Telecoms.com Podcast

Time discipline is restored this week by the presence of another grown-up guest and the absence of beer. We’re delighted to welcome Ronan Kelly, CTO of Adtran, and get straight into his day job that focuses on fixed-line networking kit. This inevitably leads to an exploration of the arcane world of optical technology and concludes with a look at the current state of play of the global fibre market.

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All pretence at time discipline is abandoned this week as the lads break the two-hour mark despite not even having a guest. The main reason for this is the decision to lead with Twitter, which opens up several other cans of worms. They eventually move on to Nokia, which recently announced its latest numbers, and conclude by trying to work out what the point of edge computing is.

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The lads are delighted to welcome special guest Neil McRae to the pod this week, who is no less than the Chief Architect for BT. They start by exploring what such a grown-up job title entails, in the process learning a fair bit about what makes BT tick from a strategic point of view. That naturally leads onto topics like Open RAN and 5G, including concerns about the latter not being all its cracked up to be, before they conclude with a look at difficulties faced by some major streaming services.

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Both Iain and Scott were carrying bugs when this was recorded but it will take more than that to keep them from their podding duties. They start by reflecting on Ericsson’s quarterly earnings announcement, specifically concerning the trouble the company is in regarding its historical activities in Iraq. Rumours of a Vodafone UK acquisition yield a chat about telco M&A before they conclude with the then breaking news of Elon Musk bidding to buy the whole of Twitter.

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Scott manages to limp in for an episode with just Iain and, of course, Pierre this week. They start by devoting a whole segment to 5G New Radio, questioning whether it’s all it’s cracked up to be. They move on to the often overlooked matter of backhaul and what it means for one operator to be dependent on another for that sort of thing, before concluding with a look at plans to develop a metaverse for kids.

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We’re delighted to welcome special guest Maria Lema of Weaver Labs this week. Maria’s company develops software designed to decentralize the whole process of accessing network services, using some of the principles and technologies associated with the evolution of Web3, which prompts lots of conversational tangents. They eventually get around to a couple of items from the week’s news, specifically the affect of the use of sanctions on globalization and Huawei’s recent annual report.

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Iain was knackered after a half marathon when we recorded this pod as was Pierre’s audio mixer, which gave up an hour or so into the recording. Nonetheless the lads manage to open with another look at the Russia/Ukraine conflict as it affects the telecoms business, before moving on to discuss the latest update from T-Mobile US. The final segment would have been called Nothing, appropriately, but you’ll never know what we said.

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The lads are full of the joys of spring, despite everything, this week. They start by reflecting on a Vodafone event they both attended, at which network slicing was a major theme, and question what the point of it is. Iain takes the lead for the middle segment, having written a couple of pieces about Japanese trailblazer Rakuten, before they conclude with the inevitable Scott bugbear, this time the UK online safety bill.

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We’re back in the studio and reunited with Iain this week. Seeing as they weren’t able to pod together at the show, the lads start with a recap of Mobile World Congress. They move on to talk about the awkward situation Ericsson has found itself in over its historical activities in Iraq before concluding with a look at the implications for the telecoms industry in the Ukraine conflict.

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This special episode of the pod was recorded on the Orange stand at Mobile World Congress 2022 so, technically, it’s not ‘live’ but you know what we mean. Scott decides to tag-team three guests and starts by chatting to Phillipe Lucas of Orange to get his impressions of this first full version of the show for three years. That line of conversation is carried over to friend of the Pod Mary Clark and then Telecoms.com Deputy Editor Andrew Wooden, with Iain Morris of Light Reading apparently having better things to do than turn up.

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