TeleGeography Explains the Internet

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.

If you want to review the state of the corporate WAN—in light of digital transformation, the cloud, SD-WAN adoption, and MPLS utilization—there's no one better to talk to than Phil Gervasi, Director of Technical Evangelism at Kentik.

Lucky for us, he was this week's guest on TeleGeography Explains the Internet.

We covered the state of lift-and-shift into the cloud, the perseverance of MPLS, real use cases of SD-WAN, and, of course, lots on how network changes have impacted the visualization of network performance and security. (And how that needs to evolve.)

Let's talk satellites! We have the perfect person to help us out. We're thrilled to welcome Dr. Peter Wood, TeleGeography analyst and resident satellite guy, to the pod.

We discuss how, while wires still reign supreme, satellite is having a resurgence. And maybe the potential to disrupt the wireline market? Listen to our conversation to find out. It was also an excellent opportunity to get Alan Mauldin on the line to discuss his latest blog post, which is all too relevant to our satellite chat.

Our guest today is Waheed Adam, Global Board Director of the Mobile Ecosystem Forum and Executive Chairperson at iTouch Messaging Service.

He was a fantastic guest who brought a wealth of knowledge—and some really excellent stories—about mobile adoption as infrastructure in Africa. Senior Research Manager Patrick Christian joined in to discuss mobile-first economies, the role of hyperscalers/data centers in Africa, and the future of African telecom.

When we reached out to today's podcast guest—Jim Poole, Vice President of Business Development at Equinix—about being on the show, we asked if he'd be willing to dig into NaaS or edge data centers.

But as we got to talking before our interview, we realized that these two topics are deeply interrelated. And Jim has lots of insight to share about where the market is headed.

We waded through how Equinix is approaching NaaS from a solutions standpoint and what it means to truly be an edge data center.

Join us for a conversation about NaaS, Equinix’s role in that market as a data center provider, how traditional telcos are positioned to provide NaaS, how Equinix is developing edge services in conjunction with emerging networking solutions, and much more.

To kick off Season 4, we're going deep into the supply chain as Greg welcomes Dr. Michael Lebby, CEO of Lightwave Logic. The pair gets into making a better mousetrap for the light-switching world. Listen up if you're into the technology that makes optical transport possible, and specifically, how this technology fits into the telecom transport ecosystem. 

Get ready. There's a new season of the WAN Manager Podcast coming to your feeds next week. 

This season will be our biggest yet. It’s so big, we couldn’t contain our conversations to just the WAN. That’s why the WAN Manager Podcast is now: TeleGeography Explains the Internet.

New name. More content. Same great show. See you next week.

Anyone in the WAN business—from the carrier or end-user side—knows that local access can present some of the biggest challenges in corporate networks.

There's a physical geography problem that's not easy to overcome. We're talking about pulling and maintaining wires to all corporate sites, which is especially challenging when customers need physical diversity and protection.

Wireless has long been a backup of last resort for many users, but 5G has presented the promise of relieving this pain point. Let's talk about it. Greg welcomes Inseego Senior VP and GM of Enterprise, Ritesh Mukherjee, to the podcast. The pair chatted about 5G as a local access game-changer, got into some use cases, and looked to the future of wireless in the WAN. 

The WAN Manager Podcast is now TeleGeography Explains the Internet. Hosted by Greg Bryan.