He studied communication engineering and business administration at Technische Universität Berlin. From 1989 to 1992 he successfully established his own company selling PCs and PC network to residential and small business customers. From 1992 to 1998 he worked in a leading position in Arthur D. Little's Telecoms, IT, media and entertainment practice as a management consultant and from 1998 to 2001 he was telecoms equity analyst with Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. He joined Deutsche Telekom Group in 2001 as Senior Director in charge of IPO preparations and investor relations for T-Mobile International. Since April 2002 he was a Senior Executive Vice president of Deutsche Telekom, in charge of investor relations. He was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Magyar Telekom as of September 20 2006, and from November 6, 2006 has been member of the Board of Directors.

Akshay Patel is currently a product manager at KEYMILE AG. He is responsible for the voice and Ethernet technologies on KEYMILE’s multi-service access platform MileGate. The product range he is responsible for is used in large deployments within public telephony operator networks as well as for mission critical applications within transport, authority, and utility companies. He leads several project teams, works with system architects in defining complex implementations, and also maintains both customer and vendor relations.

He has extensive experience working with operators worldwide in wired and wireless access technologies delivering voice, video and data applications. Prior to KEYMILE, Akshay was with ARRIS Group in the USA, leading special projects and customer issue resolution for MSOs worldwide. He has also experience with leading major state and governmental projects in Africa.

CEO and co-founder of Diffraction Analysis, Benoît Felten is a recognized expert on issues related to Next-Generation-Access. Felten’s expertise focuses on NGAN in terms of architecture, relevant vendor strategies as well as new service opportunities for ISPs, carriers, and MSOs. His analysis particularly emphasises the understanding of business models and go to market challenges related to next-generation broadband as well as the necessary transformation of the telco ecosystem needed to sustain the access revolution.

Before starting Diffraction Analysis, Felten was a Director of Access Network Research at Yankee Group where he led the company’s research efforts in the NGA field. Prior to Yankee Group, Felten was at Arcome, a French telecom consultancy and analysis firm where he managed and carried out numerous high-profile consultancy projects for operators and vendors in continental Europe and North Africa. Before joining Arcome, Felten was the SME Portfolio Manager at Belgacom France where he was responsible for their Fiber to the Office offers.

Felten lives in Paris. He complements his day job by blogging about the economic and social impacts of next generation access on Fiberevolution and tweets under the handle of @fiberguy.

Boyan Krosnov is a co-founder and director at Packet Scale OOD, a start-up provider of products and services for the FTTx market.

He has been working in the Internet access business since 1999, coming from a technical background. He has extensive experience in managing the network design and deployment for a number of next generation access projects throughout Europe and Asia.

Through the years, he has also been involved in a number of smaller projects and activities including technical sales support, R&D, teaching, competitive programming, community networks and exhibitions.

Costas Troulos has been directly involved in the first open access FTTx deployment in Greece where he designed and oversaw constructions of several municipal open access networks across the country. His research focuses on NGA networks and electronic services delivery, contributing to the international debates surrounding (a) the challenges of traditional electronic services business models, and (b) the role of the public sector in supporting broadband infrastructures development, a topic highly visible in contemporary broadband development agendas.

Before joining Diffraction Analysis, Troulos worked as an independent business and strategy consultant for public institutions and private enterprises in IT and telecoms. Prior to that he was the Technical Director of Vivodi Telecommunications, a pioneer Greek broadband provider with a series of significant firsts, such as first full-unbundled DSL and first IP telephony service. Under this capacity he oversaw both the Technology and Information Offices of the company. Troulos started his career and a network engineer and for years he carried out complex and demanding network implementation projects, from small businesses to large organizations.

He is an Electrical and Computer engineer with an MBA in entrepreneurship from the Louisville University. He is also completing a PhD on public strategies for broadband development.

Troulos lives in Greece, blogs at Broadbandprime and tracks NGA developments with a particular interest in public intervention, telecoms regulation and socio-economic impacts of NGANs. He also tweets under the handle @ktroulos.

Crister Mattsson is a Senior Advisor at Acreo and Erisa, who specializes in business models for open networks and policies for ICT-infrastructure. He also acts as a Director of the Sweden Broadband Alliance and participates in several research projects, such as the OASE Integrated Project which examines Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) and federates partners from all over Europe, including major operators, industrial leaders in FTTH technologies, and European universities. He has written many articles over the years and participated in numerous presentations for politicians and for the management of public services. He has also written a handbook on Broadband for the real estate market by appointment of The Swedish Property Federation.

In the last ten years Csaba worked as solution manager, from 2004 as solution director, being responsible for fixed network related technical solution coordination in Ericsson Hungary. These activities include PSTN modernization, Ethernet based xDSL introduction in Hungarian and Macedonian operator networks, subscriber management and contribution to other Central European broadband deployment projects. He is currently engaged as coordinator or key contributor in Ericsson's VDSL2 FTTC and FTTH activities in Hungary and Central Europe.
Before joining Ericsson, form 1994 to 2001, Csaba successfully established his own company selling telecom solutions to SMEs and providing installation and integration services for Romtelecom, Romania. He was in the same time assistant lecturer of Gábor Dénes College, Budapest. Csaba holds MSC title in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications from Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Dave Carter is Head of the Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA), within the Regeneration Division of Manchester City Council. MDDA is responsible for the delivery of the Manchester Digital strategy and coordinates strategic initiatives and projects across the Greater Manchester city-region, including the Manchester Living Lab. He is a founder member of the Telecities network set up in 1993, now the Eurocities Knowledge Society Forum (KSF), and the first President of Telecities (1994-96), and a founder member of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL). He is currently Chair of the EU Smart Cities Portfolio Working Group, which coordinates the seven projects supported under the EU’s 2010 Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP) on ‘Future Internet enabled services for Smart Cities’, and Co-Chair, with the City of Barcelona, of the Eurocities KSF Smart Cities Working Group. MDDA is currently involved in projects supported through the EU’s FP7, CIP and Interreg programmes.

Frans van Camp has over 15 years experience as a telecommunications consultant. Prior to founding XS Insight (2010), he was Principal at Quintel Strategy Consulting, working with both fixed and mobile operators. From 1993 till 2001, Frans worked in the TIME (Telecommunications, Information Technology, Media & Entertainment) practice of Arthur D. Little (ADL) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In 1999, he helped to define ADL’s global  eBusiness strategy and subsequently transferred to its European eBusiness Center. Frans holds a MSc in Electrical Engineering from Delft University of Technology and an MBA from London Business School.

James is Director of Corporate Development at CityFibre Holdings, the UK's largest independent provider of FTTx infrastructure in second-tier cities, with over 100 dark fibre contracts with public and private sector entities across the UK, as well as the UK's largest FTTH deployment in Bournemouth. James has long experience in European telecoms, as a sell-side financial analyst, director of a principal investing group at Merrill Lynch, independent industry analyst and consultant, associate of Diffraction Analysis and Seim & Partner, and author of EuroTelcoblog.

Marco Forzati is a Senior Scientist and Project Manager at Acreo, where he conducts studies on high-speed transmission in optical fibres, as well as on the socio-economic impact of telecommunications technologies. Dr. Forzati received the Laurea degree in Telecommunication Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. He also holds a B.Sc. degree in Economics from Stockholm University. In the past he has held various R&D positions at Saab Ericsson Space and Ericsson, as well as visiting scientist positions at TRLabs, and France Telecom R&D. Dr. Forzati has authored or co-authored more than 70 papers, conference contributions and book chapters, and 3 patent applications.

Rob Kenny is a founder of Communications Chambers, an association of leading TMT strategy and policy advisors. Previously  he was MD of Human Capital, a consulting firm. Past roles include heading Strategy and/or M&A for Hongkong Telecom, Reach and Level 3 (all multi-billion dollar telcos). He was also a founder of IncubASIA, a Hong Kong based venture capital firm investing in online businesses

Roland Montagne joined IDATE in 1998 and he is now Director Telecoms Business Unit. In his position he is responsible of IDATE Consulting and Research activities covering Telecoms markets. Roland is also Head of Broadband / FTTx Practice at IDATE. Mr Montagne played a leading role in previous IDATE International studies and was also Project Manager for the IDATE annual market report concerning World Broadband Access Market. He has carried out several studies dealing with European Broadband roll out and he is in charge actually of a Survey on Broadband Access for the DGInfSo. Since 2004 Roland Montagne is leading FTTx works at IDATE and is also the project leader for the FTTH Council Europe European FTTH projects panorama. In 2006, he achieved a major study for the French Government on scenarios for deploying Very High Broadband networks in France (cost model and Government options). Roland Montagne also carried out several strategic analyses focused on US and Asian developing FTTH markets. He has been also involved on FTTH cost model analysis for the United Kingdom as well as best practice study looking at fibre indoor deployments as well as ducts sharing. In 2009 Roland is leading an annual worldwide FTTx watch service proposed by IDATE (2nd edition). Roland is a regular speaker in key events related to FTTH topics at an international level (FTTH Councils Europe, Asia Pacific and US, FTTH Forum, IIR events, ETNO and IDATE Digiworld Summit) Roland Montagne is a Telecommunications Engineer (ENST Paris, 1994) and received a Master on Electronics (University Paris 6, 1994). He also worked for AT&T Bell laboratories (USA) as Engineer on DWDM Optical Networks and ATM technologies. He started his carrier in the France Telecom R&D labs working on optical communications.

Rudolf van der Berg is an economist/policy analyst at the OECD in Paris. He works for the Working Group on Communication, Infrastructures and Services Policy (CISP). He works on issues like broadband, fixed mobile convergence, machine to machine communication and interconnection. Prior to working at the OECD he was a management consultant at Logica, a policy advisor at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and he started his career at the Dutch-German Internet Exchange. He holds a masters degree in Public Administration from Twente University.