The era of broadband video services has just begun. To win the challenge of successful video service deployment, all the players in the broadband arena, from operators to product suppliers, will have to provide future-proof, integrated, and provisionable services and products. In addition, a clear road map will be needed as the telcos will have to address their financial obligations in the near future. All these challenges must be met along with the seamless migration from traditional broadcasting to innovative broadband IPTV, video on demand, and interactive services.

The scope of the session is to evaluate how such innovative services will affect an operator's network architecture and how the major devices involved in the deployment of broadband video will have to evolve accordingly. The speakers will represent the major players in this industry and provide a rich technical and business overview of the selected topics.

Corrado Rocca Senior Vice President, Broadband Access Products Pirelli Broadband Solutions S.p.A.

Mr. Rocca is responsible for product marketing and management and all development projects for access gateways, multimedia devices, and element management systems. He also represents Pirelli in the broadband access community, working with organizations such as Home Gateway Initiative and DSL Forum and participating in Plug Fests. An 11-year veteran of the Pirelli Group, Mr. Rocca has held several senior level R&D positions in Pirelli Submarine Telecom Systems. In 2003, he was director of R&D, responsible for DWDM terminal equipment, underwater devices, power feeding equipment, and management software, and director of Manufacturing, responsible for underwater products. He also managed joint co-operations with Siemens, Alcatel, Tyco, and NEC. Mr. Rocca joined Pirelli in 1995 as a member of the Optical Systems Design team.

Stefano Nocentini Vice President, Innovation and Engineering Services Telecom Italia S.p.A.

Mr. Nocentini is responsible for the complete range of platforms and fixed-mobile services, from traditional voice services to value-added data and the migration services aimed at both residential and business customer segments. In this role, he is responsible also for Telecom Italia Lab (the R&D group of Telecom Italia). He began his career with Telecom Italia in 1987. Mr. Nocentini was quickly promoted several times. He was leading several key and innovative projects such as the introduction of ISDN, development of intelligence network platform and services, evolution of data network toward the next-generation network - Class 4 replacement, and fixed-mobile convergence.

Gary Southwell General Manager, IPTV Solution Juniper Networks

Mr. Southwell, a networking industry veteran of more than 20 years, is responsible for the overall IPTV solution business, which claims significant deployments in the top two, and five of the top 10 IPTV production networks to date. Prior to Juniper, Mr. Southwell was vice president of solutions development at Ciena, responsible for driving solutions in the enterprise and service provider markets, including developing and launching Ciena's IPTV solution. He came to Ciena via its acquisition of Internet Photonics, where he served as vice president of marketing and product development.

Francis Userovici Program Office and Transversal Project Manager, Fixed Access Network and Services Direction France Telecom Group

Mr. Userovici was previously in charge of a department dealing with strategic and technical studies of broadband networks at the corporate level, which, among other things, contributed to the launching of IPTV and VoD service field trials and then deployments, paving the way to the triple-play deployments in France Telecom Group. Before joining France Telecom, Mr. Userovici worked in telecommunication equipment companies, where he had been responsible for multiservice infrastructure network technical studies.

Floris van den Broek Vice President and General Manager Telecom Philips Consumer Electronics

Mr. van den Broek has managed the worldwide telecom operator business for Home Networks since 2005. Prior to that, he was vice president marketing and managing director at Level 3 Communications in Europe, where he founded the Netherlands company in 1999. Between 1995 and 1999, he was director of the alternative international network at AT&T and was responsible for setting up new services in Asia and Latin America. Before that, he was responsible for the marketing and sales of AT&T's equipment for Public Networks in Europe, based in the Netherlands and Poland.