IEEE ComSoc International Communications Quality and Reliability Workshop
16-18 May 2017 – Naples, Florida, USA

Panels

Executive Panel – Speed within the Home is as important as Speed to the Home
Chair: Mike Ryan, Verizon
Abstract – Our subscribers want to consume content without barriers.  Customers want uniform coverage and reliability.
They don’t want to be bothered with the how or the why, they just want it to work.  It needs to be easy, it needs to be convenient and they shouldn’t have to worry about it.

Here are some recent quotes that discuss today’s In Home Experience challenges.

  • “Using a single router to spread signal throughout your whole home is like expecting one light bulb to light up every room” (Google)
  • “Walls and distance make it difficult for a single device to send a strong signal to every corner of your home, resulting in slow Wi-Fi and dead zones” (Google)
  • As Service Providers and MSAOs move additional services over Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi will need to evolve and be looked at as Infrastructure – not Best Effort!

This panel will be composed of participants who will take us through what is being looked at to improve the In Home Warranty.  Each of the members will take us through what issues exist today from their viewpoint and how they plan to address them:

  • MSO / Service Providers (AT&T, Comcast, Charter, Cox, Cablevision, Time Warner)
  • Discussion should be about existing problem with Wi-Fi in the home  and the desire to add additional services over Wi-Fi
  • Why is Wi-Fi one of the highest common call drivers across service providers and MSOs 
  • Silicon Providers (Wi-Fi Chipset) – Qualcomm, Broadcom, Quantenna, Mediatek, Celeno
  • 802.11ac —>  802.11ax
  • Solution Providers – Netgear, Plume, EERO, Google (google home), Amplify
  • What they are providing to mitigate the problem?
  • What are the pros / cons of each solution?

Speakers include

  • Mike Talbert, Verizon
  • Vaughn Rhodes, Greenwave
  • James Chen, Quantenna
  • Jay Opperman, McAfee
  • Kishore Jatwani, Intel

 

Operations Panel – Science and Statistics of Better Legacy Network Relaibility 
Chair: Martin Guldberg,  Verizon Wireless

AbstractMission critical services including emergency communications services are provided by wireline and mobile carrier networks containing large quantities of aging equipment.  Some of this equipment has been in service 25 years, and in some instances as much as 40 years.  

Time has marched on, technology has evolved, development teams have been reassigned, budgets have been reduced and spare parts are becoming very scarce.  These factors combine to make service reliability very challenging with a difficult goal of keeping customer-impacting outages to an absolute minimum.

This panel will present and discuss some of the advanced scientific and statistical methods being constructively used to narrow the root causes of reliability risk and put in place cost-effective maintenance actions which improve long-term network reliability.  Communications use cases will be compared with analogous improvements in military platform reliability.

Speakers include

  • Mike Dazio, ZT Technology Solutions
  • Mike Pohland, Lead, Physics-of-Failure Program at U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity
  • Mike Plumb, Precision Electronic Repair Systems

 

Emerging Technologies Panel – Security, Performance and Reliability for IoT
Chair: Carol Davids, Illinois Institute of Technology

Abstract – The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to enable us to sense and control the physical world in near-real time to improve energy efficiency, and health and safety; to further automate manufacture, and to create new applications and services. It has been referred to as “the infrastucture of the information society.”  IoT is being used to support the media industry, targeting consumers and collecting data on their behaviors;  Environmental monitoring; Infrastructure management; Energy Management; Building and home automation; Manufacturing and process control; Medical and health care; Transportation; Emergency services; Smart Grid; Smart Cities. 

IoT raises issues of security and privacy, as we have seen in the recent DOS attacks that used poorly protected security cameras as bots.  The volume of data and the latency associated with its delivery may also be challenges for some IoT use cases.  The IEEE, the IETF, and a number of other standards bodies and Special Interest Groups are working on use cases, architectures, best practices and studies that will address these concerns.  A number of companies offer solutions for various use cases.  This panel will discuss standards and best practices, use cases and solutions with a focus on the security, performance and reliability of these systems and their applications including medical, communications, smart building, smart cities, and connected cars.

Speakers include

  • Oscar Marcia, eonTi
  • Bharat Nandakumar, AgilityFeat
  • Dr. Keith Gremban, NTIA
  • Aman Singh, Palindrome