Brough Turner

SVP and CTO, NMS Communications

Own the Network
16 minutes, 7.7mb, recorded 2008-03-13
Brough Turner

Brough Turner says, “Don’t fight for anything above dark fiber.” Changes in telecom tend to happen on a decade's time scale so be careful what you ask for - it will be with you for a long time. His proposal for improving internet communications in the United States is based on the paradigm of owning the dark fiber ourselves or controlling who lights the dark fiber that comes into our homes. 

He describes models from Quebec and Sweden of condominium fiber and municipal fiber, and gives Sweden as the example of a successful model because of their dark fiber widely available. Telephony is not a natural monopoly as that is defined. With dark fiber widely available in a condominium or municipal model, independent ISP’s can compete and customers can control who lights their dark fiber.


Brough Turner is SVP, CTO and co-founder of NMS Communications where he oversees evolution of technology and product architectures and works on business strategy and new market development. Brough writes and is quoted widely on telecommunications topics in trade and general business publications, and he is a frequent speaker at telecom industry events around the world. In the 1990s, Brough was a leader in PC-based telephony and contributed to the emergence of VoIP. He invented the MVIP bus, led the MVIP consortium, brokered the industry compromise that led to the ECTF H.100/H.110 standards and worked within PICMG to drive the creation and adoption of Compact PCI in the telecom industry. He's also championed wideband audio for over a decade (with less results than he'd like!). Since 2001, Brough has focused on the wireless, both infrastructure and mobile applications, especially applications that foster individual's sense of community and identity (e.g. personalization). His current interests include mobile wireless access, broadband policy, mobile video, and user created content and communities. He holds a BS degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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