Author: Dr. Keith R Dickerson
Affiliation: Head of Standards for BT Group, CTO Office, British Telecom, UK

Keith Dickerson has worked in the ICT industry for nearly 30 years, and is currently Head of Standards for the BT Group as part of the Office of the CTO.  He provides direction to BT’s standards activities working closely with BT CTO Matt Bross to identify the key technologies for BT and the standards required to support BT programmes such as the 21^st Century Network.  Keith directs a team of professional engineers participating in standards in all areas related to telecommunications and IT.  He is responsible for developing strategies for BT’s participation in many standards bodies and fora including ETSI, ITU, 3GPP, ATIS, CEN, IETF, TMF, W3C and OMA.  He was responsible for hosting the IETF in London in 2001 and is a member of the Internet Society (ISOC). 

In June 2005, Keith was elected to the Board of the newly created IPsphere Forum (see www.ipsphereforum.org) and chairs its Service Provider Council.   This is specifying mechanisms for providing added-value, differentiated IP-based services to customers rather than just best efforts Internet. 

Keith has also been a member of the ETSI Board since 2002, and is active on strategy and external relations topics.  Keith led the DASH Description of Architecture and Services Harmonization Task Group in 1994/5 and was then an active participant in the ETSI Strategic Review Committee on the EII (SRC6), leading the working group on identification of standards relevant to the EII.  He then led work on Telecommunications and Information Architecture in ETSI and was the Vice Chairman responsible for strategy of the ETSI Technical Committee on Network Aspects (TCNA)

Keith was one of the founder members of the ITU-T NGN Focus Group which was created during the Global NGN Summit in Beijing in April 2004, and was co-chairman of the Working Group addressing the Future Packed Based Network (FPBN) until the completion of the Focus Group in December 2005. 

Keith was Chairman of the ICT Standards Board (ICTSB – see www.ictsb.org) from March 2000 – June 2006, and led initiatives to clarify its role, widen its membership, and strengthen its links with RTD.   Keith was also involved in creating ICTSB working groups on Intelligent Transport Systems, Smart Houses and Network & Information Security and led the ICT Standards Focus Group.  Previously Keith led the CEN delegation to ICTSB and was a frequent participant from the time of its creation in 1995.  Keith was also Chairman of the CEN/ISSS Forum, the body which manages and sets direction for the CEN/ISSS workshop programme, from it’s creation in 1997 until 2004.  

From 1995-2000 Keith was an active participant in the ETNO Working Group on ICT Standards and drafted many contributions on topics related to European and global standards.  From 1998/9 he was secretary to the High Level Strategy Group for ICT Standards (HLSG) and made many presentations on HLSG recommendations to ICTSB and other bodies.