TechNiche 2011 - Speakers

Trango –John Seaman / Determining the True Cost of Ownership of Microwave Backhaul Systems

John has worked at Trango Systems for 10 years, focused in a variety of sales, marketing, and technical support managerial and executive positions. He graduated from the University of Colorado (USA) in 1988 with dual bachelors of science degrees in Electrical Engineering and Business Finance. For the last three years, his primary focus has been worldwide sales and channel development for Trango's new line of licensed microwave products. Prior to joining Trango Systems in 2000, John worked for GTE International as director of materials and procurement for a mobile operator startup in Mexico City. Overall, his experience in the wireless and telecommunications field spans 15 years.

STM - Marcelo De Barros / Addressing the challenges of Bringing Mobile Communications to the Rural Communities

Marcelo De Barros is Vice President of Projects and Implementation at STM Networks Inc. The STM Group, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and supplies satellite and cellular wireless network systems for mobile and fixed Internet protocol-based telephony, and data and multimedia applications. It offers broadband satellite network systems, wireless telecom and cellular networks, and voice-over-Internet protocol network solutions; satellite-based rural telephony solutions; and GSM solutions, including cellular radios and BSS controllers.

X-Connect – Eli Katz / Empowering Africa with Next Generation Telephony Services (High Definition Voice, Video and Beyond)

Eli is the founder and global CEO of XConnect, as well as co-founder and chairperson of the United Kingdom's VoIP industry body, the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA). In 2008, Global Telecoms Business named him one of the "100 most influential people in the telecoms industry". Before founding XConnect, he was Managing Director of Telco Global, from its inception in 1996 to 2003. Eli was instrumental in driving the telecoms, Internet and mobile services provider's rapid growth to one million customers and £250 million in annual revenue. He also was a key player in the IPO of Telco Global's U.S. parent company. He holds several VoIP directory and security patents. Eli is a frequent and dynamic speaker on VoIP peering and regulatory issues, sharing his expertise at international conferences. He graduated from Imperial College in 1992 with first-class honours in computer science.

Proxim – Riaan Graham / Realising Next Generation Broadband Wireless Access

Riaan is Director Sales Africa for Proxim Wireless. Over his 12 years of BWA experience, he has focused on application and solutions design and implementation. For the past 5 years he has been concentrating on business development and sales of high-end WiMAX and BWA systems, representing some of the top vendors in the industry, and also assisting in consultancy and greenfields business modelling and implementation and roll-out of large ISPs throughout Africa.

Azotel – John O'Hare / Buliding Capital Value through Advanced Subscriber Management

 John, founder and CEO of Azotel Technologies, has a superior range and depth of technical expertise garnered from over twenty years' experience in the international mobile/wireless telecommunications industry. A graduate of the University of Limerick with a First Class Honors degree in Electronic Engineering (1990), he has a specialist expertise in leading edge wireless telecommunications technology. John was formerly Principal Staff Engineer with Motorola Inc. He has had exposure to all aspects of large telecommunications projects ranging from specification, design, implementation through to integration, deployment and support. Before founding Amocom in 2002, John worked on the formulation of strategy representing Motorola at the international ETSI (GSM)/3GPP Core Network standardization working group in the definition of the IP Multimedia Subsystem. In 2002, John established Amocom and successfully sold that business in 2005. He then continued to setup and build Azotel (www.azotel.com), which today manages in excess of 60 wireless broadband networks across Europe, Africa, Canada, US and Australia.

Icom – Mario Scalco / Open Discussion on the Global Standards of DPMR, NXDN & Tetra

 Mario began his career in Radio Communications as an apprentice Technician at Transatel (South African Transport Services) and 10 years later he was their National Senior Training Officer. From there he was head-hunted by Motorola, where he stayed for 4 years, until in 1990 he decided to set up his own business, B.S.C Investments. He sold the business three years later, and formed a 4-year partnership with Lieberman Communications. A few more moves later, Mario was again head-hunted, this time by Multisource in 2002, as Export Development Manager with the task of rejuvenating and expanding the export division. An offer he couldn't refuse led him away from Multisource in 2004 – but he finally came back home in 2008, as Systems Sales Manager. Now he's the General Sales Manager.

Samsung – Brian Burns / Next Generation Wireless Technology Today

 Brian Burns has over fifteen years of experience in various Blue-Chip telecommunications businesses. He graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1994 with a Cum Laude degree in Electrical and Computer Software Engineering and during his career has worked for Samsung, Siemens, Motorola and Ericsson where he was instrumental in deploying 2G/2.5G/3G networks across Africa. Burns is currently the Telecommunications Business Development Director for Samsung Networks. Samsung is the world leader in providing WiMAX OFDMA systems having shipped over 100 000 base-stations to the world's leading 4G networks. Samsung Networks provides a world class SDR (Software Defined Radio's) that can be software upgraded to support the evolving 802.16m or LTE (FDD or TDD) standard thus making it a perfect fit for deployment in the African environment.

Regulatory snapshot - Kathleen Rice/ The regulatory environment

Kathleen is a Director of Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr in the firm's Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice. She has extensive experience in South African telecommunications, media and broadcasting regulatory environment. In addition to drafting electronic communication related and information technology agreements, Kathleen assists clients by preparing applications for numbers, frequency spectrum allocation, new licences, transfers of ownership in existing licensees, transfers of licences and equipment type approval. Since 2006, Kathleen has lectured and coordinated the LLB Telecommunications Law course at the University of the Witwatersrand.