For the second day in a row the lads were delighted to welcome a special guest, this time Fran Heeran, head of telecoms at Red Hat. For once they waste little time before moving on to the main topic of Red Hat and getting to the bottom of what it does. Spoiler alert: it’s open-source software for enterprise, which includes telecoms, so they explore topics such as virtualization, containers, and assorted other software arcana. They eventually move on to look ahead at some of the likely innovations and opportunities offered by 6G before concluding by exploring some of the practical telecom applications of AI.

Openreach, PSTN and AI by Telecoms.com

Just Iain and Scott this week as their guest had one of those ubiquitous UK winter bugs. After acknowledging some recent social engagements, they get into the matter of data sovereignty, which has become even more important since supposedly allied countries started threatening each other. The main question concerns how viable it is for Europe to be less reliant on world superpowers. That naturally leads to more general geopolitical chat before they conclude by discussing the business and societal implications of jobs being automated away by AI.

The lads were delighted to welcome special guest Ibrahim Eldeftar, who heads up Cognitive Software and Services at Ericsson. What does that mean, we hear you ask. Well listen in and all will be revealed. They start by explaining what rApps are and why we should care about them. The broader context for them is network automation, something that is being accelerated by recent developments in AI, so they explore that too, as well as Ericsson’s programmable networks strategy. They eventually move on to talk about AI in a broader context before concluding with a look at Nokia’s latest quarterly numbers.

The lads celebrate a premature end to dry January with a nip of Irish Whisky, courtesy of special guest Luke Kehoe of Ookla. Luke has been into all things telecoms since childhood, which leads to a broad and organic chat, encompassing smartphones, components, AI, and wearable technology. They eventually move on to discussing some of the big news from last week, concerning new EU legislation that affects telecoms and the drama involving US President Trump, before concluding with a look at Ericsson’s latest quarterly results.

The guys were delighted to welcome special guest, fellow hack Kieran Smith of the Financial Times, to another sober episode of the pod. Among Kieran’s areas of focus at the FT is the UK altnet sector, so, after reflecting on Iain’s underground field trip, they start with a deep dive into a market that looks set for significant consolidation and disruption this year. They eventually move on to reflect on the latest round of redundancies and what that says about the state of the industry, before concluding with a look at the recent spat between the UK and AI platform Grok.

The lads are back in the studio after an extended Christmas break and are managing to stay off the beers for a bit. After reflecting on the festive period and subsequent sobriety they start by reflecting on the CES tech trade show, which was dominated by talk of AI-powered robots. This prompts the inevitable agonising over the infusion of AI into everything and what that means for increasingly obsolete humans. They eventually move on to discuss one of Iain’s stories, which questions the real world utility of 5G standalone, before concluding by reflecting on the broader implications of recent US aggression towards Venezuela.

The final pod of the year features traditional guest host Elena Davidson of Liberty Communications. Elena is kind enough to not only compile a quiz of the year’s telecoms.com news but bring along festive props designed to strip the lads of what little dignity they have. Consequently there’s no underlying theme to this most rambling of pods, but they do manage to get into a wide variety of tangents, some of which are even relevant to the telecoms industry. That’s all you get from us for a month, so thanks a lot for listening, have a great Christmas, and we look forward to returning in the new year.

The guys are delighted to welcome special guest Sam Tabbara, CEO of Paradise Mobile, this week. Paradise is a mobile network operator from Bermuda and Sam was over here in part to attend the Glotel Awards ceremony, so they start by reflecting on that event, before moving on to learn about Paradise. That leads to many fruitful tangents about the state of innovation in the telecoms industry, mobile technology and Bermuda itself. They eventually move on to discuss Intel’s decision not to flog its network and edge group, before concluding with a look at some recent telecoms-related drama in India.

6GHz spectrum, AI-RAN and USA by Telecoms.com