Philip Smith has been working in the Internet industry since the early 90s. He recently joined APNIC, the Asia Pacific Network Information Center, as Director of Learning and Development. Prior to joining APNIC, he spend over thirteen years at Cisco Systems, in the Internet Architectures Group of the company's CTO organisation.
Over the last decade and a half, Philip has been actively involved in providing consultation and advice to ISPs primarily in the Asia Pacific region, but also to other providers around the world. He concentrates specifically on network strategies, design, technology, and operations, as well as configuration, scaling, and training. He has played a major role in training ISP engineers, co-founding the Cisco ISP/IXP Workshop programme, and providing ISP training and tutorials at many network operations events around the world, including NANOG, RIPE, APNIC, SANOG, MENOG, AfNOG, PacNOG and APRICOT conferences. His other key interests include IPv6, BGP, IGPs, and network performance and data analysis.
He has also been working to promote and develop the Internet in the entire Asia Pacific region and has been actively involved in bringing the Internet to some countries in the region. He also was actively involved in establishing Internet Exchange Points around the world, as well as advising on peering and inter-ISP relationships across the industry. He is Chair of the Board of APIA (the Asia Pacific Internet Association), the organisation which organises and manages APRICOT, the region's annual ISP operational and technology conference and co-chair of APOPS (the regions ISP operational forum). Philip is also involved in the organisation committees of MENOG, SANOG and PacNOG, as well as past chair and member of the NANOG Steering Committee. He also has a particular research interest in the growth of the Internet and provides a detailed daily analysis of the IPv4 routing table, from an Asia Pacific perspective, to the general operator community worldwide.
Prior to joining Cisco, he spent five years at PIPEX (incorporated into UUNET, and now part of Verizon's global ISP business), the UK's first commercial ISP, where he was Head of Network Engineering. As is common with startups in a rapidly growing marketplace, Philip gained deep experience in all of the engineering roles in an ISP, from support engineer, network operations, engineering, and development, before assuming responsibility for the entire UK network operation. He was one of the first engineers working in the commercial Internet in the UK, and he helped establish the LINX Internet Exchange Point in London and played a key role in building the modern Internet in Europe.
Philip is a Doctor of Philosophy and has a First Class Honours Degree in Physics. A native of Scotland, he now lives in Brisbane, Australia.
