Carmen Mas-Machuca: “Planning and operating secure and resilient networks”
Chair: Tbd
Carmen Mas-Machuca
Univ. Bundeswehr Munich, DE
Date, hour and room to be defined
Abstract
Telecommunication networks have been identified as critical infrastructure. This implies that, in addition to the classical capacity aspects, their planning and operation must address security and resilience. This talk presents critical aspects of current networks and the solutions to address them.
The first part of the talk focuses on network planning problems, taking into account security (including QKD), resilience, and sovereignty. It presents planning problems such as placing trusted nodes and combining components from different manufacturers. While most of the proposed solutions aim to minimise costs, the talk suggests considering other metrics to increase network robustness.
The talk then moves on to network operation, i.e., how to configure secure and reliable communications on a given network. Particular attention is given to QKD networks to enhance the security and availability of exchanged keys and to provide greater resilience in the event of targeted attacks (e.g., compromised devices).
The talk presents existing solutions, as well as the challenging problems that still need to be solved. Network evolution and upgrades are required, and these must be carefully optimised by applying the concepts discussed in the talk.
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Carmen Mas-Machuca is a Full professor with the Chair of Communication Networks at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich (UniBW), Germany. Before she was Privat Dozent at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Her research interests cover several topics related to the optimal network planning taking reliability, resources, service requirements, security and/or cost into account. Network planning is applied to single and multiple domains or technologies as well as to new solutions (e.g. QKD).
Prof. Mas Machuca’s research is supported by several national (DFG, BMBF, DAAD) and EU funds (H2020, COST, ITN). She currently serves as a guest editor for IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, for OSA Journal on Optical Communications and Networking, as well as for IEEE Communications Magazine. She has authored over 300 publications and delivered invited talks at several major international conferences. She is the Chair of IEEE ONDM 2026 and Co-Chair of Optica Advance Photonic Congress (Networks). She is an active contributor to IEEE and Optica technical committees including OFC, ECOC, ONDM. She is an active Member of the IEEE Germany Section Executive Committee.
Cayetano Carbajo Martín: “Transforming Telecom Networks: From Infrastructure to Intelligent Platforms”
Chair: Tbd
Cayetano Carbajo Martín
Telefónica, ES
Date, hour and room to be defined
Abstract
Telecommunications networks are entering a new phase of transformation as operators evolve from traditional connectivity providers to platforms enabling the digital economy. Telefónica, tis driving this transition by advancing cloud-native architectures, distributed computing, and increasingly automated and intelligent network operations. This keynote will discuss how operators are transforming core, transport, and edge infrastructures into programmable and scalable platforms capable of supporting emerging digital services and industrial applications. Particular attention will be given to the role of network softwarization, automation, and open innovation ecosystems in accelerating this evolution. The presentation will also highlight the importance of collaboration across the industry (bringing together operators, technology providers, and the research community) to address the challenges of future network architectures and to pave the way toward the next generation of mobile systems. Drawing on Telefónica’s experience in large-scale network transformation programmes, the talk will share practical insights into how operators are building more flexible, resilient, and sustainable infrastructures while preparing the technological foundations for the future of connectivity.
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Cayetano Carbajo is a Telecommunications Engineer from the Technical University of Madrid. He joined Telefónica in 1995 as a radio planning engineer at Telefónica Móviles España, later moving to the radio engineering department and subsequently leading international and interprovincial projects. In 2000, he moved to Morocco to lead the deployment of the network of Medi Telecom. In 2001, he was appointed Director of Access Network at the corporate unit of Telefónica Móviles. After participating in numerous international initiatives, he became CTO of Telefónica Móviles México, where he led the world’s first transition from CDMA to GSM technology.
In 2006 he was appointed Technology Director at Telefónica. In 2014 he became CTO of Telefónica Deutschland, leading one of the largest LTE deployments in the mobile industry and the integration of the O2 and E-Plus networks.
Since November 2019, he has been leading Core, Transport, Innovation and Ecosystem at Telefónica, driving the transformation of the company’s network architecture and technology strategy. In 2015, he received the “Telecommunications Engineer of the Year” award from the Official College of Telecommunication Engineers.
Magnus Frodigh: “Building the 6G/AI intelligent fabric for tomorrow’s society”
Chair: Tbd
Magnus Frodigh
Group Function Technology, Ericsson Research, SE
Date, hour and room to be defined
Abstract
We stand at a strategic inflection point where AI, cloud and mobile technologies converge to reshape how systems sense, learn and act. This keynote presents a vision for a 6G/AI “intelligent fabric”: an open, secure and interoperable infrastructure that lets distributed, autonomous AI agents collaborate and operate at machine timescales with predictable, verifiable performance. For people, this fabric will make technology more natural, useful and safe — enabling seamless multilingual communication, personalized healthcare and education, safer and more efficient transportation, inclusive access to digital services, and everyday conveniences that preserve privacy and human agency.
Beyond raw performance, 6G will unlock new commercial models. Multi-slicing at scale, guaranteed uplink performance and enforceable SLAs will let operators monetize differentiated, premium service tiers for enterprise, public safety and consumer markets. High-value use cases include assured premium connectivity for smartphones, laptops and FWA, AR/AI wearables, and reliable links for drones, droids and autonomous vehicles. Crucially, networks will expose rich APIs that extend beyond connectivity — offering sensing, precise time synchronization, distributed compute, data and AI services — enabling ecosystems to innovate new offerings and business models.
Realizing this future demand broad international industry and academia collaboration across telecom, cloud, semiconductor, device and application sectors. As the fabric becomes critical national infrastructure, openness and standards will be essential to scale impact and maintain trust. 6G fundamentals area already being defined in standardization, yet there is a great need for research on how to deploy and evolve this open, secure and intelligent 6G/AI fabric—turning today’s strategic inflection into tomorrow’s widespread societal and economic benefits.
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Dr. Magnus Frodigh is Vice President and Head of Ericsson Research. In this role he leads Ericsson’s long-term technology research organization, its close collaboration with academia and industry, and its contributions to the Ericsson business and product development.
He holds a Master of Science degree from Linköping University of Technology, Sweden, and a Ph.D. in Radio Communication Systems from the Royal Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA).
Frodigh joined Ericsson in 1994 and has over the past three decades held various key senior positions within Research & Development and Product Management, throughout the generations of mobile technology, from 2G all the way to current research on 6G technologies. He holds 29 patents.
Marco Ruffini: “When Networks Sense: AI-enabled Optical Networks for Situational Awareness and Resilient Infrastructure”
Chair: Tbd
Marco Ruffini
Trinity College Dublin, School of Computer Science and Statistics, IE
Date, hour and room to be defined
Abstract
Optical fibre sensing is entering a new phase, driven by the global scale and growing strategic importance of modern optical networks. Billions of kilometres of optical fibre are already deployed worldwide for telecommunications, and this existing infrastructure offers a unique opportunity: turning communication networks into a pervasive, large scale sensing system.
This keynote examines how fibre sensing technologies, once confined to niche monitoring applications, are increasingly being integrated into operational telecom networks. Their integration with network telemetry and intelligent network control is creating a new class of sensing enabled infrastructures that combine communication, monitoring, and data driven decision making at scale, enabling better situational awareness and improved resilience.
The talk introduces the main classes of fibre sensing technologies and their use in applications like seismic event detection and large scale environmental monitoring. Building on these examples, it explores the growing role of artificial intelligence in fibre sensing. Machine learning techniques are becoming essential for identifying and classifying signatures derived from environmental interactions with the fibre, ranging from routine infrastructure activity to more complex maritime scenarios, illustrating our work in the detection of dark vessels using subsea cables. These cases highlight both the opportunities and the sensitivities associated with the dual use of telecom infrastructure for communication and situational awareness.
Looking ahead, the talk argues that the real potential of fibre sensing lies in contextual awareness rather than isolated event detection. By combining multiple sensing modalities, including acoustic, polarization, and optical performance metrics, and enriching them with external data sources, networks can move toward higher level interpretation of events and their underlying causes. Achieving this shift, however, introduces significant challenges in terms of control, scalability, and system integration.
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Marco Ruffini is Professor and Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, where he leads the OpenIreland laboratory and the Optical and Wireless Networks Research Group. His research vision focuses on transforming communication infrastructures into intelligent, adaptive and context-aware systems that seamlessly integrate optical, wireless, and cloud technologies.
His work spans access-metro convergence, AI driven control and orchestration, digital twins of optical networks, and emerging quantum networking architectures. A unifying theme of his research is the evolution of networks from passive transport platforms into programmable systems capable of perceiving and responding to their environment.
In recent years, Professor Ruffini’s work has explored how telecom optical fibres can evolve beyond their traditional role as communication infrastructure to become large-scale sensing platforms. As Principal Investigator of the nationally funded Sea-Scan project, he investigates the use of AI-enhanced Distributed Acoustic Sensing to detect and track dark vessels, effectively transforming subsea telecom fibres into distributed maritime sensors and illustrating the dual use of optical networks for connectivity and environmental awareness. His research also extends to the protection of terrestrial infrastructure, where he studies polarization-based sensing techniques that combine DAS and State-of-Polarization measurements with machine learning to detect and mitigate physical threats. At the European level, he contributes as Principal Investigator to the ICON project, developing control plane for intent and context aware network sensing frameworks that tightly integrate perception, intelligence, and control to support more resilient and adaptive networked systems.
Professor Ruffini has given several invited talks at major international conferences. He has authored over 230 publications, holds 12 patents, secured more than €15 million in research funding, and contributed to industry standards, introducing the virtual Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation (vDBA) concept adopted by the Broadband Forum.
