Steering Group Committee
Steering Group Committee
Prof Charles Curry BEng, CEng, MITP, FIET, FRIN - ITSF Chairman, MD, Chronos Technology Ltd email»
Charles Curry is a chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and founder & Managing Director of Chronos Technology Ltd. Charles graduated in Electronics from Liverpool University in 1973, and started his career at GEC Hirst Research Centre working on silicon MOS boundary research, progressing to Racal Instruments where he was responsible for sales of test equipment including specialist frequency and time products such as Loran C and Caesium standards. Later with GSE Rentals Charles was involved with some of the first civil GPS and laptop PC deployments into the North Sea offshore oil exploration industry during the early 1980’s.
He founded Chronos in 1986, is a leading global system integrator, service solutions provider and manufacturer for synchronisation, timing, GNSS and GPS jamming, detection products based in the UK. Chronos has supplied and installed many thousands of GPS & Timing systems worldwide for mobile and fixed line telecom operators. The Chronos Synchronisation MasterClass has been delivered to more than a 1000 delegates across the globe.
Charles founded the International Timing & Sync Forum (ITSF) in 2001 and chairs the Steering Group. He is also a member of the Workshop on Synchronization in the USA Telecommunications Systems (WSTS) Steering Group which meets annually in the USA. Charles is also a member of the Industry Advisory Boards for the Universities of Liverpool and Bath, Electrical and Electronics Faculties.
In 2012 Charles was awarded Honorary Professorships from the University of Bath, Faculty of Engineering & Design, Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering and the University of Liverpool, Department of Electrical Engineering & Electronics.
Allan Armstrong - Executive Director, Marketing & Applications Engineering, Epson email»
Allan is responsible for technical marketing and applications engineering for Epson’s timing device, IC, and MEMS sensor products. Epson is the world #1 timing device manufacturer with $430M annual revenue and products ranging from crystals to TCXOs and atomic oscillators.
Allan has worked in engineering, applications, marketing, and as an analyst on timing technology throughout his career including frequency synthesis at HP (now Keysight/Agilent), GPS and Cesium oscillators at HP (now MicroSemi/Symmetricom), timing generator ICs at Vitesse Semiconductor (now MicroSemi), and BAW resonators and PLL ICs at Maxim Integrated. Allan was born in Whitby, England, earned his BSEE from MIT, and resides in Silicon Valley.
Guy Buesnel - Market Segment Leader (Robust Positioning, Navigation & Timing), Spirent Communications email»
Guy has more than 16 years’ experience in protecting GNSS Receivers from emerging threats, having started his career as a Systems Engineer involved in the development of GPS Adaptive Antenna Systems at Raytheon Systems Limited in the UK. Guy joined Spirent in May 2014 as Market Segment Leader–Robust Positioning Navigation and Timing. Guy holds an MSc (Eng) in Communications Engineering from the University of Birmingham and a BSc (Hons) in Physics with Atmospheric Physics from the University of Wales Aberytstwyth. Guy is a Chartered Physicist, a Member of the Institute of Physics and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation.
Mary Carbin - Business Development Manager, Rakon email»
Mary joined Rakon in 1998 and for many of those years has worked very closely with companies providing timing and synchronisation solutions. Rakon participates in several communication forums to ensure the evolving requirements for network synchronisation and increasing capabilities of innovative new oscillator solutions are appreciated. Mary was Rakon’s representative to meet HRH the Queen at Buckingham Palace when Rakon was awarded the Queens Award for Enterprise in 2012.
Tommy Cook - ITSF Vice Chairman, Calnex email»
Tommy Cook is the Founder and CEO of Calnex Solutions. He has over 30 years experience in the Telecoms Industry. His experience has been in telecoms test and measurement having been employed by Hewlett Packard and Agilent Technologies before starting Calnex. Tommy has participated in a number of Standards forums over his career, and currently an active member of ITU-T Study Group 15 & the MEF to participant in the discussions on Timing-over-Packet solutions. Tommy holds a Master of Science degree in Digital Techniques from Herriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and a Bachelor of Science degree with Honours in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Paisley University.
Bob Cockshott - Director, Location & Timing Programme, Digital Systems KTN/NPL email»
Bob is PNT Lead in Innovate UK's Knowledge Transfer Network, which facilitates knowledge exchange to promote economic growth. Bob has specialised knowledge transfer in positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) for over 8 years, and has organised events on many aspects of PNT, including internationally renowned conferences on GNSS vulnerability. Before working in knowledge transfer, Bob spent many years as a systems engineer and project manager in the space industry, developing electro-optical and RF payload instrumentation.
Lee Cosart – Senior Technologist, Microsemi Corp. email»
A graduate of Stanford University, Lee worked as an R&D engineer at Hewlett-Packard/Agilent and Symmetricom prior to joining Microsemi in 2013. His R&D activities have included measurement algorithm development and mathematical analysis for a variety of test equipment for which he holds several patents. He serves on, as chair, contributor and editor, the ATIS and ITU-T committees responsible for network synchronization standardization. His TimeMonitor software is used to collect and analyze synchronization and packet timing measurement data and has been used in laboratories and live operating networks throughout the world.
Chris Farrow - Technical Services Manager, Chronos Technology email»
Chris joined Chronos from Marconi’s UK Technical Assistance Centre in Liverpool in January 2006. Whilst at Marconi Chris was responsible for the field trial, rollout and support of enhanced synchronisation products and services within Marconi’s System X Switching and SDH products. At Chronos Chris is responsible for all professional services focused on the sync product area including Synchronisation MasterClass, Sync Audit and network planning consultancy, customer demonstrations and SyncWatch development.
Tim Frost BSc, MSc, MIET, C.Eng – Strategic Marketing Manager, Calnex Solutions Ltd. email»
Tim Frost joined Calnex in the summer of 2013. He has several years of experience in next-generation synchronisation techniques, having worked with both Symmetricom and Zarlink Semiconductor on packet synchronisation technologies. He has been active in the ITU Network Synchronisation question (Q13/SG15), the Small Cell Forum, where he was editor for their Synchronisation white paper, and also in the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF), where he was the editor for their circuit emulation standards. Tim has over 20 years experience in the electronics and telecommunications industry, having worked in areas such as the design of embedded CPU cores for ASIC devices, and in railway signaling systems. Tim has a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Leeds, and an MSc. from the University of Manchester. He is a Member of the IET and a Chartered Engineer.
Mike Gilson, BA (Hons), MIET - Technology Specialist, BT email»
Has played a major role in developing and implementing BT's synchronisation and timing strategy from 1988 to present day. He has represented BT on various national and international working groups and standards committees (including ETSI, ITU, PNOIG, IETF) and is currently actively contributing to ITU-T SG15 (Transport Networks, Systems & Equipment) on the synchronisation question (Q13).
Kenneth Hann - CEO Time4 Systems email»
Kenneth is Senior Director R&D for Oscilloquartz, Finland. He was founder and CEO of Time4 Systems with 30 years’ experience in telecommunications from Nokia, Martis and Tellabs. For the past decade Kenneth has focused on innovative synchronisation solutions for packet networks and has been actively involved in the development of standardisation for both synchronous Ethernet, and IEEE 1588. Kenneth has a number of synchronisation related patents and a Master’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Queens University Belfast.
Helmut Imlau, Dipl.-Ing. - Timing & Synchronisation, Deutsche Telekom Fixed and Mobile Engineering Deutschland (FMED) email»
Has 20 years experience in the field of transport networks along with specific synchronisation and measurement issues. Since 2002 Helmut has been responsible for synchronisation systems within Deutsche Telekom's fixed network. His current focus is on Deutsche Telekom's future synchronization strategy as well as phase synchronization for mobile base stations. He is active in standardisation with main focus on ITU-T SG15 (Transport Networks, Systems & Equipment) on the synchronisation question (Q13).
Martin Kingston - Principal Designer for Mobile Backhaul at EE email»
Martin has over 20 years experience in communications, amassing a broad knowledge of fixed, mobile and internet services combined with a deep understanding of transmission and transport technologies. He began working on terrestrial and satellite communication systems for outside broadcasts at the BBC before moving to Orange UK were he gained extensive experience of synchronisation in mobile networks and evolution to next generation transport network architectures in a converged mobile, home and business service provider. Martin is currently working with a team of Senior Designers developing design strategy and solutions for packet transport networks to support the next generation of radio access technologies.
Michael Mayer, B.Sc. – email»
Michael is a graduate of Queen's University (Kingston, Canada). He is currently employed with Ciena Corporation and is involved with research and development related to transport systems design and standardization. Prior to this, he was employed by Bell-Northern Research and Nortel. Since 1998, the focus of his standardization work as been with the ITU-T, contributing to diverse topics such as synchronization, SDH, OTN and control plane architecture. He is currently involved with ITU-T Question 13 and is the editor of several recommendations related to packet network synchronization.
Wojciech Owczarek - Global Communications Lab Manager, Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. email»
Wojciech is a network architect with a background in software development and operating systems, working with communications technologies for over 12 years. He specialises in low latency trading networks, multicast distribution, data centre networks and network-centric R&D. Involved in time synchronisation for the enterprise since 2010, he also develops PTPd, an open source IEEE 1588 implementation. In his current role with the New York Stock Exchange (part of the Intercontinental Exchange group), he has been working with low latency trading technologies since 2007. Wojciech manages the operation of the Global Communications Lab, ICE’s internal, global R&D facility based in the UK, where he runs a small team delivering projects for internal and external customers. His facility is responsible for consultation, testing and verification of network designs, product testing, software regression testing, issue reproduction, root cause analysis and work with vendors. Wojciech is NYSE’s key time sync engineer and consultant.
Andy Proctor, FRIN - Lead Technologist Satellite Navigation, Innovate UK email»
Andy is Lead Technologist for Satellite Navigation at the UK's Innovation Agency, Innovate UK and also the UK lead delegate to the European Space Agency (ESA) Programme Board for Navigation (PBNAV) providing a governance role for ESA activities within the flagship EU Galileo and EGNOS Navigation Systems. Andy also works on a cross-thematic basis in Innovate UK bringing the benefits of Positioning Navigation and Timing (PNT) technology and data to other Innovate UK teams. Andy is the founder and chair of the Cross-government working group on PNT and also sits on the UK Space PNT Committee. Andy has held engineering and business and consultancy positions within a variety of organisations; military, governmental and commercial, both large and small, for over 20 years. His particular interest is in new product and market entry and has had success in growing businesses during recession. He has experience in multiple sectors including Space, Telecommunications, Defence and Automotive, plus has a large amount of international business experience having worked in the USA, Asia and mainland Europe. Andy is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management and holds a Master's degree in Strategic Sales and Management.
Silvana Rodrigues –Director of System Engineering - IDT Canada email»
Silvana Rodrigues is a Director of System Engineering at Integrated Device Technology (IDT) . Silvana graduated in Electrical Engineer from Campinas University, Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1985. She started her career at the Telecommunication Research Center in Brazil. She worked at Zarlink (formerly Mitel Semiconductor) where she hold several positions as Analog designer, Engineering Manager and System Architect. Currently, Silvana is working in the Timing and Synchronization Division at IDT. She also participates in several standards group, being the secretary for the IEEE 1588 standards committee and the editor of the ITU-T G.8262, G.8263, G.8272 and G.8273.x Recommendations.
Hartmut Roth – Managing Director, Microsemi Inc, VP EMEA email»
Hartmut graduated in Electronics from Jena University of Applied Sciences, and started his career at Friedrich Schiller University in optical research and laser ophthalmology devices. He has extensive experience in Synchronisation, Time & Frequency. He ran Engineering at Ball Efratom Germany, the place where Efratom was founded and the miniature Rubidium oscillator was invented. The main development focus was on GPS disciplined Primary Reference Systems. From 1995 Hartmut ran Marketing & Sales for Datum in Europe, and has been with Symmetricom since 2002.
Stefano Ruffini - Expert R&D, Ericsson email»
Joined Ericsson in 1993. Has been working on Synchronisation aspects for almost 20 years. Has represented Ericsson in various standardisation organisations (including ETSI, ITU, 3GPP) and is currently actively contributing to ITU-T SG15 Q13 (Q13 Associated Rapporteur and editor of the G.8261, G.8261.1 and G.8271). Is one of the Ericsson experts involved in the definition of the equipment and network synchronisation solutions.
Dominik Schneuwly - Synchronisation Consultant, Osilloquartz SA email»
Joined Oscilloquartz in 1994 as Head of R&D. He is now a consultant within the Sales & Marketing Department , where he is involved in product definition, turn-key synchronization projects and customer training. He participates in the standardisation activities on synchronization within ITU-T and ATIS. Recently he has been involved in research on real-time services over IP.
Kishan Shenoi - CTO, Qulsar, Inc. email»
Kishan Shenoi received his bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees from IIT-Delhi, Columbia University, and Stanford University, respectively, in 1972, 1973, and 1977. He is active in Standards bodies and co-chair of the technical committee of NIST-WSTS. He is named on 45 patents and has several publications including two books, Digital Signal Processing in Telecommunications (1995) and Synchronization and Timing in Telecommunications (2009). He is currently CTO of Qulsar, developing fit-for-purpose solutions for timing and synchronization in the fields of communications, power, sensor networks, and the Internet of Things.
Dr Marc A. Weiss - Telecom Sync and GPS expert, U.S. NIST email»
Dr. Marc Weiss has worked at NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology--formerly NBS, the National Bureau of Standards) since 1979. He received the NBS Applied Research Award (with others) for a first GPS timing receiver in 1983. He was awarded a patent (with others) for the Smart Clock algorithm in 1993. Marc founded and has led WSTS, the Workshop on Sync in Telecom Systems, annually since 1992. Dr. Weiss has also led the NIST program to support the GPS program office in developing their clocks and timing systems since 1992, after participating in it since 1980. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematical-Physics from the University of Colorado in 1981.
Adam Wertheimer - Systems Architect, Timing and Synchronisation Products, Microsemi Corporation. email»
Adam has been with Microsemi for two years working on requirements for selected Microsemi phase locked loop (PLL) and packet timing products. Prior to joining Microsemi, Adam worked at Telcordia (formerly Bellcore) for more than 12 years on synchronization testing and requirements. Adam is a frequency participant in synchronization standards groups including ATIS COAST-SYNC and ITU-T Question 13.