Lopez, who is head of technology exploration at Telefónica, will take over from Steven Wright of AT&T’s strategic standards division in the US, who has led the network functions virtualisation (NFV) group at the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
AT&T and Telefónica have been prominent in the development of the concept of virtualisation within ETSI from the beginning. The industry selected ETSI, based in the south of France, as the best place to use to develop NFV standards.
Wright “steered the group through rapid growth and a second release of specifications” during his period chairing the NFV group, said ETSI. “Diego Lopez of Telefónica has been elected to continue this work and lead the NFV community over the next two years.”
ETSI added: “He aims to keep the industry specification group as a central reference point for the NFV community, consolidating the NFV technology base across the various initiatives built on it. Maintaining a well-balanced interaction with the open source initiatives born out of the NFV concepts will be key to future consensus development and community building.”
Lopez joined Telefónica in 2011 as a senior technology expert on network infrastructures. “I am among the ‘founding fathers’ of the NFV concept,” he said in a recent interview.
