It's my favorite time of year as GENBAND brings together hundreds of technology and telecom professionals at the top of their game to compare notes about the never dull worlds of networks and real-time communications applications, while sharing their experiences, and revealing visions into a future of hyper-connected digital conversations.
With our company’s annual Global Day of Service fast approaching on June 1st, I was recently reminded of what a unique privilege I have - being a part of such a giving and caring group of professionals. I’m not just paying lip service when I say GENBAND employees are truly special in so many ways. Each year GENBAND team members volunteer thousands of hours working at local charities and non-profit organizations that are most near and dear to them.
Over the last several years, we have been working with some of the largest and most successful Communications Service Providers (CSPs) in the world, and it's been fascinating to be part of their transformation teams, contributing to their large-scale projects, as virtualized and software defined networks emerge and legacy networks continue to fade into the past.
Will network design in the future be as easy as spinning up Virtual Machines, and will launching new services take days or even hours, not months or even years?
This is the promise of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) for Communications Service Providers (CSPs) and the value proposition of Software Defined Networking (SDN).
According to industry analysts, it takes CSPs an average of 9 - 18 months to launch a new service on existing appliance-based networks.
Approaching its fourth year of inception, iBRIDGES is a collaborative initiative designed to empower the worldwide high-tech entrepreneurial community, focused on those of Iranian descent, to exchange knowledge, best practices, and innovative thinking. Last year, I was lucky enough to participate in iBRIDGE Berlin.
When I joined GENBAND in early 2015 I had firsthand knowledge of the innovation that was taking place at the company and that’s one of the things that made the organization so attractive to me. I’ve known David Walsh, our CEO, for many years and I know that he is fully committed to anticipating our customers’ needs and delivering the solutions and services that help them compete and maintain their dominant position in the communications industry. Staking out leadership positions across this dynamic landscape is part of our DNA.
Back in early nineties, straight out of college, I began working on Wall Street building trading floor technology and trying to keep up with the growth of the public markets and innovation in platforms. In my early twenties, I was charged with engineering and evolving sophisticated trader voice applications, connecting thousands of participants – buyers, sellers, brokers, banks and, of course, exchanges.
GENBAND is hosting its fourth annual customer event again in Orlando this year, Perspectives16, kicking off today on May Day. Every year, this event welcomes hundreds of innovators and thinkers within the real-time communications industry from around the world, as it gets bigger, increasingly interesting and more meaningful. 
Change or lose. Transform and win. Transformation in the real-time communications software industry is all around us - there is software everywhere, in the network, on the edge, on devices and endpoints, in the applications and embedded in applications. Nothing is standing still, and those who develop a score for transformation will orchestrate value creation while the rest will be doomed to cacophony.
An industry and government approach to supporting PSTN to IP transformation over the next decade
