David J. Malfara, Sr. is chief executive officer of Big Bang Broadband LLC (BBB). As its CEO and with more than 40 years of experience leading telecommunications and broadband companies, he directs all conceptual, strategic, developmental, and tactical efforts comprising BBB’s Broadband Orchestration® program – a program which he authored as the culmination of best practices resulting from decades of direct experience in deploying and operating broadband networks. He continues to expand on the tenets of the program together with other BBB Principals who are also highly experienced industry leaders.
Focused on the desirable outcomes of broadband deployment, Mr. Malfara directs BBB efforts to assist prospective clients with the universal approach of Broadband Orchestration®. This approach means to organize the market research, economic feasibility constructs, funding efforts, design processes, timing, implementation, oversight of deployment, and the formation of client-owned service provider operating companies to accommodate a multiplicity of goals, as expressed by the various stakeholders of each project.
Mr. Malfara is also active in broadband public policy advocacy at the state and federal levels to drive visibility and awareness for the growing need to develop qualifying standards for broadband deployment projects, especially as it pertains to the goal of building networks that clearly meet the quality, security, performance, survivability, useful life, interoperability and economic goals that should be first and foremost in consideration of any such deployment using public funding in whole or in part.
Prior to founding Big Bang Broadband LLC, Mr. Malfara worked in the following roles:
- Chief Operating Officer of a service provider organization with more than $175 million in rural optical fiber broadband deployment projects underway.
- Led a business management and engineering consultancy in its efforts to support those clients who wish to understand legacy and emerging business models for various types of communication service providers, advising clients on valuation trends, conducting due diligence efforts and advising wireline and wireless service provider clients in developing strategies and business models based upon emerging technologies and the evolving needs of both commercial and consumer broadband customers.
- President and CEO of a next-generation Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (“CLEC”) operating in the Northeast U.S.
- Founding president of Z-Tel Network Services Inc. which in 2001, after only 18 months of operation, became one of the largest consumer-based CLECs in the U.S. with annualized revenues of more than $300M and more than 340,000 subscribers. ZNS was the largest operating subsidiary of Z-Tel Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: ZTEL) which launched a successful Initial Public Offering in late 1999. In early 2000, Z-TEL achieved a market capitalization in excess of $1.2 Billion.
- Chairman/CEO of a nationwide telecommunications company comprising a long distance telephone company, and an SS7 signaling services (ISUP & TCAP) company with more than 100 carrier-customers, prior to their sale to a publicly held carrier.
Mr. Malfara also served in engineering and management positions at National Computer Corporation (NCC), Honeywell Information Systems, GTE Telenet, J. Preston Levis Regional Computing Center (State of Ohio) and Gould, Ocean Systems Division – Advanced Technology Group (DoD contractor – MK48 project).
Throughout his career Mr. Malfara was fortunate to lead and/or create initiatives including the following:
- Economic Feasibility Analysis, Design, Management, Oversight of Construction and Operational Development of optical fiber broadband networks and other broadband operating company organizations.
- Drafting financial, operational and technology models for client-carrier broadband deployment in several areas of the country, including urban, suburban, and rural areas and assisting client-carriers in the realization of those initiatives.
- Comprehensive traffic studies for Interconnected VoIP service providers, for the purpose of optimizing routing engines and minimizing regulatory surcharge assessments by eliminating the need to use “safe harbor” traffic categorizations, otherwise applicable.
- Research, testing and analysis of emerging optical fiber and wireless technologies for deployment readiness in carrier-client broadband networks.
- Concept creation and drafting of business and engineering criteria for landmark agreements governing shared ownership and use of optical fibers (using advanced channelization techniques) within municipal rights-of-way.
Mr. Malfara also holds/held the following industry leadership roles:
- Former advisor, member of the Board of Directors, and Executive Committee, of INCOMPAS (f.k.a. COMPTEL)
- Founding chair of the COMPTEL Technology Task Force.
- Guest lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh, Graduate Program for Telecommunications and Networking.
- Regular faculty member of the Michigan State University | Institute of Public Utilities Regulatory Research and Education NARUC program. The program is designed specifically for commissioners and staff personnel of local, state, and federal agencies and nonprofit organizations involved in utility industry regulation, and attendance is open only to individuals working for governmental and public-sector organizations. Courses taught by Mr. Malfara at the program include “Evolution of IP Networks and Protocols”, “Telecom Technologies and Business Models” and “Broadband Investment in Rural Areas”.
- Senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the IEEE Communications Society, the IEEE Information Theory Society and the IEEE Standards Association.
- Former member of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) Industry Numbering Committee (INC), the ATIS Testbed Landscape Team and the ATIS Open Web Alliance.
- Current member of the SIP Forum and the ATIS/SIP Forum Joint IP-NNI Task Force.
- Former voting member of the former North American Numbering Council (NANC) Local Number Portability Administration Working Group. The Local Number Portability Administration Working Group (LNPA WG), prior to its dissolution in late 2017, was the body that makes the decisions and recommendations that form the basis of the regulatory orders issued by the FCC pertaining to LNP.
- Appointed by the FCC as a voting member of the NANC National Number Portability Working Group and the Local Number Portability Administration Transition Oversight Subcommittee.
- Member of the Federal Communications Bar Association (non-attorney) and its Engineering and Technical, Wireless Telecommunications and Wireline Committees.
- Council Member of Gerson Lehrman Group, Inc. (GLG).
Mr. Malfara addresses a wide range of business, technical, regulatory, and legislative issues related to the broadband and telecommunications industries before members of the U.S. Congress and Administration as well as state and federal regulatory agencies. He frequently represents the interests of the competitive communications and broadband industries in discussions relative to technological evolution, and its impact on service provider business models and regulatory oversight, as a speaker, author and guest lecturer. His special areas of focus include communication service provider mergers and acquisition, valuation, industry valuation trending and other M&A due diligence activities, operational audit, strategic planning, emerging business models, emerging technologies, operational & financial performance optimization.