We have a very interesting guest on the Podcast this week.  Deryck Fay has written a fascinating book about the history of Telecoms in Ireland called “Connecting a Nation” and it’s a very surprising history.  Its starts in the 1850s, yes, when the first sub-sea cables were being laid and Ireland was the natural hub for the first Transatlantic cables.  Later its proximity to Nova Scotia made it the natural hub for the first Marconi radio services.

We then talk about the state of Telecoms during the rise of the new, and in fairness not well off, Irish state.

Finally, we get on to the last decades when there was huge investment in Telecoms and there was the tremendous growth of Mobile and the Internet and Ireland became a leader in many ways.

Deryck is a great raconteur and he tells the story with clarity and insight that I found fascinating.

I couldn’t quite find the music that Deryck wanted but you’ll see I got a close second with a famous clip of Albert Reynolds talking about a plane hijacking.  The other voice briefly in the background is the late great Charlie Bird, journalist.

Enjoy

We were delighted to talk to Luke Kehoe, Telecoms Analyst and World Traveler.  Luke has moved to Beijing to study, and he gives us his impression of the city, the food, and the consumer digital ecosystem. 

• Luke updates us on a range of important Telecoms Industry topics. He comments on the state of the Global RAN market, contrasting growth across the various regions.

There are also some very interesting and surprising new market entrants with strong brand recognition coming from different business sectors. 

It was great to get Luke’s insightful comments delivered in a very clear manner.  Finally, as always, we play out on Luke’s choice of a classic and inspirational song.  Enjoy.

Contacts:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-kehoe/

http://www.lukekehoe.com/

Producer - Pat Flynn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paddyflynn/

We were delighted to talk to Niall Norton, ex-CEO of Openet (an Amdocs company)  about the success that Openet is now.

Niall talks about his early career and how he gained experience across a number of industries before deciding to move into the Telecoms Software Infrastructure space.

Over the years Niall and the Openet team built the company into an incredible success and secured some of the largest Mobile Operators in the world as customers.

Niall touches on a number of key points that made the company successful including the quality of engineering, seamless deployment and an excellent product management function.

Niall also talks about his plans for the next step in his career in terms of Mentoring, Advising, Teaching with his Consulting Vehicle, Clever Communications.  He prefers to be ‘deep’ with a small number of people rather than ‘shallow’ with a wide number of people and is looking forward to his new projects.

Finally, as always, we play out on Niall’s choice of a classic and inspirational song.  Enjoy.

Contacts:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/niallnorton/

https://www.openet.com/data/

We were delighted to talk to Neil Wisdom, CEO of Siprotect about Fraud and Hacking in Voice and VOIP.

Neil's company provides a comprehensive suite of solutions to detect and prevent this hacking, using a range of techniques such as their software solution which implements Firewalling, Session Border Controllers and the latest intelligence on what’s actually happening in the wild.  Neil also talks about the impact of DORA and the NIS 2 Directive on Operators and Enterprises in general.

He discusses the Honey Pot information gathering that Siprotect has implemented and how the company can lock down specific User Agents.

Ultimately, Neil believes that human analysis of the data and the risks is still important for an top down view

Finally, as always, we play out on Neil’s choice of a humdinger of a record.  Enjoy.

Contacts:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilwisdom/

https://siprotect.com/

We have a great Podcast with Sheila Kavanagh, who is Chief Network Officer of Vodafone Ireland.

We start by learning about Sheila’s career, she started with Eircell and that was ultimately taken over by the Vodafone Group.  Being a Network Engineer at the time, she was delighted to get the assignment to develop the Roaming Business as this gave her great International Experience and travel opportunities.

Later in her career, Sheila got the opportunity to become Chief Technical Officer for Vodafone Malta, she and her family moved there and she really enjoyed that assignment and learned a lot over four years in a sunnier climate (!).

Moving back to Dublin just before COVID, Sheila took up the Chief Network Officer role and we talk about the issues that face her in this job, such as:

• Building a Sustainable Business – we talk about Reduce, Reuse and Resell, even of the Network Equipment

We talk about how Sheila was successful in her career as a female executive in technology and how she works with her teams today, mainly she ensures that the teams emphasise Customer Focus as their main priority.

Finally, we play out with a banger of tune that we all know well. Thanks for being a great guest Sheila.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheila-kavanagh-0ba6394/

There was very big news in the Messaging Industry last week, after a decade since Apple launched iMessage and Google had standardised on RCS, Apple announced that it plans to support RCS in 2024.  This will mean messaging interoperability between iOS and Android phones.  But what does it mean for the A2P or Rich Messaging Business (RBM)?

We reached out to Bill Dudley of Sinch to get his informed opinion about what it means.  Bill has a very good analysis of what we know, what it means and what it could ultimately mean.

We talked about

• The probably timing of the roll out

We want to thank Bill for coming on as a very informed guest at short notice to give us all a heads up on the enormous implications of this shift in the market.

Bill can be contacted at the following:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamdudley/

https://william-dudley.com/

https://www.sinch.com/

Lyrics for Bull Mountain Ridge

Music and Lyrics © Paul Thorn

Stone Fox Dan was a Romeo man

We have a great guest with Patrick Lopez, Telecoms Analyst, who provides us with insights into how Mobile Operators can fully exploit the opportunities provided by 5G Network-as-a-Service

Patrick has vast amount of experience in Telco and Cloud implementation and he advises on strategy -  his experience includes working as a vendor, an operator and an analyst

Among the topics discussed we cover

• How Slicing, RIC and Network-as-a-Service enables Enterprise Customers to build new Services for their particular requirements

Patrick also talks about his Report “Open RAN, RIC and Apps”, which is available now with a one day workshop, check out his website

As always, we finish on how Patrick enjoys his music and he plays out with a classic song, certainly one of the best in my opinion.

Patrick can be contacted at:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/plopez/

https://www.coreanalysis.ca/

We’re delighted to talk to John Strand of Strand Consult, based in Copenhagen Denmark.  John has extensive experience of providing Consulting services to the Mobile Industry,

John relates the intriguing story of Huawei and TDC in Denmark and how pressure was applied to the Danish Government to lobby TDC to choose Huawei Infrastructure.

To the question “Is Huawei Dangerous?” John has a very simple example of the answer.

We also cover the origins of the Premium SMS industry and we end on John’s view of what the future is for the Mobile Industry.  John’s opinion is that the current business model is not sustainable and it needs to be reinvented.

Finally, we learn how John relaxes and we talk about his favourite music, and, as always, we play out on a song that means a lot to him.

John is a lively and informed guest and we had good fun recording the podcast.  Enjoy!

The Good, Bad and Ugly Telecom Podcast is Sponsored by Nettzer - https://nettzer.com/

Digital ID, Authentication and Onboarding

We have a great guest with Luke Kehoe, Telecoms Analyst, who provides us with an insightful analysis of the Irish Telecoms Market.  The issues faced by the Operators in the Irish Market are common to Operators in all Mature markets which makes the analysis interesting

Among the topics discussed we cover

• The 5G Investment Cycle

As always, we finish on how Luke enjoys his spare time, he has a surprising sport, and he plays out with a classic Indie Rock song.

Thanks for coming on the Pod Luke, Luke can be contacted at:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-kehoe/

http://www.lukekehoe.com/

The Good, Bad and Ugly Telecom Podcast is Sponsored by Nettzer - https://nettzer.com/

Digital ID, Authentication and Onboarding

It was great to catch up with our friend Bill Dudley of Sinch today.  Bill always has great insights into the Messaging and CPaaS Industries.

Bill and his colleagues have developing the 10 Digit Long Code (10DLC) service for Non-Consumer to Consumer messaging in the North American market under the auspices of the CTIA, and he explains this development and the technical and legal issues behind it.

10 DLC has enabled a new and fast-growing market for SMEs and Mom and Pop businesses to easily and cheaply contact their customers while liberating them from expensive Short Codes.

Bill talks through the development of The Campaign Registry (TCR) and the interaction with Brands and Campaigns, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Campaigns now being registered.

As always in our Podcasts, the play-out song is the Guest’s Choice and Bill plays out with an artist I hadn’t previously been aware of, but I found to him to be different and enjoyable.

Enjoy the Podcast.

Bill can be contacted on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamdudley/

Or on his Website:

https://william-dudley.com/

The Good, Bad and Ugly Telecom Podcast is Sponsored by Nettzer - https://nettzer.com/

Digital ID, Authentication and Onboarding