It’s time to announce our top episode of 2023! It’s been an incredible journey for the Telco in 20 podcast—now clocking in with well over 100,000 total listens. We’ve had some great guests this year, like Mats Granryd from the GSMA, McKinsey & Company Partner Ferry Grijpink, and Microsoft’s Rick Lievano. 

There were tons of popular episodes, which made it a race to the finish line to name our Best of 2023. In the end, none topped my conversation with Mobi CEO Justen Burdette. He joined me in April to talk about the Hawaiian MVNO’s public-cloud-native mobile core, its collaboration with Working Group Two, and the benefits of embracing the public cloud. Listen now to hear: 

• What makes Mobi unique from traditional MVNOs [3:51];
• How having its own mobile core benefits its customers [08:03];
• Why having a cloud-first mindset changes the game [12:25]; and
• What makes Working Group Two's APIs so powerful [14:59].

Links and Resources

• What does it take to be a top 10% podcast? Or even a top 1%? Top 10% podcasts get 50,000 listens per year, while the top 1% get more than 2 million! In 2023, the Telco in 20 podcast moved into the top 5% in annual listens. Yay!
• Telco in 20 has now turned in 81 episodes. Eighty-one! I still remember recording the first one with Jim Abolt. I never dreamed I’d make it to 81! Did you know that only 50% of podcasts make it past episode 25? For 2024, we’ll pass 100! Yikes!
• Wanna know what our top episodes of the year were? Including Justen’s episode, these were the other top episodes pulling in a combined 19,000+ listens:
  • Ep 62 - Running your network on the public cloud with Juniper Networks
  • Ep 71 - Save bookoo bucks with CloudFix
  • Ep 76 - Into the Nexus of GenAI with Microsoft
  • Ep 77 - Why do subscribers churn: network coverage or price?
• Visit the Mobi website.
• Learn more about Mobi’s work with Working Group Two.
• Justen talked about the beauty of APIs—learn more about Totogi’s Churn Prediction Service, Charging as a Service, and Whoosh!
• Read about Mobi’s deal with T-Mobile US to expand into the continental US 5G market
• You can find the transcript of this episode here.
• Listen to this conversation on our TelcoDR YouTube channel.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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The Telco in 20 podcast won 2023 and 2022 MarCom Awards, a 2022 Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.  If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Justen Burdette

Justen Burdette serves as the chief executive officer for Mobi, the regional wireless provider for Hawaiʻi. He previously served as vice president of products at Tucows, where he helped lead the growth of its Ting Mobile wireless brand to over $90 million in annual revenue before its acquisition by Dish (Nasdaq: DISH), at the time making it the fifth largest independent MVNO in the country including its Ting IoT business. He also led the launch of its Ting Internet fiber-to-the-home ISP in several regional markets, and helped manage the development of its in-house CRM, BSS, and OSS platform, which has since become a standalone SaaS startup, Wavelo.

Podcast Credits

• Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
• Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
• Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
• Editing: Andrew Condell
• Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
• Music: Dyami Wilson