People

We would like to introduce you to some key individuals in our executive team,  in our advisory board and in our network of associates.

Executive Team (click for details)
Prof. Simon Saunders	Mark Keenan	Dr. Stuart Mitchell

Advisory Board
Prof. William Webb
Associates (click for details)
Prof. Les Barclay	Ian Vance	Dr. Alejandro Aragón-Zavala
Dr. Chris Haslett	Nick Astley-Cooper	Dr. Tim Brown

Executive Team

Professor Simon Saunders
Director - Technology
PhD CEng FIET
Simon is an independent specialist in the technology of wireless communications, with a technical and commercial background derived from senior appointments in both industry (including Philips and Motorola) and academia (University of Surrey).

He is an author of over 140 articles, books and book chapters. He has acted as a consultant to companies including BAA, BBC, O2, Ofcom, BT, ntl, Mitsubishi and British Land and was CTO of Red-M and CEO of Cellular Design Services Ltd. Simon speaks and chairs a wide range of international conferences and training courses and has invented several novel wireless technologies. Particular expertise includes in-building wireless systems, radiowave propagation prediction, smart antenna design and mobile system analysis. He currently serves on technical advisory boards of several companies and the industrial advisory board at University College London. He is a Visiting Professor to the University of Surrey and is founding chairman of The Femto Forum. He was recently appointed as a member of the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board.

Mark Keenan
Director - Commercial
CEng MIStructE
Mark is a Chartered Structural Engineer and has worked in the wireless telecommunications industry since 1992.  Mark is skilled at managing complex projects, with experience in specification, design, installation and management of major wireless systems in environments as diverse as Heathrow Airport, Wembley Stadium, Ascot Racecourse and numerous corporate offices throughout the UK and The Netherlands.  The wireless systems deployed are a combination of Wi-Fi, Private Mobile Radio, Tetra and Cellular with infrastructures specified and designed to offer maximum flexibility to customers and environments. Mark was Project Director for a major strategic consulting exercise for BAA, creating and delivering their complete wireless strategy. He was also responsible for the UK's first landlord-owned multi-operator in-building wireless infrastructure in the Bullring Shopping Centre.

Dr. Stuart Mitchell
Senior Consultant
BSc PhD MIET

Dr. Mitchell combines a deep technical education with extensive practical & managerial experience. He has a successful record of working in the fields of wireless communications and RF engineering and particular expertise in  the RF aspects of femtocells. An experienced consultant, capable of analysing and communicating advanced technical issues to a wide audience. Works  He worked as 3G radio specialist on secondment for BT at Viag Interkom, Germany where he acted as team leader of the Radio Network Evolution Group comprising six professional engineers. Responsible for the radio planning of GSM, GPRS and UMTS networks. In  the Mobility Research Unit in the world-famous BT laboratories, Stuart developed an innovative software-radio testbed that demonstrated novel coding schemes and innovative radio channel measurements. He also took responsibility for testing early 3G Node-B radio equipment. Working together with engineers from Japan, the results fed into BT’s radio planning process culminating in the launch of the world's first 3G network on the Isle Of Man. His PhD at the University of Kent was conducted in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), successfully devising novel techniques for the design of RF components and measurement systems and delivering additional contracts tendered by ESA to conduct radio surveys of their compact antenna test range.

Advisory Board

The Real Wireless Advisory Board provides strategic assistance to Real Wireless, assisting us in setting our strategy, suggesting new areas of business and spreading the word about our skills.

Prof. William Webb
Chairman of Advisory Board
PhD MBA FIET FREng FIEEE

Professor William Webb chairs the Real Wireless Advisory Board. He has been Head of R&D atOfcom, the UK communications regulator, since 2003, where he helps assess the impact of new technologies on leading edge spectrum management policies. After a degree in engineering from Southampton in 1989 he completed his academic qualifications with a PhD and MBA. For most of his career he has been a consultant, working on telecommunication projects such as the railway variant of GSM (GSM-R) and the evaluation of the economic value of spectrum. He also spent three years in the US as a Director of Strategy at Motorola.

William has published ten books including “The Future of Wireless Communications”, over seventy papers, and four patents. He is a Visiting Professor at Surrey University and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. His biography is included in multiple “Who’s Who” publications around the world. He sits on the judging panels of the Wall Street Journal “Innovation Awards”. He has a long association with the IET, where he sat on the Electronics and Communications Engineering Journal panel since 1995, becoming Chair of the Panel with the publication of the new Communications Engineer Magazine in 2003. He was elected a Vice President of the IEE in 2004 and became a member of the Board of Trustees of the IET on its formation.

 

Associates

Our team includes associates, who are leading experts in a wide range of particular fields, including the following:

Professor Les Barclay
Radiowave propagation and spectrum regulation expert
OBE, FREng

Professor Les Barclay is a distinguished and widely-recognised professional in fields of radiowave propagation and spectrum regulation. He was formerly Deputy Director for Research and Radio Technology for the UK Radiocommunications Agency (now Ofcom), managing the Agency's research programme, in particular the National Radio Propagation Programme. He chaired the first Radiocommunication Assembly of the International Telecommunication Union in 1993. He was chairman of CCIR Study Group 6 (ionospheric propagation) from 1978 to 1993, and chairman of ITU-R Study Group 3 (all radiowave propagation) from 1993 to 1997. He is now vice chairman of the ITU-R Co-ordinating Committee for Vocabulary. He has participated as a UK delegate in various World Radiocommunication Conferences.

In 2000 he participated as an expert member in the government-appointed Independent Expert Group on the Safety of Mobile Phones (the Stewart committee), and is now vice chairman of the programme management committee for research projects in this area. He is a visiting professor at the universities of Surrey and Lancaster, is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. He is chairman of the organising committee for the series of IEE residential courses on radiowave propagation.

Professor Barclay has been awarded the OBE, the Polar Medal and the silver medal of the ITU.

Dr Chris Haslett
Radiowave propagation, mobile networks and technical training
PhD, CEng, FIET

Dr Chris Haslett works with Real Wireless to deliver training services and consultancy in mobile networks.

As Principal Propagation Advisor for Ofcom, Chris has specified and implemented a variety of new spectrum management software and has managed propagation-based research projects as part of the government-sponsored Spectrum Efficiency Scheme. He has a distinguished background in industry, acting as CEO for Aircom Education, delivering training and planning and optimisation services for mobile networks. Previously he was a senior lecturer at the University of Glamorgan, being a widely published author and researcher on projects funded by BT and the Radiocommunications Agency.

Ian Vance
Strategic technical and business advice
MBE MSc FREng  FIET

Ian Vance works with Real Wireless to deliver technology strategy, management and due diligence services.

Ian is a senior and well-respected technology management professional in the telecommunications industry, with a background as Vice President and Chief Engineer of Nortel plc, responsible for all Nortel products in European markets. He has 38 years experience of the mobile radio, photonics, and semiconductors industry. He is probably best known for his innovative design of the world's first 'professional' radio on a silicon chip, and its use in radiopaging.  He also patented Time Division Duplex (TDD) now a technique used throughout the world.

Ian was formerly President of the Federation of the Electronics Industry (FEI) and is now the project monitor for the "HipNet" project, a large consortium under Ericsson’s leadership building an NGN All-IP Test-Bed of  a complete telecoms network. He also acts as Chief Technical Advisor and Non Executive Director to On-Communications Ltd. He has extensive experience of due diligence work for some 12 leading VC groups.

Nick Astley-Cooper
Broadcast Radio Engineering Consultant
BEng CEng MIEE

Nick is Real Wireless's resident expert on broadcast radio, both DAB, VHF(FM) and MF(AM).

As Broadcast Radio Technical Licensing at Ofcom, and previously Deputy Director of Engineering at the Radio Authority, Nick has deep and unique experience in all aspects of real-world radio planning. His responsibilities have involved frequency planning, assessment of franchise applications, commissioning of new transmission systems and monitoring of on-air performance. He has designed and developed database software to assess and track measurement data to ensure compliance with licence conditions. He has also acted as the UK focal point for the UK radio industry (transmitter and receiver  side) and for licensees when optimising service linkage (DAB to DAB and DAB to FM).

With a background as squadron leader in the RAF and MOD, Nick has proven project- and personnel-management skills and a great appreciation of the practical issues involved in radio engineering in the field.

Dr. Alejandro Aragón-Zavala
Consulting and Research - Americas
PhD, MSc

Dr. Aragón-Zavala is Real Wireless's representative in the Americas and conducts consulting and research with us. His interests and expertise include wireless communications, satellite systems, high-altitude platform stations (HAPS), antenna design and indoor propagation. As well as working as a Real Wireless associate, he is Academic Director of the Electronic Engineering undergraduate programmes at Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Querétaro, Mexico.

Dr. Aragón-Zavala obtained an MSc with distinction in Satellite Communication Engineering from the University of Surrey, in the UK,  in 1998 and a PhD in Antennas and Propagation from the same university in February 2003, developing a novel in-building wireless design and optimisation methodology. He worked from 2000 to 2003 in Cellular Design Services and Red-M as a senior radio consultant and in-building design tools development engineer.

Dr Aragón-Zavala is the author of more than 25 international journal and conference papers, and co-author of the 2nd edition of the book "Antennas and Propagation for Wireless communication systems" with Prof. Simon Saunders. He is also the author of the book "High-altitude platform systems for wireless communications", which will be published in late 2008 by Wiley. 

Dr. Tim Brown
Intelligent Antennas for Wireless Communications
PhD, BEng, MIET

Dr. Brown is Real Wireless' expert in engineering design, testing and research on intelligent antenna systems.

As well as his work with Real Wireless, Tim is a  lecturer in mobile communications at the University of Surrey, where he is pursuing projects looking at antenna technologies for MIMO, UWB and beyond. His thesis on diversity antennas for mobile terminals spanned a wide range of challenging problems in antennas and propagation for mobile communications. His experience in intelligent antennas includes work in a world-renowned team in Aalborg University, Denmark. Tim is pursuing research with the intelligent quadrifilar helix antenna (The Quadtenna), invented by Simon Saunders, with great promise for diversity and MIMO applications within terrestrial and satellite mobile communication. He regularly teaches and directs MSc and industrial short courses in antennas and propagation.

Tim has authored several journal papers and his book, “A practical guide to the MIMO radio channel”, is to be published in Spring 2009.