The pod has a special guest this week in the form of Telecoms Consultant William Webb, who joins Scott along with the no-less special Iain Morris of Light Reading. They start by noting that, even by recent standards, the 5G hype reached hysterical levels in the build up to MWC Americas. They move on to IoT and contemplate whether operators are even capable of moving up the value stack, before concluding with a look at the new iPhone and the significant of Apple supporting e-SIM.

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Jamie and Scott are joined by Ray from Light Reading, who kicks things off by analysing why the big telecoms vendors seem to be stepping up their M&A activity – spoiler alert: it’s all about automation and being cloud-native. Conversation moves seamlessly on to the jigsaw puzzle that is 5G as, more than any previous generation, a lot of pieces have to be in place for it to work properly. After some meandering tangents the guys conclude with a look at the growing hostility by western governments towards Huawei and question how justified it is.

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Scott is back from his challenging summer holiday and just can’t wait to hang out with his podcast chums Jamie and Iain once more. They start by talking about T-Mobile US and its distinctly conservative ‘uncarrier’ event, and ponder what operators can do to make a difference. They eventually move on to discuss the thorny issue of social media censorship and conclude with a growing trend towards protectionism and countries trying to become more self-reliant on telecoms kit.

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With ‘the talent’ all on holiday we’re left with just Jamie and Ray for this week’s instalment. Ray had a chat with a senior Ericsson dude about its cunning investment plans, of which he approves. Meanwhile Jamie offers an update on what Samsung is up to, including a bunch of AI investments, and wonders what the hell the point of Bixby is. Lastly Ray ponders the implications of Cisco losing the head of its service provider business but declines to make himself available for the vacancy.

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Jamie is in charge, about time by Telecoms.com

With Jamie back from his travels, Iain recovered from his pre-season football industry and Wei making his debut appearance on the Telecoms.com, the trio have a look at Nokia’s numbers, the spectrum of convergence success this week and a bit more China chaos.

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Scott is struggling in this episode, having been led astray by Ericsson’s PR team the previous evening, but he holds it together long enough to compare notes with Ray about their chat with Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm. Leaving Ray to his Rubik’s Cube, Jamie decides to join in to tell us all about how Iliad is disrupting the Italian mobile market. Then, inspired by his puzzling success, Ray treats us to a look at blockchain in telecoms to finish things off.

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Iain kicks off this week with tales from Transylvania, which he recently visited to hear about all the cool things Orange Romania is working on with 5G such as fixed wireless access and smart cities. Scott then moves on to chapter 11 of the ZTE saga, in which the fraught Chinese kit vendor seems to have been offered a lifeline of sorts from by the US. The guys then move on to the content side of things and pray AT&T doesn’t ruin HBO, before concluding with a tangential review the World Cup and Wimbledon.

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It’s just Iain and Scott this week, with Jamie Shanghaied in China at their equivalent of MWC. They start by toasting a Light Reading report from the show in which the Huawei CEO had a pop at a US senator, precipitating a social media war. They then nip over to the smartphone world, where Scott has been mucking about with a few of the latest ones to work out which he should buy next. For a night-cap they conclude with a look at TIM/Telecom Italia, where the CEO has been moaning about his own board.

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There’s a cosmopolitan theme to the pod this week with Scott reflecting on his trip to Stockholm to hang out with Ericsson and Jamie looking forward with some trepidation to breakfast in China. We also hear about a recent Connected Britain event from guest podder Shannon, who also fuels a massive tangent about the pros and cons of social media. Iain ruins the jaunty mood by lamenting the continuing attrition of jobs among the world’s operators.

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