Our guest today is Dario Betti, CEO of the Mobile Ecosystem Forum. 

It's always nice to have industry association folks on the show. I've found they can pull back from the perspective of a single vendor or operator to paint a broader picture of the challenges facing different corners of the telecom industry. This is exactly what Dario does in this interview on all things mobile. 

Dario first explains what the MEF does (and does not do) for its members. But, perhaps more importantly, he provides a great overview of the key issues at play in the global mobile market.

And what might those issues be?

We talk about fraud—always needing to stay one step ahead of the bad guys—and what's happening with roaming as carriers turn off 2 and 3G networks. We get into security for mobile networks, meeting ever-increasing mobile bandwidth demand, and 5 and even 6G mobile service. 

Today’s episode of TeleGeography Explains the Internet is about artificial intelligence. And for that we welcome Kannan Kothandaraman, Co-Founder and CEO at Selector AI.

With a plethora of cheeky, AI-generated content out there already, we don't have to tell you that AI has been in the news a lot lately. And I know "AI" is a capacious term; this week's conversation focuses on how AI/ML will actually impact telecom networks.

In fact, we've talked a lot on TeleGeography Explains the Internet about the meaningful changes that have come to corporate networks over the past several years—although it's often in the context of impacting the underlay selection, cloud utilization, security, and other factors.

Our interview with Kannan is all about how AIOPs (don't worry, we'll define this in the show) are an important tool for meeting the many challenges that come with a reimagined WAN.

Aryaka’s Chief Product Officer Renuka Nadkarni visits the podcast. We discuss how Aryaka approaches the WAN across different services like network, WAN optimization, SD-WAN, and security. We also chat about the state of the modern WAN, the forces that have changed it, and how those changes impact how one should think about security.

With an extensive background in security, Renuka has a clear and interesting take on what a secure WAN looks like. 

Wanna look at some cool voice data? The recent expansion of the i3forum's Insights tool has quite a bit of that. I've been itching to talk about it on the podcast. So today we're chatting with the i3forum, a nonprofit industry body focused on "accelerating transformation across the carrier ecosystem."

In other words, this consortium of carriers routinely collaborates on solving some of the biggest challenges facing their industry. They also have an innovative way of sharing data among participants, which benefits all involved.

To get into carrier collaboration, I'm joined by Philippe Millet, Founder and Chairman of the i3forum, as well as Michael Lawrence, Director of Business Intelligence, Operations and Transformation at Tata Communications. Philippe walks us through why he founded the forum and how it operates. And how exactly do members develop, curate, and share recommendations with one another? 

This is the perfect segue to chat with Michael, an active member of the i3forum. He offers an inside perspective on the Insights tool and the benefits of connecting with other carriers. 

Meet Aaron Chan, Founder and Managing Partner at Recurve Capital. As an investor in the “technology media and telecom” space—or “TMT” as they say in finance circles—Aaron has something of an outside perspective.

In this episode, we discuss how investors view the telecom industry and how Aaron classifies publicly traded telecom companies.

You'll hear Aaron's view of the long-term profitability of network operators and what he looks for in making investment decisions in the telecom space. We also talked about the future of the industry, what might lead to competitive advantage for some companies, and how long that might last.

Disclaimer: This podcast expresses the views of its participants only as of the date indicated, which are subject to change without update and may not represent the views of Recurve Capital LLC [(“Recurve”)]. Recurve makes no representation that any past securities performance discussed should be an indication of future results.

There's a good chance that you first heard about TeleGeography through one of our maps.

Our own Research Analyst Lane Burdette was introduced to TeleGeography when she came across our Submarine Cable Map a few years ago. Now part of the team that creates this map, Lane is understandably stoked about this week's 2023 Submarine Cable Map launch.

It seems like the perfect time to welcome Lane—along with our incredibly talented Designer and Cartographer Larry Lairson—to TeleGeography Explains the Internet.

In this episode, we first talk to Lane about what data goes into our submarine cable maps, how we collect that information, what's new in this year's edition, and more.

Then we pass the mic to Larry to discuss his design process. How does he translate the data into beautiful visuals? How geographically accurate is the info on our maps? How are the design themes chosen for printed maps?

Hit the play button below to step into the world of TeleGeography map making.

Rohan Singh knew his future was in networking and communication when he saw his first network diagram at around 12 years old. That's probably why he feels like he's been involved in networking for most of his life.

Now Vice President of Client Services at Marlabs, Rohan joined us at TeleGeography Explains the Internet to talk about all that goes into the modern digital transformation.

While we had a lot to say about WAN optimization and partner ecosystems, it was getting into the future of networking that makes this episode special.

Rohan shared his insight on what the market needs in its future infrastructure professionals, from training considerations to getting young developers and computer science students interested in networking. 

Come for the data center migration talk, stay for the thoughtful musings on the future of the industry. 

We brought Senior Research Manager Paul Brodsky on to discuss our most recent voice report, but we couldn’t help getting into much more. We talk about the history of telecom, and how voice and internet networks compare, and how that is impacting voice traffic and revenue. 

The conversation also covers the cash cow that voice once was and what's happening now. Voice enthusiasts will appreciate that we get into the history of OTT and VoIP technologies and how they've disrupted the market. And we couldn't leave out mobile, especially as Paul came to TeleGeography from a mobile provider.

It's one thing to make predictions, but it's another to assess how those predictions turned out.

One month into 2023, Mattias Fridström, Chief Evangelist at Arelion, very kindly agreed to scrutinize his 2022 forecast with us. As you'll hear, Mattias has been at Arelion (formerly Telia) for a long time. From his perspective within a tier 1 provider, he has an outstanding view of the industry. He uses that vantage point to write a forward-looking article every year, reviewing trends he expects to see in the days ahead.

We were thrilled that Mattias visited us to review predictions from days past. We start with the top three global carrier trends. Listen in for a closer examination of network security, utilization of the public internet, and disaggregated networks. 

We also consider issues that arose in 2022—both anticipated and unanticipated—like skills gaps, cost increases/shortages like “chipmaggedon," and global issues outside the telecom industry. 

This week we welcome Jeremiah Ginn, Software Defined Cybersecurity Evangelist at AT&T and author of Diving into SASE.

In this episode, you'll learn how to define SASE based on your audience and identify the key elements that belong in the SASE framework. We then dig into the fast-paced update cycle for security software. Why is it necessary for the modern network? And what are the implications for upskilling and managed security services?

Next, Jeremiah and Greg focus on zero trust and why enterprises need this security posture to be a part of any SASE framework. And we can’t talk about SASE without hitting on SD-WAN and the role of access in the SASE acronym.