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Roger Ward, head of network evolution strategy for BT's Chief Technology Office, has been integrally involved with the MultiService Forum since its inception in 1998. He was elected to the group's board of directors in 1999. In 2000, he was elected president and has held the office to date. During his tenure with the MSF, Ward has focused his efforts on helping it achieve and demonstrate to the industry multivendor interoperability by hosting successful Global MSF Interoperability events in 2002 and 2004. Ward currently is busy leading the preparation and planning for GMI 2006. Based in the U.K., Ward heads up Future Switched Network Strategy for BT Exact, BT's research, technology and IT operations business. Ward spoke with freelance writer Annie Lindstrom.

What brings you to Supercomm?

Well, it is a major trade show, of course, and working in BT's CTO department, it's a great opportunity to keep abreast of what is happening in the industry. I'm also representing the MSF, and I've been invited to participate in one of the round-table discussions on IMS. I'm coming to the show from Japan, where I'll be at the Broadband Forum in Yokahama.

Where do you expect the buzz to be this year?

I think it is going to be pretty close to the work the MSF is doing in network convergence, service convergence and interoperability.

How does the MSF work with other groups?

The partnerships the MSF has are very important because no one forum can do it all. The MSF has set its scope on the totality of next-generation network solutions, the end-to-end solution and how the piece parts come together. In some specific protocol areas like H.248, the MSF also has in-depth expertise and has led the industry in technical specifications. In other areas — say, SIP and MPLS — it's more appropriate for us to partner with people like the SIP Forum and the MFA [the forum created by the merger of the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance and the ATM Forum].

I have always thought it's important to recognize your strengths and your weaknesses. As a consequence, I've always been very keen to make sure that the MSF keeps its focus on the things that it can do, and where it needs to work with others, we build bridges and relationships with other forums as necessary.

For example, we have a very strong relationship with the MFA. We have done a lot of work with them around the MPLS layer in the MSF architecture.

We also have a very strong relationship with the TeleManagement Forum (TMF). One of the things that always happens is that the OSSs around next-gen networks always tend to come along as an afterthought. We started our relationship with the TMF in May 2004. They have taken our Release 2 architecture, along with the 3GPP IMS architecture, and identified the objects that we have in our architecture and related it to the objects in their architecture. We are shooting for a joint catalyst event later this year that will prove some of that work. Then we hope to roll it in a bigger way into GMI 2006 [Global MSF Interoperability Event]. The idea is to develop specifications for networks of the future that are manageable.

Are there any other groups you work alongside?

PARLAY Group, which is all about providing APIs to give access to underlying network functionality to third-party developers is another example of a forum we have worked closely with.

There is of course also the ITU-T, and here the MSF has an active liaison relationship with Study Group 13 which is working on next generation architectures. In addition, I attend the ITU-T “Heads of Forum Summits” on behalf of the MSF. The last one I went to there were 63 forums in attendance. That was in San Francisco last summer.

There are also the regional standards development organizations, such as ETSI-TISPAN in Europe, and ATIS in the U.S.

In the U.K., the MSF has done a lot of work on the H.248 Access Gateway, well ahead of work being done in the ITU and ETSI. Where we do have a critical lead, we work very hard to take the work we have done and offer it back into the ITU and ETSI so they pick up on it in their standards development programs.

I think running a forum like the MSF is quite an art form, really. You have to ask, is there a gap here? Is it a gap that people would be interested in working on? Can we, through our relationships, actually get more traction or more progress than if it is left to the very large ITU-T or regional standards development organizations.

Is the gateway work just for the U.K.?

Well, for Europe — because the U.K. is ahead of Europe — which is why the U.K. is hitting the problem first. Of course, all this work is picked up in BT's 21st Century Network Program, a major and very ambitious project to tear out the core of the network and turn it into a QOS-enabled, IP multiservice network over the course of the next five or six years.

What are the really tough problems the MSF faces in putting on GMI 2006?

We have a natural 18 to 24 month cycle for our work. First, we go through the inception phase, with discussion papers on the hot issues facing the industry, so that we can distill out their impact onto what physical scenarios we should run at this big event. We had six scenarios at GMI 2004. Right now the question is, what will we get traction on in the industry in the GMI 2006 timeframe? Ultimately, we want to figure out what people really feel they are finding it tough to collaborate on so that the MSF can really make the difference if we do it.

We very much feel we have reached membership agreement on what the 40 or so MSF members will agree on. Now we know what our members are prepared to put their time and money into, and now we are getting into building the project using the tried and tested techniques that made GMI 2004 such a success.

We are also very pleased to see that the JPNIC, Japan's VoIP interworking group, were so impressed by what we did in GMI 2004 that they asked to use our test plans, because they want to do something similar in Japan this year. We are working with them on this, and they have some big names … including Mitsubishi Research, which will be involved.

What do you want to tell Supercomm 2005 attendees?

If they like what they hear about the MSF they should come and get involved. We are always pleased to see new members.

Are you in need of new members?

We are very strong. We've just been through a membership renewal cycle, and we've come out this year with more members than we had before — and they are fully paid up, too.

I take the view if we can't do something at the MSF that people couldn't otherwise do themselves, we'd go out of business. I get pretty passionate about things that are unique about the MSF, especially the relationships we have around the world. We have an ongoing plan, we have credibility and we have something that people want to do; and they want to do it with us rather than doing it elsewhere.

How long have you been president of the MSF?

I've been president for more than four years. There is an ultimate term limit, but I could continue for a number of years yet and I would be willing to continue as long as it helps the MSF achieve meaningful objectives. I'm committed to the MSF, my company is committed to my being committed to the MSF, and as long as I can keep satisfying the MSF members, I shall continue.

What is the hardest part of your job?

It's probably influencing members in an environment where I have no contractual hold over them. I can't give people pay raises, I have no business to give them. The only thing I can do is articulate a vision of what we can do together that captures their imagination and do so in way that compels them to come and participate. And it's been quite good fun doing it.

What's the best part of your job?

The best part is relationships that span around the world and the support we give each other.

What has happened during your time as president that surprised or impressed you the most?

I think one of the great things about GMI 2004 was when I stood up two months before the event and welcomed participants in the U.K. at BT labs. There were about 50 people in the room. Although there were many companies that had been members for some time, there were new people from those companies specifically brought in to participate in GMI 2004. And you could see by the body language there was skepticism. They didn't really believe it was all going to work … I mean, bringing major competitors together — the Alcatels, Nortels, Ciscos.

I think what was really cool was the way that when the event was running I was out there on site, and at 10 o'clock at night people were still working. They wouldn't go home at the weekend. At the end, people said to me, “Roger, that was really rather special, we got something out of that. We didn't believe we would. We've had opportunities to interwork our equipment with others that we would never have been able to achieve otherwise. Thank you.”

For me, that made whole thing worthwhile. And I say that very sincerely.

I also think by the end of the event, a lot of people forgot who they were working for. They were all trying to make more than 200 network devices work together. We had probably more than 100 engineers on-site and another 400 back in the companies. And 800 pages of test plans. They spent two weeks, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, testing six scenarios. They didn't all fall over each other. They didn't all get totally frustrated. There was actually a benefit at the end for everybody.

What's your biggest challenge right now?

The challenge I have at the moment is keeping the MSF machine running. We have the relationships, the organization, a history of some 30 implementation agreements, and the desire to continue to make that relevant to the challenges facing the industry in the 2005-2006 time frame. We are broadening our scope to look at applications and network convergence and to deliver something meaningful. That's the challenge, and it's scary as well as very satisfying.