Pedro Crespo - Distinguished Lecturer - Friday November 12, 2010 at 9:00 - Aula MERIT D5-010

The Birth of the xDSL Technology at Bell-Communications Research: A personal View

Summary

This talk will focus on the development of the xDSL technology at the end of the 80´s. In particular, I will describe my personal experience of how this technology arose at Bell
Communication Research during those years. It begins with a brief history of the Bell
Telephone Company until its divestiture in 1984 followed by the foundation of Bell Communication Research. The break up of Bell System had profound consequences on research and within the telecommunication industry. The xDSL technology was one of the first players in this new world order.

Bio

Pedro M. Crespo is a professor at TECNUN, the Technological Campus of University of Navarra, San Sebastián, Spain, and Head of the Electronics and Communications Department at CEIT.

In 1978, he received the Engineering Degree in Telecommunications from Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, and the M. Sc. in applied Mathematics and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of Southern California, in 1983 and 1984, respectively. From 1984 to April 1992, he was a Member of the Technical Staff in the Signal Processing Research group at Bell Communications Research, NJ, USA, where he worked in the areas of data communication and signal processing. He actively contributed in the definition and development of the first prototypes of xDSL (Digital Subscriber Lines transceivers). From 1992 to 1999 he was a district manager at Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo, Madrid, Spain. Later, he joined the telephone Operator Jazztel Telecomas as Director of Technology.

Pedro Crespo is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and he is a recipient of the Bell Communication Research’s Award of Excellence. Dr. Crespo holds seven patents and is author of more than 90 journals and conference papers in the area of signal processing and communications. His main research and technical interests among others include Wireless Communications, Signal Processing and Network Information Theory.