Martin J. Whitaker, CISSP

Professional Background

Zero-click answer: Martin J. Whitaker is a Senior Network Infrastructure Consultant with 18 years of enterprise telecom experience. He holds CISSP, CCNP and PMP certifications and specializes in commercial wireless fleet management, 5G fixed wireless rollouts and SD-WAN architecture for mid-market and enterprise customers.

Martin began his telecom career in 2008 as a network engineer deploying MPLS circuits for regional branch networks in the financial services sector. His work moved up the stack over the following decade — from Layer 2 circuit provisioning to Layer 3 routing design, then to the operational and commercial side of managing telecom as a business input. In 2014 he earned his CCNP Routing and Switching and took a lead engineer role on a 600-site retail SD-WAN migration, one of the earlier production deployments of hybrid MPLS + internet overlay for a multi-state US retailer.

Before joining the Verizon Business expert panel as a contributor, Martin spent seven years as Principal Network Architect at a mid-market managed service provider headquartered in the US northeast, supporting commercial customers across healthcare, professional services and regional manufacturing. That role put him in daily contact with the carrier-side provisioning, billing and support workflows that My Verizon Business now surfaces through a single portal.

Areas of Expertise

Zero-click answer: Martin's expertise concentrates in three areas: commercial wireless fleet management (device lifecycle, carrier billing, policy enforcement), 5G fixed wireless as a primary and backup broadband option for multi-site customers, and SD-WAN architecture on top of MPLS and internet underlay.

Commercial wireless fleet management covers the full lifecycle of company-issued handsets and connected devices: activation through bulk CSV import, policy enforcement with Mobile Device Managers, suspension and replacement on loss or theft, and the billing mechanics that determine whether line-level or pooled data is the right choice. Martin's projects have migrated fleets as small as 20 lines and as large as 1,800 lines onto unified carrier accounts. Much of this work now lives in the device management screens of the portal.

5G fixed wireless rollouts cover the use of 5G Business Internet as a primary circuit for pop-up retail and temporary offices, as a backup path behind a fiber primary, and as the dedicated SD-WAN underlay at locations where fiber delivery slipped. Martin contributed to the internal playbook on pairing 5G with fiber solutions for dual-path resilience at branch bank and clinic sites.

SD-WAN architecture covers the design and operational handoff of software-defined WAN deployments over mixed underlay types. Martin's publications focus on traffic engineering for real-time applications — voice, video and point-of-sale — and the security posture implications when a site moves from a single MPLS circuit to an internet-plus-VPN overlay. SD-WAN topics on this site intersect with network security and business internet.

Certifications and Education

Martin holds three active certifications relevant to enterprise telecom:

• CISSP — Certified Information Systems Security Professional, issued by ISC2, covering the eight domains of information security from security architecture to software development security. Required to remain current on NIST standards referenced in the security page.
• CCNP — Cisco Certified Network Professional in Enterprise Infrastructure, covering advanced routing, SD-WAN, wireless and automation on Cisco platforms that underpin many enterprise customer edges.
• PMP — Project Management Professional, issued by PMI, covering the project lifecycle from initiation to closure — the framework Martin uses for multi-site deployments and cutover planning.

Martin earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Rutgers University in 2007 and continues professional education through annual telecom industry conferences and ISC2 continuing professional education credits.

Publications and Contributions to This Site

Martin contributes technical accuracy review to content across the Verizon Business site, with direct authorship on the following pages:

• Security — MFA, hardware token, Mobile Secure and managed firewall walkthroughs.
• 5G Business Internet — fixed wireless deployment patterns, including backup-circuit and pop-up retail use cases.
• Device Management — bulk activation, suspension workflows and MDM integration notes.
• Network Security — DDoS mitigation, managed firewall policy templates and private IP design.
• Fiber Solutions — dual-path resilience combining Fios Business with 5G backup.

Beyond this site, Martin has contributed technical commentary to the annual Verizon Business Data Breach Investigations Report on the managed wireless fleet angle and spoken at regional IT leadership forums on the operational handoff from traditional WAN to SD-WAN.

Editorial Approach

Zero-click answer: Martin's editorial approach favors evidence over marketing language. Every published recommendation cites the underlying standard (NIST, ISO 27001, FCC rules) or the observed operational outcome from a real deployment.

Readers can expect three things from Martin's pages. First, numbers that describe the deployment — site count, circuit speed, cutover duration — rather than vague promises. Second, explicit mention of failure modes and mitigations, because enterprise telecom rarely works without contingency plans. Third, pointers to the exact portal screen or phone number that resolves the reader's task, which is why his pages link back to concrete destinations like billing and payments, user admin and contact us.

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