The pod was delighted to welcome back GOAT guest Mary Clark this week. Mary is now the President and COO of caller ID startup Numeracle, so they start by hearing all about her new gig. They move on to discuss the latest attempt to catalyse the network API market, featuring Ericsson and a bunch of operators, before concluding with a look at what concessions Vodafone and Three could offer to get their proposed merger approved.

After a five week absence, the pod returns from its second summer break. They were delighted to welcome special guest Mark Giles, Lead Analyst at Ookla. Iain and Scott had just come from an event hosted by BT/EE so they combine the review and analysis of that news with a discussion of what Mark does at Ookla. That left time to reflect on a piece of ‘fan mail’ Iain received and the story that seems likely to have provoked it.

The pod was delighted to welcome special guest Lee Myall, CEO of UK business comms specialist Neos networks, to this last episode before its main summer break. They start by asking Lee to introduce his company, which leads to a general discussion of the market dynamics it operates within and the UK fibre market in general. This leads naturally discussion of a new group created to lobby for a better deal for UK altnets before they conclude by looking as the tricky spot US chip giant Intel finds itself in.

The pod is delighted to welcome back one of its most returning guests – telecoms consultant William Webb. William is also a prolific author and they start by discussing his latest book, The End of Telecoms History, which asserts that the industry has reached an inflection point and needs to pivot to new business models. A key to that assertion is the slowing of mobile data traffic growth and they go on to critique forecasts that claim the contrary, before concluding with a look at Microsoft’s attempts to mitigate its responsibility for the recent global IT outage.

The pod was delighted to welcome back special guest Ed Barton, Director at Caretta Research. Ed’s field of expertise is in the digital media and entertainment markets, so they start by exploring some of the stuff that has caught his attention recently. They eventually move on to reflect on recent quarterly earnings announcement s from Ericsson and Nokia, before concluding with a critique of America’s belligerent trade policy towards China.

The pod returns after for Scott to go galivanting around France. They start by recapping that trip, along with some of the political developments that took place since the last pod, before discussing the nature and implications of Germany’s apparent ban on Huawei kit. Since he has been doing most of the work, they move on to explore a couple of stories Iain wrote around Open RAN, before concluding with a look at how little you have to pay for a new phone these days.

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.