BOULDER - A veteran telecom industry researcher is joining the University of Colorado-Boulder to create a new center that will study the rapidly evolving broadband industry.

David Reed, the former chief technology officer and chief strategy officer with Louisville-based CableLabs, has joined CU's Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program, or ITP, as a scholar in residence. Reed will be responsible for developing the new research center, CU announced Friday.

Reed said the program will work to bring together players from telecom and broadband service and equipment providers with policy makers. It will supplement ITP's other research and teaching programs and prepare students for "an industry that's going to be vital for decades to come," he said.

A launch date for the program has not been established, Reed said. "We're going to be pushing hard to get it going."

The ITP was formed in 1971 as an interdisciplinary program that teaches graduate students about technology, policy and business. Its organizational home is in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, but it draws on faculty in the law and business schools as well.

The broadband center will "help shape broadband evolution through strategic research that informs technology leaders, strategic planners and policymakers with clear, concise answers to complex, interdisciplinary problems," the release said.

Broadband is a "disruptive technology" that will affect network architectures, software platforms and the market strategies of companies, Reed said. Putting researchers, students, policy makers and industry principals together will help everyone understand the shape of things to come.

Reed spent 18 years at Cable Television Laboratories Inc., better known as CableLabs, a nonprofit research center established by major cable companies to develop technology and standards that can be shared by companies that otherwise are competitors. Executives from top cable provides such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable have positions on its board of directors.

Reed's duties included managing the research and development programs, and making sure it was aligned with the priorities of the industry. Among the technologies CableLabs developed were the technical platform cable companies use to provide broadband and phone services.

Reed's new academic responsibilities also include teaching students in the master's and doctoral programs.

Adding teaching duties along with the research he will conduct and oversee at CU also drew him to the program.

"First and foremost, it's teaching," Reed said when asked why he joined the ITP. "Having been in private industry for 18 years at CableLabs, I'm looking forward to working with students."