By The Five Nine
Join host Diana Goovaerts and other Fierce Network editors as they explore the stories behind some of the hottest topics in tech and telecom. Want the inside scoop on broadband, wireless, artificia
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The podcast currently has 59 episodes available.
This week, we’re taking a look at what the recent U.S. election means for telecom and tech policy in the years ahead.
Donald Trump just won a second term in the White House, but this go around could be very different from the first thanks in part to the entrance of new key characters - like Elon Musk and Robert Kennedy – into the equation.
To sift through the implications of another Trump term on telecom and tech policy at the FCC, FTC and beyond, we spoke with Blair Levin, who is a non-resident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and an analyst with New Street Research. We also spoke with veteran tech and telecom analyst Jack Gold.
They told Fierce that another Trump term could mean big changes for BEAD, AI and even cloud computing costs.
Here’s what they had to say about the issues they’re watching.
To learn more about the topics in this episode:
What the Trump win means for the FCC and telecom policy
https://www.fierce-network.com/broadband/what-trump-win-means-fcc-and-telecom-policy
What the Trump win could mean for the BEAD program
https://www.fierce-network.com/broadband/what-trump-win-could-mean-bead-program
What the Trump win could mean for wireless and spectrum
https://www.fierce-network.com/wireless/trump-and-wireless-first-glance
What the Trump win means for cloud policy
https://www.fierce-network.com/cloud/what-trump-win-means-cloud-policy
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This week, we’re venturing into the thorny territory that is cloud security.
In a newly issued security report, Google Cloud noted that new tools are lowering barriers to entry for malicious actors, and will make it easier for them to launch attacks in the year ahead. The report also noted that something as seemingly small as a compromised identity can have an outsized impact on an enterprise given the widespread use of integrated hybrid on-prem and cloud environments.
But what are enterprises even responsible for when it comes to cloud security? In the multi-cloud universe, is achieving zero trust access even possible? And is AI about to upend everything entirely?
We went in search of answers to these questions and ended up on the horn with Andrew Gault, CEO of virtual networking company ZeroTier. We talked through what’s most important when it comes to enterprise cloud security, the ways in which the security landscape is changing and how AI could change the game entirely.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week, we’re returning to the intersection of AI and network transport.
We recently spoke with Lumen Technologies CEO Kate Johnson about how AI is impacting the network, demanding ever-larger pipes for data transport and training. That’s, of course, a boon for a company like Lumen, which has now signed partnership deals with cloud companies and AI pioneers Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Google.
And yet, AI itself is rapidly evolving. Within the next few years, analysts have predicted AI will shift from being mostly training workloads to being mostly inferencing use cases
So, we posed a new version of the question to Zayo chief product officer Bill Long: what happens when AI moves to the edge?
We spoke with Long about what demand looks like now from various players in the market, how the landscape might shift with the rise of inference, and his prediction that a fresh wave of bandwidth demand could catch the industry off guard.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week, we're getting a behind the scenes look at the private networks that power our ports and industrial campuses and keep us connected both underground, in the subway, and inside stadiums. As consumers, we're used to being connected to sprawling cellular networks from the likes of AT& T and Verizon in the U. S., BT, and Deutsche Telekom in Europe. SK Telecom, Telstra, Vodafone, you know, all those big operators.
But private networks are a bit different. How? Well, though they use the same cellular equipment, they're generally smaller than commercial cellular networks. They also provide dedicated bandwidth and can be deployed by companies and venues to ensure that the data that flows over them is more secure than it might be on public networks.
Many companies are now moving away from traditional distributed antenna systems and towards private networks, whether those be 4G or 5G. To make sense of it all and explain why the rising tide of private network deployments matters, we linked up with Boldyn Networks.
Here's what Justin Berger, Group Chief Strategy Officer, told us.
To learn more about the topics in this episode:
https://www.fierce-network.com/keyword/private-wireless-networks
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week, we’re turning our attention to automation, and, more specifically, why exactly it hasn’t taken over yet.
Fully autonomous networks are something of a holy grail for telcos and data center operators alike. And yet, progress has been slow at best. As AT&T CTO Jeremy Legg said in June of this year, “We’re a ways away from autonomous networks. But there are points within networks that are being made autonomous.”
But why this piecemeal approach?
Well, it has a little to do with the way networks are architected. But the biggest problem – at least according to Nokia exec Mike Bushong – is that vendors are trying to solve for the wrong problem.
We sat down with Bushong to get the scoop on where automation efforts went wrong, where things stand today, and what can be done to get the industry on the right track.
To learn more about the topics in this episode:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week we’re going back down the AI rabbit hole, but we’re venturing down a new tunnel to talk about something called data curation.
Though AI is still a developing technology, it’s well enough known at this point that models are only as good as the data they’re trained on. But for enterprises looking to fine tune publicly available models, it can be a challenge to make sure they’re making the right data available. Why? Well, the vast majority of enterprise data is what is known as unstructured data. That includes any data that’s not numeric – photos, videos, emails, PDFs, you name it.
Enter data curation – which is basically just the process of sorting through all this data to decide what is relevant to train the model and what’s not. Today this is mostly a tedious, manual process. But is it even worth the hassle?
We spoke to Vincent Chen, Director of Product and Founding Engineer at Snorkel AI to get the lowdown on how data curation works, why it matters and whether it’s worth the hassle.
To learn more about the topics in this episode:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week, we’re diving into the wonderful world of artificial intelligence, taking an in-depth look at how to balance risks inherent in the technology with the high expectations generated by a now years-long hype cycle. And we couldn’t have a better guest to explore the topic with.
Christopher Savoie is the co-inventor of something called the adaptive agent oriented software architecture. And what the heck is that? Well, it’s the AI-based natural language interface technology used to develop Apple’s Siri.
Long story short, Savoie has been working in this space since the late ‘90s. He is now founder and CEO of Boston-based Zapata Computing, a quantum-AI software company, which was spun out of Harvard in 2017 to tackle generative AI for industrial applications.
So, what’s his take on what’s hype and what could someday be realty?
Let’s find out.
To learn more about the topics in this episode:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Description: This week, we’re putting data centers under the microscope – but not from the perspective you might think. As a B2B news outlet, we normally cover data centers from an insider viewpoint. But with AI helping drive a massive data center expansion effort, we wondered: “how do communities feel about all these big buildings coming to town?”
So, we reached out to two local officials to tell us what they’ve heard from residents as data centers have proliferated in their areas. For this episode we spoke with local officials in two emerging data center hubs: Sloan Spalding, mayor of New Albany, Ohio, and Victor Angry, a Supervisor for Prince William County in Virginia.
With their help, we looked into the pros and cons of new data center builds, what kinds of community concerns tend to arise, and tips on how officials other municipalities can think about these businesses coming to town.
To learn more about the topics in this episode:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week, we sat down with Lumen Technologies CEO Kate Johnson to delve into how AI is changing not just the network, but the culture inside telecom companies.
Just a few years ago, you’d have been forgiven for viewing Lumen as something of a company on the outs. Though company executives talked for years about transforming from a traditional telecom to a technology company, Lumen’s strategy was – to put it kindly – an enigma to analysts and investors alike. And the promised turnaround failed to materialize as the company battled declines in its legacy business segments.
When Johnson, a former Microsoft executive, took the helm in late 2022, things quickly felt different. Not only did she lean into hard changes – like cutting the dividend and reallocating capital from less successful initiatives to strengthen its core fiber backbone – but Johnson also articulated a new vision for the company – not just to investors but also employees. Soon after, the AI wave broke, setting the stage for Lumen to conveniently pitch itself as THE network needed to support the tech. A big Microsoft partnership and $5 billion worth of AI networking contracts later and voila. The tide has turned.
As telcos the world over grapple with AI, we set out to learn more about what went into developing Johnson’s strategy for the company, how AI is shaping its plans, and how Lumen is hoping to defend its position against fast followers to its playbook.
To learn more about the topics in this episode:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
While Wi-Fi has become a common expectation of any modern building, it is interesting to see that individuals and businesses alike are increasingly relying on mobile data indoors, where an estimated 70-80% of mobile traffic originates.
This is the topic of discussion in this latest episode of The Five Nine Podcast as we’re joined by CommScope experts Upendra Pingle, Senior VP of Intelligent Cellular Networks, and Kevin Swank, Product Marketing Strategist of Intelligent Cellular Networks.
Sitting down to discuss the trends, challenges, and opportunities of in-building wireless, Pingle kicks things off by emphasizing that connectivity is becoming the "fourth utility," essential for supporting applications like voice, video, and emerging tech.
Building on this, Swank highlights some of the key use cases of in-building wireless today, such as cellular bandwidth in stadiums and supporting robotic manufacturing processes. Further, the duo also dive into the challenges of indoor signal penetration at higher frequencies.
Listen to the full episode to explore how in-building cellular tech is shaping industries like entertainment, healthcare, and education.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The podcast currently has 59 episodes available.