Another speaker bio for the Broadband conference:

David Russel

Short Bio
I work for Calix, where I am responsible for marketing Fiber-to-the-Home systems to non-traditional service providers. We call these service providers Innovators and they include Municipalities, Greenfield Developers, CLECs and increasingly, cable operators. For those of you not familiar with us, Calix is one of the largest broadband access companies serving North America and the largest Fiber-to-the-Home vendor outside of the Verizon deployments. Calix acquired Optical Solutions last year and since then has been growing the development team in our Plymouth, Minnesota location. All of the Fiber-to-the-Home development is done here in Minnesota. Before joining Optical Solutions in 2003, I worked for ADC Telecommunications for 19 years.

What aspects of broadband are on your mind these days? (Or what info do you hope to impart at the conference?)

Calix has deployed Fiber-to-the-Home systems in over 450 communities in the United States. Only about 10 of these have been done by Municipalities. There is a wealth of experience and information available to Municipalities on what has worked and what has not worked. My goal is to connect Municipalities with people and resources who have been there and done it, including the consultant community. It seems like to date Muncipalities are relying on a small circle of information sources that have little proven expertise in deploying Fiber-to-the-Home systems in rural communities in North America.

What are you hoping to learn at the conference?

Ironically, most of my time the past few years has been spent helping people deploy FTTH systems outside of Minnesota. I am looking forward to meeting people and becoming more of a community member in Minnesota FTTH world.