Torleiv Maseng (24 December 1946 – 11 July 2023) was a Norwegian engineer, who made some contribution to the

Global System for Mobile Communications The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and mobile broadband modems. GSM is also ...

project. His work included the standard use of channel estimation and the combination of equalization,

error correcting codes In computing, telecommunication, information theory, and coding theory, forward error correction (FEC) or channel coding is a technique used for controlling errors in data transmission over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The centra ...

and

modulation Signal modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform in electronics and telecommunication for the purpose of transmitting information. The process encodes information in form of the modulation or message ...

in which the

Viterbi algorithm The Viterbi algorithm is a dynamic programming algorithm for obtaining the maximum a posteriori probability estimate of the most likely sequence of hidden states—called the Viterbi path—that results in a sequence of observed events. This i ...

was used by all components. Maseng received his master's degree in Radio Communication from the

Norwegian Institute of Technology The Norwegian Institute of Technology ( Norwegian: ''Norges tekniske høgskole'', NTH) was a science institute in Trondheim, Norway. It was established in 1910, and existed as an independent technical university for 58 years, after which it was ...

in 1970. In July 1974 he joined SHAPE (

Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe The Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) is the military headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) Allied Command Operations (ACO) that commands all NATO operations worldwide. SHAPE is situated in the villag ...

) Technical Center in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

as a scientist in the Communications Division. He was responsible for the development of the

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

SATCOM Control system. He was also involved in operational planning for the NATO SATCOM system, e.g. frequency planning, power allocation, interference analysis and modem evaluation. He also participated in the production of specifications for procurement of new satellite ground terminals, computer systems and modems for NATO. In 1982 he was employed by

SINTEF SINTEF (, "The Foundation for Industrial and Technical Research"), headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, is an independent research organization founded in 1950 that conducts contract research and development projects. SINTEF has 2000 employees fr ...

where he was involved in the design and standardisation of the GSM project. In 1986, he received the SINTEF award for his work on modulation and coding. In 1992 he started NetCom GSM A/S with Trygve Tamburstue

and had the technical responsibility. NetCom is the second largest mobile phone operator in Norway now owned by Telia (Norway), Telia and in 2016 changed their name to Telia (Norway), Telia.

Academic career

In October 1993, Maseng was appointed to a chair in Radio Technology at the

University of Lund Lund University () is a public research university in Sweden and one of Northern Europe's oldest universities. The university is located in the city of Lund in the Swedish province of Scania. The university was officially founded in 1666 on the ...

, Sweden. In January 1994 he started working as a professor at Department of Applied Electronics. Here he contributed to foundation of the Centre of Excellence of Circuit Design and a research program Personal Computing and Communication which is a national research program financed by the

Foundation for Strategic Research The Foundation for Strategic Research (''Fondation pour la recherche stratégique'' or ''FRS'') is an independent French think-tank. It was founded by Pierre Joxe (then Minister of Defence) in 1992-1993 by merging the FED (''Fondation pour les Ét ...

. Maseng later became a Director of Research at the

Norwegian Defence Research Establishment The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (''Forsvarets forskningsinstitutt'' – ''FFI'') is a research institute that conducts research and development on behalf of the Norwegian Armed Forces and provides expert advice to political and m ...

. He also served as a professor at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...

/University Graduate Center (

UNIK The University Graduate Center (UNIK) was a research foundation at Kjeller in Norway up to 2016. University of Oslo tok over the operation from 1. January 2017.https://www.mn.uio.no/its/om/historie/ (in Norwegian) UNIK had four focus areas Netw ...

) since 2017 organized as a department of UiO
Department of Technology Systems
and later a
Department of Informatics

Death

Maseng died on 11 July 2023, at the age of 76.

Works

Maseng was the author of more than 300 papers, held patents and has served as an editor of the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

Communications Magazine. He has been listed for the last several years in ''

Marquis Who's Who Marquis Who's Who, also known as A.N. Marquis Company ( or ), is an American publisher of a number of directories containing short biographies. The books usually are entitled ''Who's Who in...'' followed by some subject, such as ''Who's Who in A ...

'' in the world. He was a member of the

Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences The Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences (, NTVA) is a learned society based in Trondheim, Norway. Founded in 1955, the academy has about 500 members. It is a member of the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technologica ...

. He received "Gulltasten 2010", an honorary award for his work in telecommunications. In 2012 he received

Aftenposten (; ; stylized as in the masthead) is Norway's largest printed newspaper by circulation as well as Norway's newspaper of record. It is based in Oslo. It sold 211,769 daily copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen ...

s readers award for the most significant invention in Norway since 1980, for his work on GSM early development. In 2014 he got the Rosing Prize for the same effort.

*

Telenor Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwi ...

, Telektronikk no 3 2004 page 161-16

*

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

"Changing the World" by Svenolof Karlson and Anders Lugn, page 139. in English and in Swedish .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maseng, Torleiv 1946 births 2023 deaths Norwegian engineers Members of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences