It's hard to believe it's been three years since CLOUD CITY stole the show at MWC 2021 and I boldly proclaimed the dawn of the public cloud era in telecom. It’s amazing how far the industry has come in its public cloud journey since then.

Juha Korhonen, a forward-thinking telco transformation leader, recognized the potential of the public cloud back then. At the time he was the head of innovation and digital services at Zain Group, where he was instrumental in launching Yaqoot, a digital mobile brand in Saudi Arabia. Since then, he has done a tour at Gartner as a senior advisor in BSS. I’ve invited Juha back to talk about where CSPs are today, how BSS and OSS are evolving, and the transformative power of AI across telco operations. Listen now to hear:

• Telcos’ public cloud adoption trends across the globe [01:48];
• Signs that telecoms are growing more comfortable using the public cloud [04:31], and even ready to think about moving network workloads [08:40]; 
• The need for BSS and OSS to converge to deliver 5G monetization opportunities [11:07]; and
• How AI can solve some of the industry's biggest challenges [13:44].

Links and Resources

• Read more about Microsoft and AT&T’s deal to move AT&T’s 5G core network to Azure’s cloud platform, with Microsoft acquiring AT&T's Network Cloud tech and talent. 
• Check out this article by The Mobile Network’s Keith Dyer about O2 Telefonica Germany saying goodbye to traditional telco infrastructure and "Guten Tag" to the public cloud.

Here’s an article from NVIDIA highlighting how underutilized RAN resources can be. It notes that they typically operate below 50% capacity due to provisioning for peak traffic.

Listen to Telco in 20 episode 68, giffgaff is 1,000 times faster with AWS, to hear how the MVNO went all-in on the public cloud and used spot instances to reel in cloud costs.

• Check out my conversation with DISH Network’s CTO Marc Rouanne about the company’s rollout of a cloud-native 5G network.
• Read my blog about how telcos can unlock the true value of their BSS with AI.
• Listen to Juha’s 2021 Telco in 20 episode, Ep 18 – A digital telco: Meet Yaqoot.
• Watch my crazy first (!) keynote at MWC 2021—I was so nervous! But it was SO good - Ride that public cloud (and now AI!) dragon!
• Remember CLOUD CITY and that EPIC Bon Jovi concert? I’ll never forget it. 
• Check out my backstage picture with Bon Jovi. And here’s one of Bon Jovi and Juha—what a day!
• Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
• You can find the transcript for the episode here.

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. Or better yet, come find me at TM Forum’s DTW-Ignite in Copenhagen on June 18 - 20. Send me a DM on Linkedin or X @TelcoDR and we can set up a time to meet. Team Totogi will be in the AWS stand as a Featured Partner, so stop by to catch a demo of Totogi’s BSS Magic. 

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The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, 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 you 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

Juha Korhonen is a telecom industry veteran. In his 25+ years of industry experience, Juha has held C-level roles, including group director of digital and innovation with Zain Group as well as chief commercial officer for Zain Saudi Arabia and Wataniya Telecom in Kuwait. Lately, Juha worked as senior director, advisor at Gartner. Juha started his career in Europe with Telecom Finland and moved to the US to lead its mobile startup Zed. He has led reimagine and reinvention efforts at traditional operators. He built, launched, and operated a fully digital operator B-Brand called Yaqoot in 2020. Juha lives in the state of New Jersey in the USA, and he is married with three children.

Podcast Credits

• Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
• Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
• Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
• Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
• Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
• Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
• Music: Dyami Wilson