Telecoms.com Podcast

The lads made the annual pilgrimage to Copenhagen for the DTW event and thought it appropriate to record a pod with their Danish mate – analyst John Strand. Pausing only to review the beers John kindly brought along, they start by reviewing the event and specifically the opening keynotes. They move on to discuss industry initiatives in general before concluding with a chat about Strand Consult’s recent report analysing the effect of recent European elections on the telecoms industry.

The guys were delighted to welcome special guest Sylwia Kechiche of Opensignal this week. They started with an overview of what Opensignal does, which led to plenty of telecoms tangents, especially concerning mobile user experience. Iain has written a fair bit about the telco cloud recently, so they eventually move on to that topic, before concluding with a look at Apple’s recent AI announcement.

Everyone is back in the studio this week as the lads once more put a dent in their Beavertown bounty. They start by reviewing a couple of news items concerning artificial intelligence, which leads to the inevitable dystopian hand-wringing as well as a questioning of all the hype. They biggest beneficiary of AI so far has been chip company Nvidia, so they move on to discuss that company, before concluding by asking whether there’s any need for more 5G spectrum.

A bit of a hybrid effort this week as the lads record over Zoom, but still come into the studio anyway. They start by discussing a piece Iain wrote, highlighting the increasing vulnerability faced by the world as everything moves into the public cloud. This leads to more Iain stuff, this time covering Open RAN for a change, before Scott finally gets a look-in to go over stories of his covering the UK shared rural network and possible 5G vendor swap in Portugal.

This week’s pod was recorded remotely because Scott was larging it in the Canary Islands. After reflecting on Scott’s weekend on the lash, they start by reviewing data showing the telecoms recession is set to get worse before it gets better. They move on to assess China’s ability to manufacture cutting-edge chips before concluding by discussing a popular story of Iain’s regarding German policy towards Huawei.

The guys were delighted to welcome special guest Darren Pearce, CEO of telco circular economy specialist TXO. Accordingly they started by exploring the various opportunities for used kit and generally getting schooled on the nuances of that industry. They then move on to Scott’s coverage of the London Mayor gaslighting his public, before concluding by discussing Iain’s story about Telefónica Germany moving to a cloud core.

It was ‘just the two of us’ after a guest had to bail at the last minute. The lads both covered reports that the US is revoking many licenses granted to its companies to do business with Huawei, so the main segment focuses on that and the broader US/China tech cold war. Iain was getting Open RAN withdrawal so they then decided to give him a fix, before concluding with a look at a hilarious misstep taken by Apple with its new advert.

The lads were delighted to welcome long-time industry friend Howard Jones of Vorboss onto this week’s pod. That familiarity resulted in an exceptionally long period of rambling before they eventually got to the point. They started with an introduction to Howard’s company, which then led to lengthy tangents about the whole UK telecoms sector, and was interspersed with thoughts on the current state of PR.

The pod is delighted to welcome special guest Igor Leprince, CEO of Boldyn Networks, to this week’s episode. After lamenting the Scott’s roaming experience in Venice, they start with an introduction to Boldyn and where it fits into the broader telecoms mix. That leads natural to an exploration of the neutral host market in general before they conclude with an analysis of America’s decision to reintroduce net neutrality rules.

The pod is delighted to welcome back special guest Neil McRae, Chief Network Strategist at Juniper Networks. The main theme of the chat was derived from recent quarterly earnings announcements by Ericsson and Nokia, which were very similar as they’re both suffering through what could be described as a telecoms recession. There also were plenty of networking tangents, including some DIY stories from Neil.