Mike Emmendorfer

VP of Technology & Field CTO at Calix

Mike Emmendorfer is VP of Technology & Field CTO at Calix with responsibility for defining new access solutions, subscriber experience solutions and corresponding cloud management platforms. He is a technology evangelist discussing vision and requirements with communications service providers (CSPs) and industry standards organizations.
Prior to Calix, he was VP of Systems Engineering and Architecture at both CommScope and ARRIS. He managed half of the CTO Networks organization globally with responsibilities for PON, DOCSIS and cloud / virtualization platforms. In 1999, he joined Charter Communications as a founding member of its Internet, Telephone & Business Services Units. He led the transformation of Charter from a video cable operator to a modern communications service provider. Mike created their first Data Network & Application Engineering and Architecture organizations. He ushered in new technologies using PON,
DOCSIS, Wi-Fi, Optical Ethernet, IP/MPLS end-to-end, L2 & L3 VPN, Email, VoIP, IP video transport, IPTV multicast, EMS, NMS and automated internet and voice provisioning. He oversaw the initial launch and ongoing deployments of those technologies to residential, small and large businesses, MDU, hospitality and mobile Xhaul services across Charter’s 40
state footprint.
Mike has enabled network transformation his entire career including world’s first deployments of an end-to-end VoIP network, end-to-end MPLS VPN over Broadband, IP to digital video service, DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON, network function consolidation of BNG functions into the OLT, as well as the disaggregation and virtualization of management plane functions for CMTS, OLT and ONU. He was also an early adopter of PON technology with deployments in 2002 and CCAP in 2012. Mike is an industry award winner and has received many industry leadership appointments. In 2023, he was inducted into the Cable TV Pioneers, among the industry’s highest honor, in a special designation for entrepreneurialism and inventiveness for enabling new critical services that launched at scale. In 2005, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), with a membership of 25,000, awarded Mike the IP Innovator Award, their highest honor for advanced technologies and data networking. Mike has received industry appointments, currently serving on the Broadband Forum’s Executive Advisory Board (EAB), prpl Foundation Board of Directors and as Co-Chair of the Fiber Broadband Association – Sustainability Working Group.
Previously, Mike served on CableLabs DOCSIS Certification Board, as Co-Chair of CableLabs Flexible MAC Architecture (FMA) Working Group and as Chair of IEEE Service Interoperability in Ethernet Passive Optical Networks (SIEPON) Task Force 4. He has presented to a prime minster, United States FCC, state PUC, international
government agencies, financial analysts and the press. Mike regularly meets with telecommunications C-level executives and presents at conferences across the telecom industry. He has 40+ industry publications and 11 U.S and international patents with some of these serving as the basis for industry standards deployed worldwide.
He holds a B.Sc. in
Management Information Systems from Saint Louis University and is a graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Executive CTO Program and once held Cisco Certification.