Manuel Vexler, the marketing and technical strategy force behind the industry’s primary softswitching forum and chair of the SIP Forum Service Provider Working Group, re-entered the vendor community today as chief technology officer at CopperCom.

As vice president at the International Packet Communications Consortium (IPCC)—formerly known as the International Softswitch Consortium--Vexler led marketing and strategy development and provided technology and architectural advise to members and working groups. “The IPCC is a very forward-looking organization. It is set between the wireless, wireline and cable industries so looks at VoIP in a very holistic way,” Vexler said.

Vexler will use that holistic approach as he constructs his vision for CopperCom and its technology roadmap. While it is too early to reveal his entire vision, Vexler said, “Mobility and nomadic services are really what’s happening in the industry right now. With this in mind, I am trying to connect the dots between the current product line and its future.”

CopperCom targets the independent operating company (IOC) market with Class 5 and Class 4 switching solutions that help in transitioning from a circuit switched infrastructure to a packet-based infrastructure. It’s Converged Switching eXchange (CSX) product is Rural Utilities Services (RUS)-listed and is deployed by providers such as BT Conferencing, Upper Peninsula Telephone and Ringgold Telecom.

In Vexler’s 25-year career in networking and telecommunications he has held senior marketing roles at Cisco, AMD, Newbridge (now Alcatel) and Nortel. He has also provided SIP consulting services to broadband companies and founder two startup companies: MotorWiz and Integra100, a consultancy for acquisition and merger integration. Vexler holds a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the University of Iasi.

What brought him back to the vendor community? “I really like CopperCom. It was not an easy decision, but I believe they have an excellent team and I think I will like working with the people here,” Vexler said.

As CTO, Vexler will work with the CopperCom executive team to further the technology vision for CopperCom’s next-generation softswitch products in support of service providers.