Telecoms.com Podcast

The pod is delighted to welcome back special guest Jennifer Kyriakakis of MATRIXX, who was in town after the Digital Transformation World event. Pausing only to address some robust feedback from someone affiliated to it, they start by reflecting on the show and where it fits into the telecoms mix. The dominant theme this year was AI, so they move on to discuss its implications for the industry, before concluding with a look at Germany’s hardening stance towards Chinese kit vendors.

Despite an early start Scott still managed a cheeky PR lunch before this pod. No guest this week and the lads start by reflecting on the latest Apple launches, including the now customary four iPhones. Spoiler alert: nobody was impressed. That topic naturally leads on to the matter of China, which is rumoured to be placing restrictions on iPhone use, and which apparently continues to find ways around the US tech embargos. They conclude with a look at the latest effort by the UK state to restore some momentum to Open RAN.

The lads have finally stopped mucking about in other countries so the pod returns after its summer break. And who better to welcome them back than the pod’s most frequent guest – telecoms and tech exec Mary Clark? Pausing only to sample some weapon’s grade pale ale Mary brought over from the States, they start by examining the significance of Huawei’s latest smartphone launches. They then move on to ponder the fortunes of the Open RAN market before concluding with a quick analysis of potential leadership changes at the European Commission.

The lads manage to squeeze in a pod between their various summer holidays, principally to enable Scott to document his tan. They start with a look at the state of Japanese internet and telecoms giant Rakuten, which recently lost one of its most important execs. BT, meanwhile, has wasted little time in appointing a new CEO, so they move on to discuss that, before concluding with a look at America’s increasingly self-harming attempts to stop China developing technology.

In the final pod before a summer holiday break, Iain and Scott reflect on a nice dinner with BT that even Producer Pierre got an invite to. It coincided with the news that CEO Philip Jansen will be moving on so the lads start by reviewing some of the speculation around why that happened and who could replace him. They move on to talk about a recent event hosted by analyst firm Omdia that looked at the pros and cons of AI before squeezing in a quick summary of Europe’s digital ID ambitions.

Fresh from a spot of lunch with Red Hat, the lads start by reflecting on a great day out at Wimbledon with Vodafone and some of chats that were had between games. They move on to discuss a new Twitter-like social media platform launched by Facebook-owner Meta, before concluding with a round up of the latest news concerning Chinese tech giant Huawei.

The lads start by anticipating another day out at the tennis that Producer Pierre, who isn’t going, hopes will fall foul of the British weather. They start with their previous tennis enabler Orange, which is the latest operator to abandon an attempt at diversifying its business. Iain then attempts to summarise the strategic partnership announced between Nokia and Red Hat in language Scott can understand, before the latter finishes with some rants about political intrusion in the tech sector.

Another guest-free episode as the industry eases into the summer holiday season. Most of the source material is supplied by Iain this week and they start by reviewing one of his stories reporting on Deutsche Telekom’s attitude to the EU telling operators not to use Huawei kit. They move on to review Nokia’s big summer product launches before concluding with a look at some of the more immediate challenges posed by the artificial intelligence boom.

No guest this week but Scott had to be dragged away from following the first day of the Ashes and the lovely weather to sit in a studio for your loosely telecoms-themed entertainment. The big news of the week was the official announcement of the proposed merger between Vodafone and Three in the UK, so they start with that. They move on to discuss the EU’s increasingly strong position on ‘high risk’ telecoms vendors before concluding with their reflections on a recent event they attended that focused on private networks.

We recorded this on a Tuesday because a little bird told us Charles Miller – CEO of satellite-direct-to-phone company Lynk – was in town and up for some podcast action. Pausing only to reflect on an old-school long lunch with Hyperoptic, we get into the physics, logistics and economics of enabling regular mobile phones to connect directly to satellites. The only other news we had to make time for was the launch of an augmented reality headset by Apple.