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.

This week's guest on TeleGeography Explains the Internet has a deep history in networking.

Khalid Raza was involved in some of the earliest large-scale MPLS deployments. Then, after seeing the limitations of MPLS, he co-founded Viptela–diving head-first into the SD-WAN revolution.

Khalid is now the Founder and CEO of Graphiant, a Silicon Valley-based startup. In this interview, he describes how enterprise networks have changed and why we need an approach beyond MPLS and SD-WAN.

We also discuss the origin of Graphiant, its approach to solving modern network problems, and how it differentiates itself from other NaaS and WAN services in the current market.

Of course, you can’t talk about networking without talking about security, so that comes up as well. We also look at how Khalid sees enterprise networks developing in the years to come.

From This Episode:

Host and Senior Manager of Enterprise Research Greg Bryan broke out the data for this bonus New Year's episode. Fans of our annual WAN Manager Survey will enjoy seeing our 2022 results. We've also got intel on NaaS, SASE, MPLS, and all the other acronyms that mattered to the WAN world in 2022. 

We're looking forward to exploring the global business of connectivity with you in the year ahead. Cheers to that.

We're looking back at all things telecom in 2022. And we're doing it the best way we know how: rounding up our analysts and inviting them to discuss significant findings in their research areas.

Part two takes us on a journey through the last 12 months of submarine cable news, SD-WAN, security, and major world events that intersected with telecom infrastructure. We were thrilled to have TeleGeography's Alan Mauldin, Brianna Boudreau, and Tim Stronge join us.

Not only did they bring data on the year that was, but they brought a wealth of insight on what we might expect to see across the industry in 2023.

Greg Bryan kicks off the first of a two-part telecom year in review, welcoming experts Patrick Christian, Rob Schult, and Jon Hjembo to highlight the major trends they saw in their principal research areas.

Part one takes us through the year in wholesale internet, cloud services, transport pricing, data centers, and more. We talk inflation, we talk energy, we talk geography. And we're only just getting started.

James “Jim” Capuano has over 30 years of experience in the telecommunications industry and is the CEO of Horizon, a more than 125-year-old service provider.

We recently asked Jim to share some of his knowledge on the pod. In this episode, we view middle-mile problems and solutions from a provider perspective and discuss how the middle mile is developing in the current WAN environment.

Then we turn our focus to the digital divide. Why do we need to bridge it—and how?

MEF CTO Pascal Menezes is back on the pod to discuss what MEF has been up to.

Our first topic: Lifecycle Service Orchestration. What is it, how has it progressed, and what does it do for the carrier community? We also get into enterprise automation, operational APIs, new SASE and ZT standards, and more.

This week, with the help of Jeremy Villalobos, COO of Orchest (formerly known as GoldConnect) we tackle automation from a carrier perspective.

What is it? How is it being used in telecom? And why is it crucial that carriers move toward automation?

Of course, we had to tie in the impact on the enterprise WAN, as well as the future of automation—including practical uses for blockchain telecom.

This week, we're talking about NaaS. We've covered NaaS in various contexts on this show, but this episode focuses on fabric providers and where they're headed.

For that, we're so glad to have on our outspoken and knowledgeable friend Michael Wynston, Director of Network Security Architecture & Automation at Fiserv. Michael has now been on TeleGeography's podcast not once, not twice, but three times—and it's safe to say that he really knows his stuff.

What are fabric providers doing, and how do they fit into the context of the traditional WAN? Alongside your typical MPLS-Internet hybrid network? As a replacement for some of that WAN? Listen to our conversation to find out.