As the PSTN network integrates traffic with the Internet and vice versa, what are the issues and pitfalls for gateways manufacturers. Is backward compatiability always a given? Are boards becoming more specific to certain jobs or more generic. Has the IP side of the network changed? What drivers are continuing gateway device success?

Vince Connors is the Product Line Manager responsible for the Gateway Products within the Dialogic Enterprise PLM team. Vince Connors is responsible for the product strategy, product roadmap, and overall product responsibility for all of the gateway products.
Prior to this position, Connors was head of the Getzville site Program Management Office and manager of the Enterprise Product Line Management team for Intel prior to the sale of Intel’s Media and Signaling assets which helped to form Dialogic. Connors also held positions in the development group as a program manager and hardware development engineer for Voice Technologies Group prior to its acquisition by Intel in 2000.
Before joining Voice Technologies Group, Connors spent almost 8 years as a development engineer. Connors holds MEEE and BSEE degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Frank Green is the product manager for ADTRAN’s network management, Voice Quality Monitoring solutions, IP phones and third-party applications complementing the NetVanta 7100 IP PBX. Since joining ADTRAN in 2002, he has been responsible for the design and development of these and other product families and has spearheaded relationships with third-part vendors forming business relationships for associated products.



Prior to joining ADTRAN, Mr. Green served as a product manager for Verilink Corporation. In that role, he was responsible for the WANsuite product line of intelligent, frame-aware CSU/DSUs and routers. Mr. Green also served as a design engineer for Atmel, a multimedia communications company. In this position, Mr. Green was responsible for ASIC design and testing for digital signal processing applications.



Mr. Green holds a degree in Physics from North Georgia College and State University.

Kafel’s career began in 1983 at Wang Laboratories, where he developed communications-related products such as a store-and-forward protocol and utility used for the global internal network. In 1989, Kafel moved to an engineering position and then to business development at Stratus, where he remained until 1998 in a tenure interrupted only by an eight-month stint in 1995 working on network management applications for Bay Networks (now Nortel). At Stratus, Kafel advanced steadily through the ranks to become head of business development for telecommunications. He took over Stratus’ program to adapt data switches to telecommunications networks, building Stratus’ first – and highly lucrative – telecom solution practice. Companies such as MCI, France Telecom and Sprint were among those that bought Stratus’ access signaling gateway (ASG), which was later recognized as one of the industry’s first soft switches.

Kafel spent two years at Ascend Communications after the company bought Stratus Computer in 1998 and after Lucent Technologies bought Ascend in 1999. At Ascend, he retained responsibility for signaling products and leading a 28-person team responsible for $50 million in revenue. At Lucent he took over a division of the company’s portfolio of intelligent network products, which generated $70 million in revenue. From 2000 to 2002, Kafel served as vice president of marketing for voice over IP (VoIP) switching pioneer Telica. He launched the company, developed positioning and messaging and coordinated product launches, building it into an attractive acquisition target for Lucent, which bought it for over $300 million in 2004.

In 2003, after a short stint at remote access hardware provider Advanced Fibre Communications (now Tellabs), Kafel was recruited back to Stratus Technologies to build a new telecommunications practice around providing whole solutions – software, hardware and services. Stratus’ new telecommunications practice now generates 25 percent to 30 percent of the company’s revenues.

Kafel holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and an MBA from Suffolk University in Boston.

Stratus Technologies

fault-tolerant technologies

Chuck has over 20 years of experience in marketing, strategy and business development in the high tech industry. He leads marketing and business development at Quintum Technologies, a leading provider of VoIP equipment and an INC 500 company. As Director of Marketing and Business Development at Madge Networks, he established a new business unit to market video networking and ISDN equipment to the service provider market. As Business Development Director at AT&T, he worked with telephone, CATV and ISP companies to establish relationships for the deployment and marketing of a variety of communications services. He started his career in Bell Laboratories as a researcher and holds multiple patents. Chuck is a board member for the Technology Management Education Association. He has a BS in Electronic Engineering and a MBA.

James Rafferty is the director of media gateway products at Cantata Technology. In this role, he is responsible for Cantata’s media gateway products and related market strategies. Previously, James was president of Human Communications, a leading technology consulting firm for telecommunications companies. James is also active in the standards process through his work with the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), and was instrumental in the development of the T.37 and T.38 IP fax standards. He speaks frequently at industry conferences and is a co-author of several IETF RFC standards. James holds a BS and a master’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

Dialogic

One of the world’s leading providers of enabling communications technology