Frank Ohrtman has over 20 years experience in telecommunications and electronic warfare (yes, there is a strong correlation). He is a published subject matter expert on VoIP, SIP, Wi-Fi and WiMAX (published list available upon request or amazon search word “Ohrtman”). Frank has delivered training to managers of rural telcos and WISPs (“Wireless Networks in Rural America”) and Motorola resellers (“IP Changes Everything”). His consulting clients include Government of Canada, Tricom (Dominican Republic), WorldNet (Puerto Rico) and Ujet Holdings (Netherlands).   

Mr. Ohrtman’s vision of the near future of telecommunications is contained in his book “The Next Telecom Boom” which provides a foundation of his training courses and consulting practice where IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) presents a “flat” architecture for communications services such as VoIP, IPTV, mobile VoIP and data. WiMAX and other 4G wireless services offer physical layer alternatives.  In his 2007 course “IP changes Everything”, Frank provided training to over a dozen of the nation’s leading Motorola dealers seeking new revenue streams in wireless IP applications. More than twenty of the Midwest’s largest rural telcos attended Frank’s class “Wireless Networking in Rural America”. Frank has assisted service providers in WiMAX vendor selection using his copyrighted “WiMAX Request for Proposal”. Clients have included Ujet Holdings (operations in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic) and Tricom (Dominican Republic’s largest CLEC).

“Learn by doing” is Frank’s credo. In April of 2008, Frank launched a limited WiMAX service in Denver supporting the local electric utility as well as ABC News during the Democratic National Convention. The experience gave Frank valuable insight to the challenges of service providers. He also used the network to provide a hands-on class room training for rural telcos.  This small but valuable exercise has given Frank valuable “street cred” in rural telco and vendor circles leading to multiple referrals for Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (“Stimulus”) grant application consulting projects.

This “micro carrier” experience tops a decade of work including serving as Western Region Sales Manager with Netrix Corporation where Frank sold some of the very first VoIP media gateways to large enterprises beating Cisco to this lucrative market. From there, Frank graduated to Lucent Technologies where he served as Qwest Account Manager promoting Lucent’s carrier-grade softswitch (one of the first on the market) and terabit router to the nation’s third largest carrier.   Capitalizing on that carrier experience, Mr. Ohrtman was recruited by softswitch start-up Vsys to promote their carrier-grade softswitch to carriers throughout the Western hemisphere including the then-exploding Mexican market establishing relationships with TelMex, Usacell, Marcatel, etc.

Frank took advantage of the telecom downturn of the early 2000’s to finish a Master of Science degree in Interdisciplinary Telecommunications from Colorado University (master’s thesis: “Class 4 Softswitch: A Disruptive Technology”). It was also at this time that he published his first book “Softswitch: Architecture for VoIP” for McGraw-Hill. He published two more books with McGraw-Hill including “Wi-Fi Handbook” and the “WiMAX Handbook”. Mr. Ohrtman graduated to self-publish “WiMAX in 50 Pages” and “The Next Telecom Boom”.  To meet market demands with short production time, Frank has published over a dozen white papers with Mind Commerce (http://www.mindcommerce.com).

When the last telecom boom went bust, Frank asked himself “How can I position myself to profit when the telecom market takes off again?” Through self-directed study, publishing, consulting and training, Frank is now one of the most knowledgeable and experienced consultants available.   

Publications list:

Frank Ohrtman is the Founder and President of WMX systems