Franck Simon
Franck Simon is an Internet and networks expert with 30+ years experience in building national and international networks. He is an experienced C-level manager with 20+ years experience. Academically he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and he has completed an Executive MBA in May 2017 in Digital Transformation and Innovation.
Franck has been the CEO of France-IX Services since its inception in 2010 and brings his extensive industry experience to the management and on-going development of Internet Exchange Point. France IX Services is a company created with the support of the French Internet community, specialized in B2B network interconnection services for telecom operators, digital content providers and all major Internet users in France. A result of rapid growth, there are now around 600 customers, in France and internationally and is the Premier Internet Peering Service Provider in France, offering public and private interconnection services through its Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Lille and Bordeaux carrier and data center neutral Internet Exchanges Points.
Prior to France-IX, for 15 years, Franck was the Technical Director of RENATER, the French academic network interconnecting more than 2000 academic and research sites in France. He was responsible for the network strategy, the development of new projects and services, and in charge of information systems security. He also participated in steering committees and board management. For 10 years, he was responsible for the SFINX (Service for French Internet Exchange), the first Internet exchange point ever created in France.
Franck has in-depth experience in wide area networks and backbones operators as well as being knowledgeable about the strategies and policies for interconnection between operators and the context of peering in France and in Europe.
Franck frequently speaks at national and international conferences and delivers adhoc master classes.
Session
Europe's digital markets are drifting toward dominant players. The usual answers are to merge or to compete. France-IX proposes a third: mesh.
Concentration works by gravity: everyone stays because everyone stays. The question for anyone sitting in the middle of a network is whether they accumulate that gravity or spread it. We answer with three rules we impose on ourselves.
We built the mesh in France first. Multipass gives a customer national reach from one port across six cities, and today roughly one bit in eight on an enabled port leaves for a city where that customer has no port. The same move now repeats between French exchanges, then across borders, through bilateral agreements.
France-IX CEO Franck Simon shows what we have shipped, the rules we accept, and the first international partners, named on stage.