Small Cell Forum appoints new chair

The Small Cell Forum (SCF) has appointed Dr. Prabhakar Chitrapu as its new chair, replacing AT&T’s David Orloff. Chitrapu leads AT&T’s Converged Access & Device Technology organisation and brings high-level technical and strategic leadership experience to the role.

Unanimously approved at The Forum’s all-member London plenary, Chitrapu laid out SCF’s agenda for year ahead, which emphasises the Forum’s ongoing work in 5G Open Small Cell RAN architectures, together with the development of 5G-era small cell products, deploying them in virtualised cloud environments, enabling the development of multi-operator and neutral host deployments, monetising and developing edge computing opportunities, and the application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to all aspects of small cell network planning, deployment and operations.

Chitrapu has previously served as chair of the Forum’s TECH & 5G Working Group, driving a number of work items spanning 5G-era use cases, edge computing, private LTE/5G, Self-Organising networks (SON) & orchestration and leading the Forum’s 5G-RAN, small cell architectures and open specifications work including femto application platform interface (FAPI) and nFAPI ) (network FAPI). He has also spearheaded SCF’s collaborations and interactions across other industry forums, including; OAI, TIP, WBA, ORAN, ONAP, CBRS-A, ETSI-MEC.

Since Orloff was appointed as chair back in 2016, the Forum has strongly increased its engagement with end-users (through programmes such as the Enterprise Advisory Council) and lawmakers. He also oversaw increased collaboration with other industry organisations, including GSMA, 5G Americas, ORAN and CBRS Alliance among others.