Telecoms.com Podcast

After a month off for the winter break the pod is finally back and incongruously sober. Just as unusual was the presence of major news so early in the year so the lads start by analysing HPE’s mega acquisition of Juniper Networks, and what it means for the telecoms sector. They move on to speculate about the unintended consequences of America’s attempts to suppress Chinese AI development before concluding with a look at the UK Post Office IT scandal.

As has become tradition, the final pod of the year is a Christmas quiz in which special guest Elena Davidson from PR agency Liberty asks Iain and Scott questions based on Telecoms.com stories published over the course of the year. The lads were already three pints in before recording so expect heightened levels of silliness and even wilder tangents than usual. Have a great Christmas and we’ll see you in January.

Iain and Scott have to go remote this week because the trains keep going on strike. They spend most of this shorter pod picking apart the big deal RAN deal announced between Ericsson and AT&T, to see if it’s all it’s cracked up to be. To conclude, they just have time to give similar treatment to BT’s MAUD launch.

Iain and Scott recap the Glotel Awards, explore some of the topics covered in the Future Vision Executive Summit such as the ongoing fair share debate and the state of Open RAN, as well as reflect on the previous pod featuring Denis O’Brien getting written up in the Irish Independent.

This week’s pod guest is so special he even gets his name in the headline. Denis O’Brien is the founder and Chairman if Digicel group as well as being involved in a range of entrepreneurial and philanthropic ventures. They start by getting straight into Denis’s eclectic professional life, which involves a lengthy tangent into the ‘fair contribution’ debate. They then reflect on the corporate soap opera at OpenAI before concluding by reviewing more drama down under.

After a brief hiatus the pod is back and delighted to welcome special guest Claus Hetting, founder of Wi-Fi NOW. Pausing only to raise a glass to Hugh Bicheno, they get straight into exploring the often-overlooked wifi sector, including some important decisions to be made soon about spectrum allocation. They then move on to hear about a recent trip Iain made to Lapland with Nokia before concluding with a review of some contentious developments in US telecoms.

The pod is delighted to welcome special guest Nick Johnson, Head of UKTIN, this week. They start by exploring what UKTIN is all about and what role the state should play in assisting domestic industry. The UK recently hosted a big get-together to discuss the pros and cons of artificial intelligence, so they move on to discuss that, before concluding with a round up of some recent operator news.

This short and sweet episode of the pod was recorded from the show floor of the Network X telecoms trade show. They were delighted to welcome our good friends from CC Group PR, Anais and Chloe, who had a couple of bits of news of their own to share. They start by reviewing some of the highlights of the show, at which the fibre industry had a major presence, before moving on to discuss a new CC Group telecoms industry study, which includes a look at cloud strategies.

An increasingly rare pod with just the two of Iain and Scott this week. They start by reflecting on a big night out with EE, which leads naturally to a discussion of the operator’s bright idea to significantly expand its consumer offering. The other big news of the week was a pair of gloomy updates from Ericsson and Nokia, so they move on to analyse those, before concluding with a look at the latest from the US crusade against the Chinese tech sector.

We are delighted to welcome podcaster, author and former Chief Economist at Spotify Will Page as our special guest this week. We start by looking at how the music streaming app went global with the help of a partnership with a telco. Moving on to Will’s book leads to a broader discussion about economic disruption and the digital economy before assessing the regulatory environment as it affects the technology industries.