Dominique Le Foll is also known in the IT world by his alias Dominig.
Dominig interest for technologies and automation started very early. His progression toward computers was made through the discovery of electric train automation and later during his Baccalauréat E serie (A levels in UK) of pneumatic automation and lathe programmation.
He studied Computer science at the ESAT (Arcueil-Paris), an engineering school sponsored by the French DOD where he specialised in Operating systems and low level software programmation. After his graduation in 1981 he joined an electronic DOD research centre located near Rennes in Brittany.
Dominig was the editor of the ETSI ISDN spec (ETS300112), he represented the French industry during the creation of the ATM and SDH OAM ITU standards (M.2100, I.610). In 1993 he co-signed a book with some peers : "Ingénierie des protocoles" (ISBN 2729604294).
During his career he has used disruptive technologies to create new test and diagnostic product lines for ISDN, Digital TV, PDH/SDH Transport Network, DSL test system and more recently for TVoIP and VoIP. He has architected and engineered test solutions which have been deployed by big names (DT, FT, BT, EutelSat, BBC, TWC). His biggest deployement runs in UK and uses several thousands distributed test heads (mini Linux servers).
Dominique has filled several patents in Europe, USA and Asia, he currenty holds the position Chief Technology Officer at Amino Communication, an IPTV startup located in Cambridge, UK.
At the CELAR (Centre d'ELectronique de l'ARmement) he worked on a project aimed at testing the performance of the next generation of data switches. His first project was completed on a multi CPU (27*8080) customed build computer developed by R2E and TITN. The implementation of the multi CPU variant of the Prologue operating system (named Protocol) was for him, a huge source of deep learning on operating systems and distributed software management. His second project was dedicated to the validation of fast packet switches (Alcatel and Thomson). The solution was based on a bespoke design (implemented by TITN Aix en Provence) which used a multi CPU (47*8086) to generate and monitor data, voice and video test traffic.
In 1989 Dominig, free from his duties with the DOD (sponsored studies came at a price) and well recognised by his peers as an expert in the design and implementation of complex telecom test solutions, he quit the CELAR to create a R&D team for Wandel and Goltermann (now JDSU) dedicated to penetrate French's protected telecom market. This team was created in Rennes (Brittany) under the name of Cersem .
He succeeded in overcoming the established French competitors (Tekelec and Schlumberger Enertec) by providing in time (June 1989) for the ISDN national launch in France the only working field test solution. The kit included a protocol analyser (DA-20) and a bit error tester (IBT-1). He overturned the competition by offering in the DA-20 an "expert" analysis software which let FT technician see the status of an ISDN line without reading any protocol decode and in the IBT-1 a self call facility which could qualify a line during the installation with a single technician and a single tester. The success allowed the growth of the team and the product range. Major contracts with other worldwide operators have since been concluded. DT (Germany) with the IBT-10, NEC (Japan) with the DA-5, GTE (USA) with the IBT-5 , KT (Korea) with the IBT-10, ...
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| IBT-10 | DA-5 | IBT-5 |
DA-30 |
IBT-300 |
With more than 40 people the team moved in a new office on the technopack of Rennes Atalante and took the new name of WG CTS.
In 1995 the DVB project was about to see its first services launched (Digital TV over HotBird and Astra satellite constellation). Dominig was tasked by Wandel and Goltermann to build a new test and diagnostic product line for this new technology. The strategy was to take profit of this disruptive technology to enter the TV business against Tektronix.
He built a dedicated fast moving team with key contributors and highly talented engineers.
Many of them are still very active in the DVB world (Jean Pierre Hénot, Pascal Marie, ...). The success of the project was confirmed in 1998 when EutelSat selected the DTS-400 monitoring solution. He delivered with his team the first DVB-T for the Lisboa 98 exhibition.
In 1999 Dominig accepted to take the recovery program over a sinking project which put WG's position at risk with a major European Telco. The task required completly reshaping the software team located in Plymouth UK (25 people replaced out of 30) and to acquire and integrate the partner in charge of the hardware due to its eminent bankruptcy (Celogic, 40 people). The project was accepted by the customer after 18 months of a complete solution redesign which included the development of a non blocking Corba based architecture running over a real time database. The resulting product (QMS/QT-100) was later deployed at several Telecom operators in Europe and in Latin America. Most of them are still in operation 24/7 today.
In 2003 while Acterna was in difficulties which ended by a Chapter 11 (6 May 2003), Dominig obtained the finance for a new project aiming at breaking through the emerging market of broadband testing. To displace the market incumbent (Spirent), his strategy was to offer a solution which tested the physical and the service layer at once and was an order of magnitude cheaper. The new solution (QT-200) was developped in 9 months, on a custom low cost hardware (StrongARM based and Texas DSP). DSP replaced expensive hardware for physical measurement and Linux allowed to follow the quick evolution of IP market. The new concept was powerful enough to be selected by BT (UK) while Acterna was in Chapter 11 phase. Over the past years the QT-200 has used the Linux base to grow in the new Triple Play market and has been selected by operators in Europe and in Asia for their TVoIP deployement. BT announced in March 2006 that QT-200 will be used in the new 21CN deployment . In the same period its Gigabit Ethernet derived version (QT-600) was selected by major Telecom and Cable operators in USA for VoIP service assurance application.
Since November 2007, Dominig has been working for Amino Communication (Cambridge, UK) as Cheif Technology Officer where he develops IPTV high definition Set-Top boxes and IPTV Digital Video Recoders which have received several prestigious awards such as the CSI in 2007, TelcoTV in 2008 and the prestigious "Good Design" award for 2008 from the world-renowned Chicago Athenaeum Museum for its sleek and stylish AmiNET130M Set-Top Box (STB).
