The Broadband Forum announced Craig Thomas will be its next CEO as the standards group continues to advocate for an industry-wide transition to services-led networks that prioritize user experience.
Thomas has been with the forum since 2020 as its VP of strategic marketing and business development.
“The broadband market is increasingly more competitive and offering different types of broadband connectivity options, and network operators are jostling for position. Those marketing speed as the only differentiator are missing a trick,” Thomas wrote in a recent blog post.
The Broadband Forum creates open standards and open-source software for fixed and wireless-wireline technologies to promote multi-vendor interoperability and establish certification programs for industry standards, architectures and best practices. In July, Broadband Forum and FBA announced a partnership focused on developing and educating the broadband industry on best practices. They said the agreement will also broaden support for “ubiquitous broadband service delivery.”
In his new role Thomas will continue to advocate for service-driven networks. To become more dynamic, he said broadband networks should offer “service-aware and application-appropriate” quality of experience (QoE), with networks adapting and prioritizing traffic in case of congestion.