London, 20th October 2014 - NICC, the UK's technical forum for communications interoperability, will bring together industry leaders at its annual Open Forum (12 November in London) to explore the key issues for mobile telecommunications. The agenda will address the eagerly anticipated 5G technology as well as nuisance calls, Customer Line Identification (CLI), and the rapidly growing SIP market.

Prof. Jim Norton FREng, will open the conference with a keynote that will analyse the unprecedented demand for mobile data networks. Prof. Norton is an external member of the Board of the UK Parliament's Office of Science and Technology (POST), where he acts as a policy advisor and is currently the independent Chair of the Spectrum Policy Forum, established for the Department of Culture, Media & Sport and facilitated by techUK.

Prof. Norton said "Assuring interoperability is essential to extracting the benefits from our burgeoning Digital Society.  Interoperability does not just happen; it is the result of much careful planning and hard work. NICC is at the heart of this work in making interoperability real rather than just a pious aspiration."

Continuing with the theme of 5G mobile networks, Prof. Andy Sutton, Principal Network Architect at EE, will look at the commercial position of 5G for mobile providers and discuss viable business models beneficial to both operators and consumers. Prof Sutton is responsible for network architecture revolution and mobile backhaul strategy at EE, benefitting from over 30 years of industry experience.

Prof. Rahim Tafazolli, Head of the Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR) at the University of Surrey will follow with an address of 5G from a researcher's perspective. The University of Surrey hosts a 5G Innovation Centre to research the groundbreaking advancements that will underpin the technology and experiment with these innovations on a specially created test bed.

In addition the conference agenda includes Timothy Harrold, Project Technologist at BBC, who will discuss the latest developments in TV White Space technology, an area in which the UK is a front runner. The technology vastly extends the range of wireless internet and enables internet access in remote, or previously hard to reach locations.

The Open Forum is an excellent opportunity for industry pioneers to mingle and review significant market developments while forecasting the communication networks of the future.

This year's Task Groups will also provide updates on nuisance calls and cyber security through the full agenda:

Paul Rosbotham, NICC Director and TSG chairman ­- Nuisance Calls, update from Ofcom and NICC CLI (NICC's recently published ND1016 document)
Perry Wilks, SIP Task Group member and Steve Covey, Security Task Group Chair - NICC Work Programme - SIP NNI and Enterprise, and Security
John Medland, EmLoc Task Group Chair - NICC Work Programme - Emergency Location
Kevin Foster, DSL Task Group Chair - NICC Work Programme - DSL
NICC is considered by Ofcom to be the UK Telecommunications Network Design Authority and is a source of advice to Ofcom and Government departments on the harmonisation of technical interconnection arrangements. As a basis for its work on standards, NICC adopts where possible and adapts when necessary existing ETSI and International standards. NICC will endorse existing ETSI and International standards with changes to meet the requirements that exist as a result of the UK historical and current regulatory environments.

The NICC Open Forum will take place on 12 November at the Godfrey Mitchell Theatre, One Great George Street, Westminster, London. To view the full programme, please visit www.niccstandards.org.uk/meetings/forum-2014.cfm. NICC members and non-members can register to attend by contacting [email protected] for further information.