafone CTO. Hans is also involved in several projects to establish service providers in the developing countries using his open source Billing and Customer Care system.

Maurizio Prati, Product Marketing Manager, EMEA, NMS Communications
As EMEA Product Marketing Manager for NMS Communications, Mr. Prati is responsible for helping to shape the company's 3G video and VoIP products and OEM product roadmaps for mobile technologies. Previously, Mr. Prati held senior systems engineering positions at NMS with EMEA-wide responsibilities. Prior to joining NMS, for many years, Mr. Prati ran his own company specializing in networking data collection devices. Mr. Prati also held various network engineering positions at Digital Equipment Corporation. Mr. Prati holds a degree in computer science from the University of Turin in Italy.

Mika Uusitalo, Director, Nokia Core Networks
Mika Uusitalo is Director of Technology at Nokia Core Networks where he is driving development of Nokia's mobile Internet technology, architecture as well as new products targeted for operators. Mika has 20 years professional experience in mobile and data communication as well as Internet. Previously Mika was VP and GM of Tahoe Networks where he founded Tahoe's European operations, as well as run company's R&D activities in EMEA. Before Tahoe Mika worked at Sonera Corp. in multiple positions as CTO, VP and Head of Mobile & Internet Technologies unit as well as Director of Medialab. In Sonera he was responsible of development of Internet, multimedia, broadband data networks, IP communication and Mobile Internet services, networks and technologies. Earlier he worked as Chief Architect at US West (Qwest) Advanced Technologies.