In this edition of DBTT we give analysts' takes on a number of recent events, news and trends in telecoms including: 

• Dean has been to several industry events lately, including the Mplify NaaS event, FYUZ and Wi-Fi Now (write-ups are here, here & here). Benoit has been thinking about fibre take-up and personal data ownership.
• The recently published Final Opinion on the Upper 6GHz spectrum band by Europe's Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG). What are they suggesting, and what might it mean for 5G & 6G, Wi-Fi and the broader wireless ecosystem? Dean has also written a full article on this.
• A view on the trend of "enshittification" of online services and applications, as per Cory Doctorow's thesis. What does it mean for the Internet? Does AI make it worse? And what could be done at a systemic level or via policy to limit it? Does personal reputation or better filtering / curation help?
• We discuss recent layoffs at large telecom operators and what this might indicate about the industry's health and future prospects. Is this just reflecting the end of a capex cycle and the adoption of software-based networks needing less headcount? Is AI to blame? What does it tell us about the future of the telecoms industry?

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In this edition of DBTT, we cover a number of recent events and industry developments, including:

- Some thoughts on the Nvidia / Nokia partnership and investment, including the possible implications for 6G, edge compute and datacentres

- A recent report by French regulator ARCEP about Internet traffic trends and dynamics, not just on the access network but also in the transport / interconnect domain. (Link to English version). Benoit has had a chat with them about the report & also has thoughts on why other regulators should do something similar... 

- .. and then we both have some thoughts on what regulatory "simplification" might look like, especially in Europe, against the backdrop of both the (delayed) EU DNA and also the AI Act and other policy initiatives. Dean reviewed a Connect Europe on simplification. (Link) 

- US spectrum issues that arose during a recent visit by Dean to Washington DC, unpicking what might be the outcome of the OBBBA mandate to identify and auction 800MHz for mobile use.

- Thoughts on the combination of Voice & AI, which came out of Dean's recent UnthinkableLab workshop (link & link). In short, telcos have to work out how to infuse AI into their voice infrastructure and services, both for consumer and B2C / CPaaS applications.

There's also a YouTube video version of this podcast, which will be live later this week. (Link)

Introducing Dean & Ben Talk Tech. Two well-known industry analysts talk about telecoms, cloud, AI and adjacent sectors' technology and regulation / policy.

The first episode covers:

• 5G evolution
• FTTH market structure & Benoit's new report on the French fibre market
• Dean's takeouts from the recent Techritory conference in Riga, Latvia
• Developments with the upcoming European Commission Digital Networks Act
• Thoughts on the recent Ofcom auction of mmWave spectrum in the UK

This first edition is relatively low on "production values" and has minimal editing and fun stuff like intros/outros, but we'll work on that as we get used to the format. We may also invite guests at a later date.