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Bill Gartner

Senior Vice President/GM

Optical Systems & Optics Group

Bill Gartner is Senior Vice President/GM of of Cisco's Optical Systems and Optics Group. In this role, Bill has P&L responsibility for these businesses and is responsible for strategic direction, product development, product positioning and new product introduction.

Prior to joining Cisco, Bill was Chief Operating Officer of Meriton Networks (acquired by Xtera Networks). Prior to Meriton, Bill served as President and COO of Mahi Networks and COO of Photuris.

Before joining Photuris, he was Vice President and General Manager of Lucent's Optical Networking Systems business, responsible for Metro, Access, and Long Haul DWDM Products.

His earlier tenure in the industry included roles at AT&T Bell Labs and Paradyne.

Bill has served on the boards of OptronX (acquired by JDSU) and CyOptics.

Bill has a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, and an Executive Master’s in Technology Management from University of Pennsylvania/Wharton. He is a University of Pennsylvania Moore Fellow, and holds three patents.

Articles

September 12, 2018

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Network Modernization: A TDM to IP Solution Webinar and White Paper

Operators are struggling to manage their aging SONET/SDH infrastructure, much of which has exceeded its intended life span and has become a serious operational strain. For years, operators had few architectural options for network modernization. Fortunately, circuit emulation (CEM) has emerged as a…

July 19, 2018

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Cisco Named Optical Network Market Leader by IHS

Cisco continues to be on the leading edge, driving optical industry innovation for our customers. Today, I’m pleased to announce that we have achieved the ranking of Optical Network Market Leader in the 2018 IHS Markit Technology Vendor Scorecard. Notably, the report states that Cisco leads the fiel…

May 18, 2018

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Cisco Spring PONC Hits the Mark Following a Successful OFC

On the heels of a dynamic OFC show, Cisco kept the Optical and Optics momentum going with our 2018 Spring Packet Optical Networking Conference (PONC) in Richardson, Texas last week. A quick highlight from OFC:  Cisco introduced two new modular platforms to our NCS 1000 series to help providers maxim…

January 26, 2018

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Verizon Achieves Technical Milestone with Cisco Solution

Verizon has achieved a significant technical milestone by implementing an innovative approach developed with Cisco toward increasing network efficiency on its next-generation transport network. This unique solution enables the continued growth of Ethernet services while improving the reliability of…

December 5, 2017

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Fall PONC a Resounding Success in Rome, Italy

I recently returned from Cisco’s Optical Packet Networking Conference (PONC) in Rome, Italy, where we had the opportunity to host and interact with more than 230 attendees from 57 companies across the globe. It was an invigorating experience as we covered topics from Service Provider trends and netw…

October 31, 2017

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Maximizing Network Infrastructure Using Flexible Light Orchestration of Wavelengths

  Speed, simplicity and agility. These needs are all top of mind as service providers look for ways to maximize their existing optical network while building enough bandwidth overhead to support the massive increase in data driven by today’s digital world. In the past, network growth and transi…

March 21, 2017

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Transport Modernization Can Help Service Providers Achieve Massive Footprint Savings

Over the next five years, global IP networks will support up to 10 billion new devices and connections—near tripling IP traffic growth by 2020, according to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index forecast. The proliferation of connected devices, video, and over-the-top (OTT) traffic are pushing SONET/SDH t…