Date: May 17, 2007

Presenter: Craig Dassner, Qwest

The guest speaker was Craig Dassner, Wide Area Networks, Subject Matter Expert for Qwest. Mr. Dassner discussed "New Developments and Practices in Wide Area Networks" including home and office connections and security. He has over 20 years experience in telecommunications and network technologies.

There are many initiatives in communications technology. The advances in the past decade alone have been nothing less than leaps in technology compared to previous decades. Telecommunications is one of those rare areas where just the capability to do a task can stimulate an entire class of businesses. For example, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) has the potential to be a very disruptive technology and, at the same time, create a whole new class of innovative companies. Will VoIP replace the large corporate PBX switches as we know them today? What does that mean to smaller businesses or even the large phone companies?