Track: Sales

Tips and tricks for selling middle-mile transport to transit providers and IXes in Carrier Hotels.

Target Audience: Fiber Transport Sales and Sales Engineering

Speaker: Jay Hanke
Company: South Front Networks/MICE/QCIX
LinkedIn Substack

Location: Pioneer Conference Room

Track: IXP Operator

Speaker: Martin Hannigan
Company: Ann Street Advisors

Location: Pioneer Conference Room

Track: General

Moderator: Jay Hanke
Company: South Front Networks

Location: Meadows Conference Room

Track: Technical

Speaker: Ralph Huff
Company: Padtec
LinkedIn

Location: Pioneer Conference Room

Track: Sales

Speaker: Matthew DiCristofaro
Company: Juniper Networks

Location: Meadows Conference Room

Track: Executive

Moderator: Scott Bergs, CEO Dark Fiber and Infrastructure
Panelist: Jeff Zhou, Grain Management, LLC
Panelist: Bill Severn, The Berks Group
Panelist: Todd Ortberg, Stanza LLC Consulting ​LinkedIn​​​

Location: Pioneer Conference Room

Monday Social sponsored by Bluebird Network

Location: Registration Hall and Northwoods

Track: Technical

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the latest IP revision, developed as a successor to IPv4. IPv6 provides a much larger address pool so that many more devices can be connected to the Internet. It also improves addressing and routing of network traffic.

Because the free pool of IPv4 addresses has been depleted, customers will want to request Ipv6 address space for new networks, and eventually transition their networks from Ipv4 to IPv6.

Are you ready to deploy IPv6, but you’re not sure where to begin? Whether you are an end user or an Internet Service Provider (ISP), ARIN can help you determine how much IPv6 address space is appropriate for your organization and tell you how to request space. You’ll also learn the basics of IPv6 and options for supporting IPv4 in your network.

Speaker: John Sweeting, ARIN

Location: Pioneer Conference Room

Track: Technical

Matt "Grizz" Griswold and Chris Grundemann are both IX founders, internetworking experts, and automation proponents. With over 4 decades of combined experience they are now turning to sharing what they've learned about automating BGP and interconnection through a set of open source tools, along with support and services for those that need it.

This talk will share what they have learned both from personal experience as well as through dozens of recent interviews with IX operators and interconnection engineers over the past several months. Including common challenges, productive methodologies, and best practices.

The highlight of the talk will be announcing and describing two open source automation tools built to make interconnection and BGP easier for everyone. One is ixCtl, which is built to automate the most common and problematic tasks involved in running an internet exchange point, particularly configuring and managing secure route servers. The other is PeerCtl, which is built to automate the most common and problematic tasks involved in interconnecting an AS; from bilateral and multilateral peering to PNI and also transit connections.

Code for both (along with several other tools) is available on GitHub: https://github.com/fullctl.

Speaker: Chris Grundemann, FullCtl LinkedIn
Speaker: Matt Griswold, FullCtl LinkedIn

Location: Pioneer Conference Room

Sponsored by Arvig

Location: Registration Hall and Northwoods

Track: Network Development

Speaker: Sarah Bleau
Company: US Department of Commerce, NTIA

Location: Meadows Conference Room

Track: Network Development

Discover the central role of the United States heartland in global connectivity at our panel discussion. Learn about the strategic positioning that has made the Midwest a vital hub for seamless access to information, services, and communication worldwide.

Our expert panel will explore the technological infrastructure, economic impact, and innovative strategies behind this phenomenon. Join us to uncover how the center enables efficient and effective communication, fostering collaboration and transforming the global digital landscape.

Moderator: Chris Newlin, Director of Strategic Accounts, Netrality Data Centers LinkedIn
Panelist: Brad Campbell, Solutions Architect, Netrality Data Centers LinkedIn
Panelist: Justin Wilson, Managing Partner, FD-IX LinkedIn
Panelist: Aaron Wendel, Executive Director, NOCIX LinkedIn

Location: Pioneer Conference Room

Track: Network Development

We will explore how data centers & carrier hotels can work with their competitors to create an interconnection ecosystem that benefits everyone involved, including customers. We will also discuss the challenges of building and maintaining such ecosystems and offer practical advice on how to overcome them.
Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the benefits of collaboration over competition in the data center industry and how it can lead to better services for customers. They will also learn about the importance of interconnection and the role they play in the digital economy.

Speaker: Rafael Possamai, Data Center Manager
Company: Bluebird Network
LinkedIn

Location: Pioneer Conference Room

Track: Technical

Service Providers, Private Equity companies and Broadband Federal Funding initiatives are some of the entities working on new fiber buildouts particularly in rural America. An efficient, secure, scalable, and resilient end-to-end solution is the goal to address increasing requirements from subscribers. The end-to-end architecture for high-performance broadband subscriber management is a comprehensive system designed to efficiently handle the lifecycle of broadband subscribers.

At its core, the architecture encompasses various interconnected components and processes that work seamlessly together to deliver exceptional subscriber experiences. It is key to consider the entire journey from the subscriber to the Internet peering point which includes GPON, Optics and IP routing technology for middle mile and P/PE functions.

Speaker: Miguel Flores Martinez, Principal IP Consulting Engineer
Company: Nokia

Location: Meadows Conference Room

Sponsored by Juniper Networks

Location: Northwoods

Track: Government

Traditionally large companies have built middle mile networks by laying limited fiber across thousands of miles and opening it for access at a premium price. This model has worked well in the past when broadband infrastructure was centralized mostly across urban areas. With the availability of billions of dollars of federal and state funds (RDOF, ARPA, CPF, BEAD etc.), last mile rural infrastructure is coming up at speed without the availability of sufficient middle mile infrastructure to keep up with it. This is evidenced by the fact that on the budget of $1B of Middle Mile funds available under NTIA, over $5B of applications were received with an average of 40% match.
I will discuss the new model that rural operators can now use leveraging their existing last mile network and their relationships with other rural operators to set up regional, state and national middle mile networks at a fraction of the cost of the traditional model. In this new model, the focus is shifted from building single ownership middle mile networks to a coalition owned network that can not only serve and bring down the cost of the coalition but also provide services to outsider much more efficiently. Leveraging existing assets of the members of the coalition allows to drastically cut down on the cost of building, deploying and operating the middle mile network.

Speaker: Sachin Gupta, Director of Government Business & Economic Development
Company: Centranet

Location: Meadows Conference Room

Track: Network Development

Moderator: Greg Elliot, 1623 Farnam
Panelist: Brad Campbell, Solutions Architect, Netrality Data Centers LinkedIn
Panelist: Ryan Duda, 123NET
Panelist: Chris Grundemann, FullCtl

Location: Pioneer Conference Room

Moderator: Marty Hannigan, Ann Street Advisors
Panelist: Reid Fishler, Hurricane Electric, MICE, CalgaryIX
Panelist: Jay Hanke, South Front Networks, MICE, QCIX
Panelist: TBD

Location: Pioneer Conference Room

Sponsored by Netrality Data Centers and Unite Private Networks

Location: Registration Hall and Northwoods