Ray Williamson - Director of Product Management, Huawei Technologies (UK)

Director of Product Management, Huawei Ray leads the Product Management team responsible for strategy and solution definition for current 2G, 3G and 4G networks, how these evolve to 5G and how these network enable new services such as IoT, WTTx and AR/VR. He has over twenty years of experience in the wireless communications field in Engineering and Business Development roles and has held leadership positions in Product Management. Ray has been involved in the study, design and launch of small cell solutions for over 15 years and conducted early field trials of the microcellular algorithms which we became the enabler for GSM’s first “layered networks”. Ray joined Huawei in 2013 having previously worked at Motorola and NSN. He holds a BSC (Hons) in Telecommunications and a PGDBA (Finance).

Graham Payne - CEO, Opencell

CEO, Opencell Advisor to global mobile connectivity groups including Executive level support to Vodafone on the Beacon project with Telefonica and CTIL, former MD of MBNL, planning and deployment director of T-Mobile, Graham co-founded Opencell. “Having worked in the Telecoms industry providing macro coverage, I realised that the only way to enable great, multi-operator, mobile signal indoors is by providing a solution within the building itself.”

Adis Omeragic - Special Projects Manager, EE

Bob Slorach - CTO, Wireless Infrastructure Group

Chief Technology Officer, Wireless Infrastructure Group Bob has spent nearly 25 years in the telecoms industry working in the wireless and fibre sectors and is the technical lead for the Wireless Infrastructure Group (WIG). WIG invests in communication towers/masts in rural and suburban areas together with 5G capable small cells connected by fibre, to enable better mobile connectivity in buildings and on city streets. Prior to joining WIG, Bob held the position of director of Metro Cell Solutions at Commscope, responsible for developing the next generation wireless metro cell solution set. Before that, he was head of engineering development for the NTL Broadcast and Arqiva wireless divisions. Bob holds two patents for modular small cell architecture.

David Chambers - Founder and Senior Analyst, ThinkSmallCell

David Chambers is Founder and Senior Analyst at ThinkSmallCell.com, an independent website which has tracked the evolution of small cells from their early femtocell origins. With both an engineering and marketing background, and a career spanning product management and marketing for several large telecom vendors, he has gained insight and experience by meeting with mobile operators worldwide. Well known throughout the small cell industry, David writes articles, white papers and presents at conferences on all aspects of the subject. Based in a firm belief that the only technical solution to meet strong data demand is rapid deployment of large numbers of small cells, David continues to be a strong advocate of their adoption whilst pointing out their technical and commercial constraints.

Simon Fletcher - CTO, Real Wireless

Simon joined Real Wireless in January 2016 as Chief Technology Officer, taking overall technical and technical strategy responsibility across the company. He has chaired various conference committees including the Cambridge Wireless Annual International Conference and is recognised as a regular speaker at industry events. He is a Small Cell SIG Champion. His long-standing association with the UK innovation eco-system through roles such as Director of mVCE and the Innovate-UK ICT-KTN brings a wealth of practical knowledge on open innovation to accelerate product and services delivery. Simon spent the past 20 years working in telecoms infrastructure systems and product development. In NEC Corporation he played a key role in the formation of Joint Ventures for development of 3G and 4G products and established a core team that developed the first-generation of technology for 4G systems culminating in a Steering Board position in the LTE SAE Trials Initiative (LSTI). In recent times he has directed projects on future cities, the application 5G and IoT in industry verticals with an event horizon towards 2030. His long participation in Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) and then directing Real Wireless engagement in H2020 5G-NORMA, 5G-MoNArch and the 2016 NIC study on Future Comms infrastructure brings great foresight on a range of architectural evolutions underway in 5G architectures.

Neil Piercy - Head of Research, ip.access

Neil has been developing base stations for various communications systems for over 25 years, during which time he has performed roles throughout the whole development lifecycle as well as management roles. He joined ip.access as a small cell System Architect when the company was in its infancy in 2000, and has since designed GSM, UMTS and LTE small cell RAN equipment and systems. His specialist areas include security and networking, as well as a focus on all aspects of protocol design and implementation, and on system performance and simulation. Now as Head of Research he is responsible for ip.access future products and technologies. He is an active member of the Small Cell Forum, a Champion for their work on the Virtualisation of small cells. He is currently a representative for the EU project SESAME on the 5GPPP Architecture group.

Simon Saunders - Principal, Google

Simon is a specialist in the technology of wireless communications, with a technical and commercial background derived from senior appointments in both industry (including Philips and Motorola) and academia (University of Surrey). He is an adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin and Access Technology Principal at Google. As co-founder and Director of Technology for independent wireless strategy advisory firm Real Wireless, he was responsible for overall technical capability and direction, providing independent wireless expertise and advice to operators, regulators, technology and law firms and wireless users. Customers included Ofcom, Cisco, European Commission, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, Inmarsat and many others. He is an author of over 150 articles, books and book chapters. He has acted as a consultant to companies including BAA, BBC, O2, Ofcom, BT, ntl, Mitsubishi and British Land and was CTO of Red-M and CEO of Cellular Design Services Ltd and has acted as an expert witness in legal proceedings in England and the US. Simon speaks and chairs a wide range of international conferences and training courses and has invented over 15 patented wireless technologies. Particular expertise includes in-building wireless systems, radiowave propagation prediction, smart antenna design and mobile system analysis. He has served on technical advisory boards of several companies, was Visiting Professor to the University of Surrey, member of the industrial advisory board at University College London, founding chairman of Small Cell Forum (formerly Femto Forum), which he chaired from 2007-12 and a member of the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board from 2007-14.