Professional Experiences of James Rafferty

Positions

James P. Rafferty is President of Human Communications. He was formerly Product Line Director, Integrated Media Gateways for Dialogic, where he managed session border controllers and media gateways. He was previously a senior product manager for gateway products at Cantata Technologies and Brooktrout Technology. During the Nineties, he was President of Human Communications, a leading telecommunications consulting firm. James has over 25 years experience in the computer and telecommunications business with companies which also included Fujitsu Imaging Systems of America and Burroughs Corporation.

As Product Line Director for Dialogic and Cantata, James devised product requirements for the innovative Dialogic(r) IMG Integrated Media Gateway and BorderNet(tm) 2020 Session Border Controller products and worked closely with internal teams and management to drive the company's strategies in gateways, SBCs and border elements for the service provider market. The IMG has a unique integration of SS7, SIP, Sigtran and SIP-I signaling and it has been integrated by leading Tier 1 OEMs and deployed at over one hundred carriers worldwide. James wrote for the Dialogic Corporate Blog and frequently represented the company in speaking engagements on topics such as SIP and SS7, HD Voice and Web 2.0. Here's a link to a case study on the use of the BorderNet 2020 SBC as part of a cloud-based contact center as integrated by the Australian company Engage.

With Brooktrout, James took over the Brooktrout TR2001 Voice over IP product line and helped drive increased revenues as Product Manager to a number of leading Voice over IP companies including Net2Phone and Wicom. James also drove requirements for the 2nd generation TR2020 series of products from 2002-2004, with sales to a variety of carriers and ASPs for applications which included rural telephony and Call Center management. He later managed the TR1500-TR2500 series of advanced Voice over IP gateway and voice products, the NS700 series of SS7 products and the EVMC, an embedded voice mail product sold with the Inter-Tel Axxess PBX product lines.

As the principal consultant for Human Communications in the Nineties, he advised numerous clients in the fax and telecommunications industries on the development of products, business strategies and software architectures which keep pace with the latest technological and market trends. He was also the technical editor for Human Communications Digest, a leading newletter on fax standards and analyst for the Human Communications Standards Update series of report on the deployment of key new standards. He also designed and taught courses on Fax Technology and Internet Fax in conjunction with fax testing leader Genoa Technology. For more information on his activities within Human Communications, please link to the related pages.

As a pioneer in computer based fax products with Fujitsu, he developed market strategies and led application software development for the popular dexNET^TM series of fax connectivity products for five years. His most recent position with Fujitsu was as Manager, dexNET Planning and Programs, where he led all product planning and engineering activities for the dexNET product line.

Before joining the Fujitsu product line management team, he was Materials Manager for his Fujitsu subsidiary and was responsible for $60 million annually in purchases from Fujitsu Limited, Japan. He was also responsible for selecting and implementing a PC-based purchasing system. In earlier positions with Burroughs Corporation, he was a systems analyst and project leader responsible for the design, support and implementation of a wide array of marketing and financial application systems on IBM and Burroughs mainframe computers. He also developed a division wide MIS strategic plan and was project manager for a business team which successfully launched a new dealer sales channel.

Standards Committees and Positions

James has held the following positions in standards committees:

Co-Chair, Chair - Internet Fax work group of Internet Engineering Task Force - 1997 to 2000
Vice-Chair - TR-29.1 standards committee on Facsimile and File Transfer Protocols - 1996 to 1999; Editor for Fax Routing (1993-6), Extended Negotiations (1995 to 2000) and BFT Negotiations (1996 to 2000)
Editor - Study Group 8 of the International Telecommunications Union; Fax Routing - T.33 (1994 to 1996), Extended Negotiations (1996 to 2000)
Co-author - IETF standards track draft on mechanism for User to User Information (UUI) in SIP - (2011 - present)

Industry Associations and Positions

James has had the following positions within industry associations:

Contributor - 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) - focus on media control for IMS MRFs - 2006 - 2007
Member - International Packet Communications Consortium - 2002 to 2004
Chair - Internet/Intranets work group of the Electronic Messaging Association (1997 to 1999)
Chair - Binary File Transfer work group of the Electronic Messaging Association (1993 to 1997)
Coordinator - on Fax Standards for the Computer Facsimile Committee of the Electronic Messaging Association (1995 to 1996)
Editor - Fax Task Group of the Enterprise Computer Telephony Forum (1995 to 1999)
Contributor - Development of the Interoperability agreement for the G5 Messaging Forum
Chair and Charter Member- Standards Committee for the International Computer Facsimile Association (prior to merger with EMA) (1990 to 1995)

Education

James holds a B.S. and a Master in Engineering in Management Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

Other Activities

He is listed in many editions of Who's Who in America and Who's Who in Finance and Industry. He is also a published author on the subjects of voice over IP, communications standards, management planning, Fax Routing and emerging telecommunications technologies. James is a frequent public speaker at industry conferences which have included SIPNOC, VON, Internet Telephony, Supercomm, Computer Telephony Expo, FaxWorld, E-Mail World and the annual conferences of the Electronic Messaging Association and the Enterprise Computer Telephony Forum.