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SIGCOMM Award Winner

Lawrence G. Roberts
President and CEO of Packetcom

Packetcom is designing advanced communications switches using both ATM and IP technology.

Dr. Lawrence Roberts was President of of ATM Systems, a division of Connectware, Inc., an AMP company from 1993 to 1998 . At ATM Systems he has designed an advanced ATM Enterprise Switch with Explicit Rate ABR for the Enterprise and carrier network market and an Ethernet switch with QOS and Explicit Rate flow control. Dr. Roberts has been deeply involved in the development of the data communications industry since 1965 and is considered the Founder of the Internet.

Dr. Roberts has B.S., M.S., and PhD. Degrees from MIT and was responsible for the design, initiation, planning and development of ARPANET, the world’s first major packet network, the predecessor to Internet, while the Director of Information Processing Techniques for DARPA.

After ARPA, Dr. Roberts founded the world’s first packet data communications carrier, Telenet, and was the CEO from 1973 to 1980. Telenet was sold to GTE in 1979 and subsequently became the data division of Sprint. In 1982, Dr. Roberts became President and CEO of DHL Corporation. From 1983 to 1993, Dr. Roberts was Chairman and CEO of NetExpress, Inc., an electronics company specializing in packetized facsimile and ATM equipment.

In recent years Dr. Roberts has designed a new flow control for packet networks, explicit rate. He proposed explicit rate to the ATM Forum in 1994 and spearheaded its development into the ATM Forum recomendation TM 4.0 in 1996. He has also led the development of a protocol for ATM over Ethernet called Cells In Frames and currently serves as the Chairman of the Cells In Frames Alliance.

Dr. Roberts has received numerous awards for his work, including the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Harry Goode Memorial Award from the American Federation of Information Processing, the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award, the Interface Conference Award, and, in 1982, the L.M. Ericsson prize for research in data communications. Most recently, in 1992, Dr. Roberts was awarded from the IEEE Computer Society the most prestigious award in the communications field, the W. Wallace McDowell Award.