RAN#75, Dubrovnik, March 8, 2017

Balázs Bertényi of Nokia Corporation has been elected RAN Chairman this week, gaining the majority needed at the second round of membership voting. He succeeds Dino Flore of Qualcomm Inc., who has served the maximum number of two terms as the Chairman ^{(note 1)} of TSG RAN – which has responsibility for radio aspects, functions, requirements and interfaces for all 3GPP networks.

Balázs Bertényi has participated in 3GPP for over 15 years, gaining technical experience as a contributor in SA groups and in RAN. He has a wealth of leadership experience in 3GPP, serving terms as Chairman of SA Working Group 2 (2007-2011) and as Chairman of the 3GPP SA Plenary (2011-2015).

On the announcement of the result Balázs Bertényi said; “This is a great honour for me, I now look forward to getting on with the technical work and the challenges ahead, as we continue progress on specifications for 5G’s new radio technology and enhancements to LTE – with the eyes of the whole industry on us.”

Three 3GPP RAN Vice-Chairmen were also elected at this week’s meeting, with the votes returning Vince Spatafora (AT&T) for the North American partner ATIS, Xiaodong Xu (China Mobile Com. Corp.) of CCSA to represent the Asia region and the third (non regional) Vice-Chairmanship going to Satoshi Nagata (NTT DOCOMO INC.) of ARIB.

All of the election results from TSG#75 here in Dubrovnik will be formally ratified at the Project Coordination Group (PCG) of 3GPP, in April. Full details of CT, RAN and SA elections are available at http://www.3gpp.org/news-events/elections. 

Note: ¹ 3GPP Chairman and the Vice Chairmen are elected for a two year term of office. They may stand for election for a second consecutive term and may only stand again (further terms) if the conditions set out in section 22.1 of the 3GPP Working Procedures exist, allowing a further term if there is no other candidate.

Photos from RAN#75 

Balazs and Dino - The passing on of the Chairman's bell	Balázs Bertényi
Bertényi joins the RAN Chair discussion	RAN#75