Panelist Biographies

Bill Ver Steeg, Distinguished Engineer, Cisco

Bill VerSteeg works in the intersection of video and routing/switching. Early in his career, he implemented embedded systems communications stacks. This took him to the world of routers, terminal servers and switches. He implemented the TCP stack on Scientific Atlanta’s line of digital TV Set Top Boxes in 1995, which led him into the digital video world. While at Scientific Atlanta, Bill was one of the founders of the IPTV business. He came to Cisco as part of the Scientific Atlanta acquisition in 2006. He is currently a Cisco Distinguished Engineer. He has recently been working on streamlining the video flows through the network, including middleboxes and endpoints. In particular, Bill has been working on adaptive bitrate video optimizations, flow metadata between the network and the endpoints, modern video deployment methods, and optimizing the queue management algorithms at network bottlenecks.

Hunter Newby, Founder and CEO, Allied Fiber

Mr. Newby has amassed deep subject matter expertise and contacts in the telecom networking industry spanning 15 years. He is the Founder and CEO of Allied Fiber and prior to founding Allied Fiber, he was the Chief Strategy Officer and a Director of The Telx Group, Inc., one of the leading carrier hotel interconnection facility operators in the U.S. Under Mr. Newby’s direction, Telx successfully created an entirely new business model originating in New York City, expanding to Atlanta and ultimately nationwide and in the process built one of the strongest brand names for carrier-neutral, core interconnection facilities in the world. Mr. Newby is a recognized authority in the industry, has served on several Advisory Boards, is a published author, public speaker and the recipient of numerous awards including being named to the Global Telecoms Business Top 40 Under 40 in 2010. Mr. Newby earned a B.S. in Communications from Drexel University.

Rod Wilson, Senior Director, External Research, Ciena

Mr. Wilson is responsible for Ciena’s leadership & interactions with universities and the research community, including national research and education networks. Residing within Ciena's CTO organization, he is able to orchestrate intersections between emerging technologies and research network experiments. He is a frequent contributor to research projects, demonstrations and discussions about advanced optical telecommunications systems. Prior to his current role, Mr. Wilson was a senior advisor for the CTO at Nortel, and held other advanced technology roles during 13 years with the company, including director of Broadband Switching, and optical Ethernet development. Originally trained in Electrical Engineering at Ryerson University in Toronto Ontario, and University of Toronto, and is a graduate of the Executive Management school at Stanford University in Palo Alto California.

Scott Teissler; Executive vice president, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Digital Strategy Officer; Turner Broadcasting

Scott Teissler is executive vice president, chief technology officer and chief digital strategy officer for Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.). In this capacity, he has architectural oversight of support provided to the TBS, Inc. entertainment and news networks by the company’s various technology groups; is instrumental in technology strategy and policy development and implementation; and represents TBS, Inc. in technology matters involving parent company Time Warner Inc. and other Time Warner companies. Teissler is based in Atlanta and reports to John Kampfe, CFO of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. Previously, Teissler was senior vice president of new media strategy and chief technology officer for CNN, and chief information officer and vice president of information technology infrastructure for TBS, Inc. He joined the company in 1993 from the University of Chicago, where since 1987 he had served as vice provost for technology and the institution’s chief technology strategist, also overseeing applications development, communications, computer retailing, research and instructional computing. Earlier in his career, Teissler was responsible for engineering and management systems for PacTel Spectrum Services, a West Coast company specializing in wide-area network management. He also was the assistant dean and director of computing services at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Teissler is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz and the University of Chicago’s graduate school of business. His degree specialties are in mathematics, economics, econometrics and finance. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company, creates and programs branded news, entertainment, animation and young adult media environments on television and other platforms for consumers around the world.