Alexy Luecke is a Brand Marketing Specialist for CommScope. She is primarily responsible for development and management of global brand programs, search engine marketing, and brand education. Alexy brings previous sales and marketing experience with technology companies to CommScope. Alexy is a magna cum laude graduate of Hamline University, holding a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with emphasis in Marketing and Communications.
Alexy Luecke
Brand Marketing Specialist
As I reflect on my time in the communications industry, now is one of the most exciting times. Why, you may ask? The industry is being redefined with network connectivity. 5G is on the horizon, cities are thinking of ways to be smarter, communication networks are starting to converge, and consumers’ communication expectations are evolving. We live in a connected world, relying on connectivity to keep us in touch. Connectivity is changing the world and the way we operate our daily lives. As the industry is being redefined, CommScope is also being redefined with the acquisition of ARRIS and Ruckus. Together, with ARRIS and Ruckus, CommScope is excited to be in front of this transformation and redefine tomorrow.
Letter from the Editor
Issue 5
Digital Magazine
© 2019 CommScope, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks identified by ® or ™ are registered trademarks or trademarks, respectively, of CommScope, Inc.
REDEFINING TOMORROW
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Shaping the future of tomorrow’s networks
In April, CommScope took the bold step of creating an end-to-end networking innovator. From smart homes, to intelligent cities—and everywhere in between— CommScope now has today’s most important technology and the inside track on tomorrow’s most meaningful innovations. Hear from CommScope CEO, Eddie Edwards, and COO, Bruce McClelland, as they talk about what drove the combination with ARRIS International, the most important challenges the industry will tackle in 2019, and what to expect as an even stronger CommScope shapes the networks of the future.
Redefining tomorrow together
We live in an increasingly connected world—relying on the connectivity to keep us in touch, educate, inform and entertain us, wherever we are, with whatever device or screen we are using. Connectivity has changed the world and our lives within it. Think about your day and your reliance on: smart phones, watches, artificial intelligence, digital assistants, Bluetooth, social, ride-sharing, augmented reality, navigation, commerce, entertainment, streaming, Wi-Fi, and video-everywhere. Connectivity is demanded everywhere, but networks are expected to be out of sight and out of mind. We believe next-generation networks will demand new levels of reach and response, ubiquitous connectivity and lower latency, transforming performance requirements to match increasing connectivity expectations and experiences. CommScope, ARRIS and Ruckus have come together to accelerate a vision to shape the communications networks of the future. The combined company will provide greater technology, solutions and employee talent, with broader access to new and growing markets. Together we hold 15,000 patents, an enviable list of industry firsts; we invest more than $800 million each year in R&D; and are proud to have many of the industry’s most recognized thought leaders on our team to help us shape the networks of tomorrow. The technologies and expertise that ARRIS and Ruckus bring add to our strong and scalable portfolio with some of the industry’s most recognized low-latency and high-performance solutions. This combination creates a communications company with unmatched breadth, depth and capabilities. Never has our potential been so great.
Discover more about our combined capabilities
Innovation
Trust
Talent
Scale
Portfolio
R&D
Performance
Partner Network
15 000
TOGETHER WE HOLD
PATENTS
,
stretching beyond applications for communications, commerce and entertainment
The fourth industrial revolution will be powered by unpreceded data, speed and multi-purpose networks that will be fueled by the emerging technology trends like 5G, convergence and IoT. We believe these are the essential elements to the fourth industrial revolution—pushing physical infrastructure and digital systems forward to perform new tasks, powered by ultra-fast data speeds and multi-purpose, multi-access networks, disrupting business models and bringing more user choice. We are there. We have the competencies and capabilities to help our customers transform their businesses and to become relevant to their customers by redefining the apps and experiences for tomorrow. Together, as a combined company, our roots are deepened in communications network technology to enable the services that are expected today and to prepare for the expectations of tomorrow. To realize this vision of the future the evolution must be pervasive. Transformation will be everywhere. At CommScope, our purpose is to help our customers unlock their network’s full potential wherever they are. We have the unique capability to provide end-to-end solutions and services in residential, venue, macro, metro, and enterprise markets.
Getting ahead of tomorrow’s trends begins right now—not just anticipating the future, but actively laying its foundations today. The combined resources and expertise of CommScope and ARRIS are totally committed to building a faster, smarter tomorrow, and I’m proud to help make it happen as CommScope’s new CIO. Coming from ARRIS, I’ve had a unique perspective on the special strengths of both companies and the many ways they complement each other. I see two strong cultures based on innovation and implementation combining to bring future-ready hardware and software solutions to bear for our customers across the entire spectrum of communication networks. The technology is a big part of it, to be sure. But we’re also designing processes and practices that will have significant positive impact on how our customers work with us. These changes include a new customer-facing order management system that simplifies all the ways customers interface with us, from orders to changes to how we provide shipping information. It also includes a unified online presence under CommScope.com that will soon provide customers with a single, integrated destination for all our networking solutions and services. We understand that everything we do, every step forward, must be a win for our customers. Not just in what they need now, but also getting out ahead of what they will need tomorrow. Internally, our combined companies are focusing on improving the way we deliver services to ourselves. As CIO, my top priorities are building the world-class IT organization that’s aligned to our new needs as a single, growing company; and also ensuring that every move our IT organization makes adds value to the way we do business. By building this culture of accountability, we also bring more value to the way we work with our customers. For me, these efforts are not only necessary; they're immensely satisfying. There’s no other discipline that touches every dimension of a business like IT does, and when I see increased user collaboration and better customer experiences, it’s a really good feeling to know my team helped make that happen. Of course, innovation never sleeps, so we are always on the lookout for the next challenge and the newest opportunity. These are exciting days at CommScope. Since the acquisition, I’ve made it a point to engage with leaders across the CommScope organization, building relationships and gaining a deeper understanding of our shared vision for the future— and how we’re going to help our customers get there.
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Karen Renner
I’m confident that our combined capabilities, scale and expertise will mean an equally exciting future for our customers.
Ms. Renner became CommScope’s Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer (CIO) upon close of the ARRIS acquisition. Ms. Renner was the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of ARRIS prior to the acquisition. Prior to joining ARRIS, she served as the CIO at Novelis and General Electric from 1991 to 2016 and North American CIO for Thales, a global aerospace, defense and security company from 2017 to 2018.
Chief Financial Officer
Alexander Pease
More Growth Leads to More Opportunity
Chief Technology Officer
Morgan Kurk
Shaping the Always-on Networks of Tomorrow
“These are exciting times for CommScope. Now that the ARRIS acquisition has been finalized, the technology and business opportunities are tremendous.”
“Through our expanded end-to-end infrastructure capabilities, we are striving to deliver a customer experience that is unmatched in the industry. We are doubling the size of our addressable markets, providing more ways to shape the always-on networks of tomorrow.”
CommScope has been trusted for every evolution, shaping one of the most dynamic and technically challenging environments in the world. From the two-way radio to the digital revolution and beyond. As the needs for more and more bandwidth continues to increase, we continue to be invested in what’s next to help our customers keep up with the increasing demand. Hear what our CTO, Morgan Kurk, and CFO, Alexander Pease, have to say about the opportunities for the future.
Morgan Kurk is chief technology officer for CommScope with overall responsibility for CommScope’s long-term vision, technology roadmap, strategic direction and mergers and acquisitions. He is dedicated to driving wired and wireless network transformation through collaboration with suppliers and customers. Previously, he served as CommScope’s chief operating officer where he provided executive leadership for CommScope’s Mobility Solutions and Connectivity Solutions segments, Global Supply Chain and Office of Technology organizations. Mr. Kurk has 25 years of experience in information and communication technology industries. He focused on wireless coverage problems in 1997 when he joined Allen Telecom, which later became part of Andrew Corporation and ultimately CommScope. Mr. Kurk held a variety of positions, including director of business development in the United States and China; vice president of R&D, PLM, and Strategy; vice president and general manager of the Wireless Innovations Group worldwide. In 2009, he joined CommScope as senior vice president of the Enterprise Business Unit and then served as senior vice president of the Mobility Segment. Before joining Allen Telecom, Mr. Kurk worked for Motorola where he was a hardware development engineer for base stations and a product manager for a CDMA base station product line. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences and an expert in system integration. Mr. Kurk holds a bachelor’s of science in electrical engineering from Brown University, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Alex Pease joined CommScope, a global leader in infrastructure solutions for communications networks, in 2018 as executive vice president and chief financial officer. He is an experienced leader with more than 18 years of extensive financial and operational experience across a wide range of industries, including serving as CFO at two publicly-owned companies. Prior to CommScope, Alex served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Snyder's-Lance, a global consumer packaged goods company. Previously, he was a principal in McKinsey & Company's global corporate finance and business functions practice, after taking on roles of increasing responsibility across the global operations, risk and finance practices. Alex served as senior vice president and CFO at EnPro Industries, where he oversaw six operating divisions in addition to the finance, accounting, strategy and development, global supply chain and information technology functions. Alex served in the United States Navy as a SEAL Platoon Commander for six years. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree with honors and distinction from the United States Naval Academy and has an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Our innovators inventing tomorrow
Each year we recognize and celebrate our global innovators in action. The vast talent and expertise of our employees is the engine behind ARRIS combined with CommScope’s 15,000+ patents. Get to know some of our top innovators and see what they have to say about innovation.
VP, Research and Development
Thomas Kummetz, PhD
"Innovation is a detailed process. You imagine the solutions a customer could need in the future that they may not even know about themselves and come up with innovative solutions, so our customers can better serve their customers."
"When I think about what inspires me to innovate— sometimes it is the challenging product requirements, routine problems, and at times, the mere experience of solutions to different problems provided in other fields such as automobiles."
Distinguished Software Engineer
Krishna Prasad Panje (KP)
"We need innovation to remain a successful company. We need to keep up with evolving customer needs, so we need to do everything better and faster."
Engineer II, Research and Development
Erik Peeters
"I am inspired to innovate, because the world is full of interesting technologies, but often they could work better with some changes. I like thinking about technology and ways to improve it."
Senior Counsel, Legal Litigation
Carol Ansley
In March, more than 100 CommScope innovation champions participated at the 2019 Innovators in Action (IIA) Summit in Charlotte, NC, USA, to share knowledge, learn about CommScope innovations, hear from guest speakers and collaborate on what's next. Congratulations to all our global IIA award winners!
With his nearly 30 years of experience working in the telecommunications industry, including five years of research in opto-electronics, we are proud that Dr. Thomas Kummetz has spent 24 years sharing his expertise at CommScope. His impressive 217 patents in 36 patent families are evidence of Thomas’ valuable contributions that have shaped and continue to evolve CommScope’s distributed antenna systems (DAS) business—and the market. A group of patents that stand out are his four patents (out of six held by CommScope) that are essential for a digital DAS system. This breakthrough work will enable CommScope to stay ahead of the competition by establishing our market leadership and protecting our future. Thomas is also an inventor of the important January 2015 patent, “Method and Apparatus for Distributing Power Over Communication Cabling” (US 8,935,543), which is widely recognized as one of our industry’s high-value patents. Earlier this year, Thomas received the CommScope technical community’s top annual recognition, the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award—Innovator. Thomas holds a M.S.E.E. from Technical University of Braunschweig, a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Ulm University, a certificate for Technology Management from the University of Virginia, and is a certified trainer for the Vitalsmart program of Crucial Conversations.
Erik Peeters has been with CommScope for 39 years and working in research and development since 1985. Erik has experience in product assurance for copper and heat shrink products and has developed products for fiber optical distribution frames (ODF), boxes, and organizers. He also has design and integration expertise for passive optical components, including planar lightwave circuit splitters (PLC), wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), Fiber Infrastructure System Technology (FIST™) trays and organizers, and fiber-optic splice closure (FOSC) solutions. During his nearly four decades here at CommScope, Erik has been granted 58 patents in 4 patent families. In 2019, his “Optical fiber Assembly” patent was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award—Patent. Erik believes in lifelong learning, he has education in sciences but achieved engineering skills by on-the-job training and through many courses during and after work, for example the Six Sigma Green Belt training.
Krishna Prasad Panje (KP) has been granted 26 patents in 17 patent families, earned during his 12 years of service with ARRIS, which he will now bring to CommScope. KP is based in Bengaluru, India, and is a subject matter expert on video technologies, streaming (HLS, DASH) and Home Assurance solutions (HNC, HNE, EasyMesh, Wi-Fi). His expertise is leveraged regularly in Bangalore in a discussion on technology and innovation.
Carol Ansley is senior counsel on the Litigation Legal team joining CommScope from ARRIS. Carol was one of the original ARRIS employees when ARRIS interactive was formed in 1995 and has held a variety of leadership positions, including principal engineer, hardware development senior manager, and platform quality control manager. Her current role combines supporting the patent process within ARRIS by working with engineering teams and the legal teams as well as being part of the patent litigation defense team. She also supports wireless standards activities and has been granted 32 patents in 25 patent families.
Pushing what’s possible with thermal testing
Dedicated to research and development, CommScope invests $800+ million each year. In this video explore how the new thermal test chamber allows for multiple testing ranges, from very cold to very hot in a single day.
Are you looking for ways you can stay up to date on the latest infrastructure training? CommScope, ARRIS and Ruckus have you covered. Together, the CommScope infrastructure academy, ARRIS training catalog, and Ruckus training portal provide over 300 courses to keep you at the forefront of what’s next.
Visit CommScope Infrastructure Academy
Visit Ruckus Training Portal
Visit ARRIS Training Catalog
Empowering the future.
Powering the present.
Our combined expertise and experience in broadband, wireless, and video will help us shape the future of connectivity
Our combined expertise and experience will make us stronger in wireless, enterprise, managed services, and video. In wireless we provide solutions in unlicensed, licensed, indoor, outdoor, and home applications. We will better be able to serve the enterprise markets, and we will have deeper expertise in managed services and video.
Stronger
Innovate Faster
Helping our Customers
Our combined experience and expertise will help us better serve our customers. Together we deliver network expansion and converged access, optimize network performance, and enable distributed computing. As networks evolve we will ensure phenomenal Wi-Fi in the home, in the office, out and about—and bring the most compelling video and connected experiences.
Our combined experience and expertise will allow us to innovate faster. We will be able to support converging networks with our small cell solutions, provide complete wired and wireless communications infrastructure, broadband access, end-to-end private networks, and the connected home.