Telco in 20 - SoundSage

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It’s hard to manage a network in space. That constraint shapes everything Dr. Mariam Kaynia thinks about as chief data and information officer at Eutelsat, Europe’s only LEO alternative to Starlink in orbit today. The company runs more than 600 satellites at 1,200 kilometers alongside a geostationary fleet parked even higher. When Eutelsat launches a satellite, the intelligence running it has to be right before it leaves the ground: self-calibrating, self-healing, and autonomous by design, not by choice.

I sat down with Mariam to unpack why satellite is becoming core connectivity instead of the backup layer, how Eutelsat federated its data platforms instead of ripping them out, and where AI decisions should—and should NOT—live inside an operator.

Listen now to hear:

Where satellite fits in telco connectivity strategy [04:03];
Why Eutelsat connected its data platforms [06:47];
The customization trap—and knowing when to say no [08:49]; and
Four guardrails for AI—including one everyone overlooks [13:25].

Links and Resources:

See how Eutelsat delivers a “mobile network from the sky” with higher speeds and lower latency.
Read about the next-generation sovereign constellation Eutelsat has filed for, its sovereignty and critical-infrastructure play.
Explore the TM Forum Catalyst Team Awards, where Eutelsat’s multi-orbit AI prototype won the “Tech for Good” award. Then learn about the SATCOM with an Edge – Phase III project behind that win, championed by Airbus, Bell Canada, Eutelsat, and MTN Nigeria.
Track Eutelsat’s OneWeb LEO constellation in real time, the fleet that has to keep itself alive once it’s in orbit.
Learn how Eutelsat is connecting remote communities across Greenland, where population density can’t cover the cost of terrestrial networks.
Read my blog “Where do decisions live?,” which argues that decisions belong in an ontology, not at inference time, where they hallucinate at scale.
Want AI that can explain itself? Check out the Totogi Ontology, which keeps decisions in one governed model so you can show which rule fired and why.
Mariam and I got into the challenge of being working parents with big jobs. Read two of my recommendations on the topic, Anne-Marie Slaughter’s 2012 Atlantic essay “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” on fixing broken workplaces and Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” on the importance of personal ambition.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know.
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, and 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards. We are also recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

Mariam Kaynia is Eutelsat’s chief data and information officer and a member of the group’s Executive Committee. She oversees IT, data, and AI for the group. She brings extensive telecommunications expertise from VP roles at Telefónica Germany, where she led digital transformation, strategy, and data analytics, and from her time as an associate partner at McKinsey & Company. Named among the Top 50 Women in Technology in Germany, she holds a Ph.D. in Wireless Communications and Electrical Engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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What does it actually take to become an AI-first telco? Swisscom is finding out. It has launched the biggest transformation program in its history: a ground-up rebuild of the software core behind its consumer and enterprise business units.

In this episode, I sit down with Mark Düsener, chief technology and information officer at Swisscom, to unpack how the operator is doing it. We get into why standardization is the new differentiation, why you can’t be agentic without a brain, and how Swisscom is converting the know-how of its hero engineers—critical talent at telcos—into skills everyone can use.

Listen now to hear:

Why data is the “brain” AI needs [05:17];
How Swisscom is collapsing its systems into one platform [07:51];
Mark’s rule for killing technical debt [12:14]; and
How to bring your experts along when AI codifies what they know [12:49].

Links and Resources:

Read Swisscom CEO Christoph Aeschlimann’s LinkedIn post about why telcos have to reinvent themselves at the core, not just the edge.
Listen to Mark’s interview on the TM Forum podcast. He talks about how Swisscom is using AI to move to an open, composable architecture, even across applications still tied to legacy systems.
Tired of knowledge staying locked inside your experts’ heads? Read Anthropic’s explainer on Agent Skills, the codified, reusable expertise Mark wants his "heroes" to package so any agent or colleague can call it.
Learn how the Totogi Ontology sits over your mainframe, BSS, and network systems so they all speak one language, letting you retire one legacy system at a time instead of betting on a multi-year rip and replace.
Interested in the underlying architecture for becoming AI-first? I’ve written three blogs on this topic:
- “You built a data lake. You needed a river” about why AI needs an ontology close to your live systems so it can act, not just report.
- “Nail your AI architecture” about why business logic doesn’t belong inside your agents.
- “Where do decisions live?” about the board-level question of where decisions should be made in an AI-native telco.
Mark’s go-to dish is filet with asparagus and béarnaise. Béarnaise is the sauce home cooks fear most, a temperamental combination of egg yolks and butter that breaks the second you stop whisking. I attempted it and produced something I’d rather not describe. If you want to try it, watch culinary icons Julia Child, Jacques Pépin, and Martha Stewart make béarnaise together in this TV clip from 1999.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know.
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, and 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards. We are also recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

Mark Düsener is chief technology & information officer (CTIO) at Swisscom and a member of the Executive Committee, Swisscom Switzerland. He leads the IT, Network & Infrastructure division and drives the modernization of Switzerland’s network landscape as part of Swisscom’s TelCo to TechCo journey. His focus includes advancing Switzerland’s best and smartest network across fixed and mobile, expanding 5G and preparing for 6G, while driving the transformation towards automated, software-driven networks and an AI-driven Swisscom. He joined Swisscom in November 2020 and most recently led the Mobile Network, Mobile Services & B2B Telco unit. Prior to Swisscom, he was managing director of Deutsche Telekom Healthcare Solutions GmbH and held various leadership roles at Vodafone Germany.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Every telco has a system it can’t get rid of—a mainframe, a billing platform, a vendor with hooks in everything. The transformation math is brutal: years of work, massive investment, and a failure rate that makes every next attempt harder to sell internally.

Carlos Moreno Alonso is CTIO at TDC Brands, Denmark’s largest telecom provider. Nine months into the job, he’s leading the next phase of one of Europe’s biggest IT transformations—including wrestling with a decades-old mainframe that the former CEO called "a dragon in the basement." He talks about inheriting a transformation mid-flight and what strategies actually work when your legacy system is too entangled to rip out.

Listen now to hear:

How TDC got its consumer business onto a modern stack [03:58];
Carlos’s two-part plan for the harder B2B side [06:45];
Where AI actually speeds migration [07:56]; and
The phase of transformation that is the heaviest lift [09:32].

Links and Resources:

Read the announcement that Nuuday is now TDC Brands, which unites six brands—YouSee, TDC Erhverv, Telmore, Hiper, eesy, and Relatel—under one 145-year-old name.
Learn how TDC Brands brought Carlos on board as CTIO to lead the next phase of its digital transformation project.
Read the story behind “the dragon in the basement,” a phrase coined by former Nuuday CEO Jon James at DTW 2022. It describes the decades-old Columbus mainframe as a beast that needs to be “fed and watered and constantly checked to make sure it’s still breathing.”
Ready to slay your own dragon? Learn how the Totogi Ontology sits over your mainframe, BSS, and network systems so they speak one language, letting you retire one legacy system at a time.
Check out the live World Cup standings as the tournament plays out across North America. When we recorded, I was pulling for Mexico, and Carlos was backing Spain. As of this episode's release, England knocked Mexico out, but Spain squeaked past Portugal to move into the quarterfinals. Looks like Carlos gets the bragging rights—for now.
Think World Cup stakes are high? Try kids’ soccer. In the 2005 movie Kicking and Screaming, Will Ferrell’s Coach Phil gets so threatened when his assistant (NFL legend Mike Ditka) offers coaching advice that he orders him to fetch a juice box instead. Even the fiercest competitors need to hydrate.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know.
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, and 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards. We are also recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

Carlos Moreno Alonso is CTIO of TDC Brands in Denmark, where he oversees a 700-person IT organization (employees and subcontractors) and leads the company’s cloud BSS migration and AI-driven automation programs. Over a 25-year career spanning ONO, Vodafone Spain, Vodafone Italy, and Vodafone Group, Carlos has run complex BSS transformation programs, including a four-year platform overhaul at Vodafone Italy and the post-acquisition integration of ONO into Vodafone Spain. He most recently served as CTIO at Adamo.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Telcos love mergers. In 2025 alone, the industry spent nearly $70 billion on M&A, and every single deal brought its own baggage. New systems, new cultures, new tech debt—all bolted onto everything that came before. Everyone celebrates the deal. No one celebrates the hard work of bringing two organizations together.

For this episode, I sit down with Daniel Askeroth, senior vice president of telco at Norlys, the Danish energy and broadband co-op that acquired Telia Denmark in 2024. Daniel spent 17 years at Telia Denmark. Now, he's the one tasked with stitching his old company into Norlys, which is itself the product of 40+ prior mergers. We dig into how he runs the integration without breaking the customer experience, how to unite workforces without losing the people you need most, and what Daniel would do differently if he had to do it all over again.

Listen now to hear:

Why the people side of mergers takes longer than anyone expects [03:20];
How Norlys keeps integration invisible to customers [05:08];
How AI is changing the way Daniel’s teams build [06:48]; and
What Daniel learned from temporarily stepping into an HR role [11:58].

Links and Resources:

Read Bain's Telecom M&A: Here Are the Latest Deal Trends Worldwide for the latest on where the industry is placing its bets.
Learn more about Norlys's $926M acquisition of Telia Denmark and why adding mobile was the missing piece in its full-service play for Danish consumers.
Check out Daniel’s LinkedIn post about the Norlys leadership role-swap. He traded his telco seat for one in People & Culture for a few days and came back with a different perspective on the business.
Every merger means bringing together new billing stacks, CRMs, and decades of past decisions. Learn how the Totogi Ontology sits over all those acquired systems so they speak the same language.
Want to see the Totogi Ontology in action? Catch Team Totogi at DTW Ignite, running June 23-25 in Copenhagen.
Daniel's kids discovered historical architecture through Pokémon GO, a location-based mobile game that uses your phone's GPS and camera to catch virtual Pokémon at real-world landmarks. Launched in 2016, it peaked at 232 million players and still draws 55 million monthly players and $545M in annual revenue—accidentally tricking a generation into exploring historic landmarks. Who knew Pokémon GO was still going so strong?
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know.
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, and 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards. We are also recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

Daniel Askeroth is senior vice president of telco at Norlys, a Danish energy and telecoms cooperative. He leads Norlys’ telecom business following the acquisition of Telia Denmark, including the integration and transformation focusing on simplifying systems, aligning cultures, and driving large-scale technology and organizational change.

With over 17 years of experience at Telia Denmark prior to joining Norlys, Daniel brings deep expertise in telecom operations, transformation, and leadership. He is passionate about building strong teams and delivering customer-focused, future-ready connectivity solutions.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Every major telco is racing to claim a piece of the AI infrastructure stack. Operators like Telefónica, Orange, Deutsche Telekom, SoftBank, and TELUS are betting on sovereign clouds, AI factories, and GPU-as-a-service to deliver local data, national compute, and a seat at the AI table.

Then there's AT&T. In March, it announced AWS Interconnect - last mile: fiber and fixed wireless plugged directly into AWS and engineered for AI workloads. AT&T’s view is that enterprises using AI don't just need more compute—they need flatter networks and faster connections. So it’s betting on the layer it owns outright—the last mile.

In this episode, I'm joined by Shawn Hakl, SVP of product at AT&T Business. We dig into why the operator is partnering with hyperscalers instead of competing with them, the use case where AT&T deployed AI at the edge to cut latency from 110ms to 40ms, and what an "agent-consumable" network actually looks like.

Listen now to hear:

Why AT&T sees hyperscalers as partners, not rivals [05:18];
What it takes to put AI into production at telco scale—and lessons learned from AT&T's internal deployment [07:14];
The edge AI deployment that cut latency from 110ms to 40ms for a live customer [08:45]; and
What it really means to make a network "agent-consumable" [10:55].

Links and Resources:

Read the AT&T and AWS announcement on AWS Interconnect - last mile, which brings AT&T's fiber and fixed wireless connectivity directly into AWS environments.
Learn more about AT&T's edge AI collaboration with Cisco and NVIDIA, which pushes real-time AI inference directly to the network edge.
AT&T doesn't just sell AI solutions; it runs on them. Learn how Ask AT&T has evolved into a full agentic platform, with more than 100,000 users consuming 27 billion tokens a day and teams building custom AI agents with a drag-and-drop tool.
Want to scale AI agents without the semantic chaos? Learn how the Totogi Ontology gives AI the business context it needs to discover, act, and execute—so agents stop flying blind.
Shawn was on the Canadian national luge team, which means he knows a thing or two about commitment once you're flying down the track. Elana Meyers Taylor knows that feeling too! At age 41, in her 5th Olympic appearance, she finally won the Olympic gold medal in women's monobob at Milano Cortina. So, Shawn might be right—stick to the plan!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know.
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, and 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards. We are also recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

As the senior vice president of product at AT&T Business, Shawn Hakl is responsible for the portfolio servicing enterprise, public sector, partner, and small business segments, which generates over $30 billion in annual revenue. A seasoned leader in cloud, AI, and communications, Shawn’s unique knowledge of software, security, and infrastructure is helping enterprises, government, and small businesses harness the power of technology to successfully execute on their digital transformation. In his current role, Shawn is responsible for wireline, 5G/wireless, voice/UC, security/SASE, data center, AIOps, and Network-as-a-Service product lines.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Every operator made the same bet—go digital, close stores, turn over distribution to the resellers. Somewhere along the way, they gave away the customer relationship. In the first half of 2025, data usage grew in 92% of markets while ARPU grew in only 50%. Operators are delivering more yet earning less.

Tele2 is fighting back. It’s opening physical stores while everyone else is closing them, consolidating six IT stacks down to two, and using AI to rebuild subscriber relationships at scale. For this episode, I talk with Ove Wik, EVP and CTIO at Tele2, about what it takes to reclaim customer relationships, why most BSS transformations never get finished, and what real change actually takes.

Listen now to hear:

The question that got Tele2 from six IT stacks to two [03:58];
The 80/20 trade-off most operators refuse to make [05:45];
Why Tele2 is opening physical stores while most operators are closing them [09:41]; and
What real BSS transformation actually requires [12:13].

Links and Resources:

Check out Tele2's latest annual report. CEO Jean-Marc Harion declares that the company is going "back to the future."
Learn more about Tele2 and Telenor's Net4Mobility joint venture, which just hit 99.9% 5G population coverage in Sweden.
Since we recorded this episode, Tele2 has named a new CEO. Nicholas Högberg will take over for Jean-Marc Harion as president and CEO on July 1, 2026.
Are you planning a transformation and don’t know what trade offs to make? Use the Totogi Ontology. It maps your business processes and customer interactions so you can see exactly what matters and make trade-offs with confidence.
Tele2 is using AI and hyperpersonalization to rebuild subscriber relationships. Watch my MWC23 talk, SUPERCHARGE your MVNO with personalization to see how operators of any size can use subscriber data to deliver tailored, individual offers that grow ARPU and stop churn—exactly the kind of direct customer engagement Tele2 is now chasing.
Ove renovates homes in his spare time and knows how to finish projects. If only all telco transformations made it over the finish line! This clip from the movieThe Money Pit shows how quickly things can go wrong.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, and 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards. We are also recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

Ove is CTIO at Tele2. He has spent his entire life in telecom operators, starting in Sweden at a time when one incumbent provided fixed telephony. He has navigated more than 40 years of telco evolution that has included intense competition, extensive product portfolios, and international operations.

With a background in engineering, Ove has worked in technology, product management, sales, operations, and strategy. Some of his international assignments have included COO at Yoigo Spain, Head of Transformation at Salt Switzerland, and Head of Digital Enablement at Veon Group. For more than 25 years, he has worked to drive change through a combination of technology, organization, and culture.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Anthropic's latest model, Mythos, recently scored 94% on a benchmark for solving real software engineering problems—up from single digits just two and a half years ago. It also found a 27-year-old security flaw in OpenBSD that decades of human testing missed. AI's capabilities are exploding, and many operators are struggling to keep up.

For this episode, I'm talking with Roy Chua, founder and principal of AvidThink, an independent analyst firm that advises everyone from Silicon Valley startups to the world's largest telcos. We dive into the growing gap between how startups and telcos are adopting AI, what happens to the $50 billion professional services industry when AI can write telco software, and why agents need an ontology layer to actually deliver.

Listen now to hear:

How AI is collapsing the timeline on software engineering [02:21];
What telcos can learn from the evolution of Silicon Valley’s hiring practices [05:49];
The bombshell headed for the GSI revenue model [08:14]; and
What AI agents need to work in a live telco environment [11:15].

Links and Resources:

Learn more about Roy Chua and AvidThink, the independent analyst firm advising Silicon Valley startups and the world's largest telcos on technology strategy.
Learn about the Totogi Ontology and how it gives AI agents the business context they need to act on live telco systems, the missing layer Roy describes as essential for agents to work in production.
Read about Anthropic's Mythos model and the SWE-verified benchmark, the new standard for measuring AI coding capability.
Check out Project Glasswing, Anthropic's initiative to find security vulnerabilities across global software infrastructure using AI.
Look at Nifty IT’s stock performance, the market signal Roy points to when explaining why the GSI revenue model is under pressure even as earnings stay strong.
Check out Gauntlet AI, the intensive agentic AI training program for engineers who want to stand out in today’s market.
Read Stanford Digital Economy Lab's findings on software engineering employment, which shows jobs for 22- to 25-year-olds are down 20%. But there’s good news too—Austen Allred, Gauntlet AI’s founder, says hiring partners are actively seeking junior engineers who know AI, with starting salaries of $200K! The jobs are there, but you gotta learn AI.
Roy uses the term "Move 37" (made famous by the legendary 2016 AlphaGo–Lee Sedol Go match) to talk about an unexpected play nobody sees coming in telco. Allbirds pivoting to AI data centers is a favorite real-world example. We didn't see that coming!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

Roy Chua, an entrepreneurial executive with 20+ years of IT experience, is the founder of AvidThink, an independent analyst firm covering infrastructure technologies at both carriers and enterprises. AvidThink's clients include Fortune 500 technology firms, early-stage startups, and upstart unicorns. Roy has been quoted by, and featured in, major publications including the Wall Street Journal, FierceTelecom/Wireless, The New Stack and Light Reading. He is a graduate of MIT Sloan (MBA) and UC Berkeley (BS, MS EECS).

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

AI is reshaping telco. At NVIDIA’s GTC conference, AT&T, T-Mobile, Comcast, and Spectrum announced they’re building AI grids, turning millions of existing cell sites and central offices into distributed AI compute infrastructure. NVIDIA's survey of 1,000 telco professionals found more than 90% reporting that AI is already delivering cost savings or revenue growth, with the biggest ROI coming from agentic AI for autonomous networks.

For this episode, I’m joined by Kanika Atri, Senior Director of Telecoms at NVIDIA. We dig into where real AI ROI lives in telco, why the network may be the world’s most underutilized compute asset, and the big unanswered question: who’s going to build the software that makes all of this work?

Listen now to hear:

How NVIDIA’s survey reveals where AI is already paying off [03:06];
Why telcos’ existing infrastructure could become the backbone of distributed AI [05:06];
The critical software gap nobody in the industry owns [11:19]; and
Why countries are turning to operators, not hyperscalers, to build their national AI [12:27].

Links and Resources:

Read NVIDIA’s State of AI in Telecommunications report, a survey of 1,000+ telecom professionals that covers where AI is delivering value, what’s driving investment, and how operators are planning for distributed AI computing and 6G.
Check out these blogs by Kanika Atri:
- NVIDIA, Telecom Leaders Build AI Grids to Optimize Inference on Distributed Networks
- Telcos Across Five Continents Are Building NVIDIA-Powered Sovereign AI Infrastructure
Read more about SoftBank’s AI-RAN breakthrough in Japan and Indosat’s full sovereign AI stack in Indonesia, including locally developed LLMs and 20+ AI applications.
NVIDIA made a $1 billion equity investment in Nokia to build CUDA-accelerated 5G software that runs on any platform. Watch NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Nokia CEO Justin Hotard explain the partnership in this interview.
Learn more about the Totogi Ontology and how it’s helping Tier-1 operators turn AI into actual profit.
Read the Appledore Research report on Totogi, Telecom-specific Ontology, the key to AI-native telco. It explains why context, not data, is the foundation AI agents need to work at scale (paywalled).
Kanika climbed cell towers early in her career. Maybe her amygdala doesn’t fire like most people’s—just like legendary free-solo climber Alex Honnold’s brain scans show little fear response to heights. He’s famous for scaling Yosemite’s El Capitan without a rope (documented in the Oscar-winning film Free Solo), and most recently the 101-story Taipei 101 in Taiwan. Watch the news coverage here.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2024 and 2025 MarCom Awards, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Creative Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:
Kanika Atri is senior director of telecom products and marketing at NVIDIA, driving AI adoption across the telecom ecosystem. She works closely with hundreds of customers, developers, and partners to embed AI into networks, operations, and services—accelerating the shift to AI‑native wireless networks, autonomous agentic-AI-powered operations, sovereign AI factories, and 6G‑ready infrastructure. Through these engagements, she shapes product roadmaps, go‑to‑market strategies, and commercial partnerships that translate advanced AI capabilities into measurable business impact for the telecom industry.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Telcos have spent years automating their networks, but most of that automation is rigid. It makes the same decision every time—whether the device is offline, whether it's a maintenance window, whether there's a weather event. Adding AI agents sounds like progress, but if those agents aren't built on a deterministic foundation, you're not removing risk, you're accelerating it. The real challenge isn't getting AI to answer questions about your network. It's getting it to act safely.

For this episode, I'm joined by Chris Wade, Co-Founder and CTO of Itential, a network automation platform that's been making infrastructure programmable since 2014. We dig into how Itential is using agentic AI on live production networks, why it layers AI reasoning on top of deterministic guardrails, and how Lumen scaled from 16 to 350 automated workflows by putting field engineers in the driver's seat.

Listen now to hear:

Why deterministic guardrails are essential when AI agents touch live networks [04:14];
The "secret sauce" for giving AI agents real business context [06:24];
How Lumen grew from 16 to 350+ automated workflows [11:24]; and
What telcos need to demand from vendors [13:05].

Links and Resources:

Learn more about Itential and its agentic network automation platform, FlowAI.
Check out Itential's MCP server, launched in May 2024—one of the earliest in the telco space.
Watch Greg Freeman from Lumen present at AutoCon on how his team scaled from 16 to 350+ automated workflows on Itential's platform.
Take a look at Aaron Levie's blog, Building for Trillions of Agents. The Box CEO argues that agents will become the primary users of all software, and if your systems can't be accessed through an open API or CLI, they're invisible to AI. It's the exact problem we unpack in this episode.
Learn how the Totogi Ontology gives AI agents the business context they need to act on live systems and lets operators see exactly why every decision was made and make changes on the spot.
Read my blog, The Promise of AI is No UI, written back in 2024. It predicted exactly where this conversation was headed: a world where AI agents are the primary users of software.
Watch this scene from Silicon Valley—one of the best shows ever made about startups—where Dinesh interacts with an AI version of Gilfoyle. It aired back in 2019, before any of us knew this would be real. If you think agentic AI is a new idea, think again!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2024 and 2025 MarCom Awards, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Creative Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

Chris Wade co-founded Itential in 2014 to simplify and accelerate the adoption of network automation and to transform network operations practices. Using a model-based approach, Chris led the innovation and development of the company’s flagship portfolio of dynamic, multi-tiered network automation applications. Prior to establishing Itential, Chris gained a wealth of experience in the SDN, NFV and OSS/BSS markets having led initiatives in this space for global organizations including Alcatel-Lucent, ReachView Technologies and Micromuse.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Hyperscaler CAPEX investments are staggering: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta spent more than $400 billion on infrastructure in 2025 and are expected to reach over $600 billion in 2026. They’re on pace to surpass $2 trillion in cumulative CAPEX spend before the year is over. Meanwhile, U.S. telco CAPEX sits at $50 billion for 2025—and it's shrinking.

For this episode, Charles Fitzgerald, Managing Director at Platformonomics, returns for his fourth (!) appearance on Telco in 20 to break down his tenth annual Follow the CAPEX report. We dive into the hyperscaler spending surge, the two big telco AI plays coming out of MWC 2026—sovereign cloud and AI-RAN, and why the gap between infrastructure spenders and operators is impossible to close.

Listen now to hear:

How AI supercharged hyperscaler CAPEX—and changed the math for telcos [02:59];
Why sovereign cloud may already belong to the hyperscalers [05:57];
How AI-RAN looks more like an NVIDIA play than a telco strategy [09:54]; and
Why Oracle's catch-up bid is a cautionary tale [13:25].

Links and Resources:

Read Charles Fitzgerald's annual 2025 Follow the CAPEX report.
Check out Charles Fitzgerald’s 2024 retrospective on public cloud CAPEX spending and check out his Cloud Reactor Tracker.
This was Charles's fourth appearance on our podcast. Check out his previous episodes:
- Ep 110 – Hyperscaler CAPEX is going nuclear
- Ep 88 - Cloud CAPEX: Not for the faint of wallet
- Ep 63 – Ante up to be a public cloud contender
Is Oracle's CAPEX bet genius or madness? Fortune breaks down the numbers.
Learn more about the Totogi Ontology and how it's helping Tier-1 operators turn AI into actual profit.
Read the Appledore Research report on Totogi: Telecom-specific Ontology, the key to AI-native telco (paywalled).
Charles has been on the podcast four times—one more and we may have to get him a Five-Timers Club jacket, SNL-style.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2024 and 2025 MarCom Awards, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Creative Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

Charles Fitzgerald is a Seattle-based angel investor, with a focus on developer platforms and infrastructure. Previously, he spent 20+ years working on platform businesses at Microsoft and VMware. He can see the cloud from his house.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

MWC 26 is a wrap, and one thing is clear: the telco industry has moved past asking whether AI will transform the business. The new question is who's moving fast enough to capture value, and who's still playing catch up.

Before I left Barcelona, I stopped by the Mobile World Live Podcast to debrief with host Justin Springham, Managing News Editor Kavit Majithia, and analyst Carolina Milanesi from Creative Strategies. We broke down the real story behind the agentic AI buzz at MWC, what the direct-to-device satellite announcements mean for operators, and why the way teams work in 12 months will look nothing like it does today.

Listen now to hear:

The word of the week at MWC26—and why most of the industry is still missing it [04:43]
The satellite land grab every telco exec should be paying attention to [10:10];
How agentic AI is already changing the way people work and live [14:15]; and
Why the best engineers aren't writing code anymore—they're commanding fleets of agents [17:26]

Links and Resources:

Watch my MWC26 talk for the Agentic AI Summit,Show me the money.
Check out Mobile World Live’s version of this episode!
I also appeared in Mobile World Live’s MWC26 Preview episode last month. GIve it a listen to see if my predictions were right.
The panel covered the biggest news coming out of MWC26. Read more about these stories:
- SpaceX announced the mid-2027 launch of Starlink Mobile, its direct-to-device satellite network.
- The founder of OpenClaw joined OpenAI so the project could continue as an open-source initiative under OpenAI's support.
- Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile announced a joint venture, later joined by Orange and Telefónica, to expand satellite-to-mobile connectivity.
- Vodafone CEO Margherita Della Valle warned of a "wild west in the skies" in her MWC26 keynote, and urged the industry to establish ground rules for satellites.
- Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon Wear Elite Platform, which aims to transform everyday wearables into personal AI devices.
- FCC Chair Brendan Carr was at MWC26—catch Kavit's interview with him on the Mobile World Live website.
Learn more about the Totogi Ontology and how it's helping Tier-1 operators turn AI into actual profit.
Read Appledore Research’s report on Totogi: Telecom-specific Ontology, the key to AI-native telco (paywalled).
Did you miss my padel tournament that kicked off MWC26? Watch the highlights here—and mark your calendar for next year!
I handed out Totogi scarves to the Mobile World Live team—arguably the best swag at MWC26. Check out this photo.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Telco execs, wanna talk AI and public cloud? Set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2024 and 2025 MarCom Awards, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Creative Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

This episode is a special double-drop with the Mobile World Live podcast, featuring:

Justin Springham, Publisher, Mobile World Live
Kavit Majithia, Managing News Editor, Mobile World Live
Carolina Milanesi, President and Principal Analyst, Creative Strategies
And yours truly, Danielle Rios, Founder and CEO of TelcoDR and Totogi

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Every telco exec is talking about AI agents. Almost nobody is talking about what those agents actually need to work: context.

Not just data — the logic, rules, and decision-making processes that define how your business actually operates. That knowledge currently lives in two places: buried in vendor code nobody fully understands, and inside people's heads. No agentic system, no matter how shiny, can make decisions without it.

In this episode, I sit down with John Abraham, Partner and Principal Analyst at Appledore Research, to dig into why a lack of context is the real blocker for AI at scale, why most approaches only solve half the problem, and how an ontology gives AI the business logic it needs to not just analyze, but decide and act.

Listen now to hear:

The three Cs holding telcos back from using AI at scale [04:42];
Why AI agents risk creating a new generation of silos [08:59];
How a small use case can unlock compounding AI value [14:13]; and
Why a data lake is a costly side quest [15:09].

Links and Resources:

Read the Appledore Research report: Telecom-specific Ontology, the key to AI-native telco (paywalled).
Watch my MWC26 talk for the Agentic AI Summit,Show me the money.
Learn more about the Totogi Ontology and how it's helping Tier-1 operators turn AI into actual profit.
Want to see the Totogi Ontology in action and hear more customer success stories? Find Team Totogi in Hall 2 at MWC26 in Barcelona through March 5. We’ll be showing off our telco ontology that manages enterprise context at scale. Set up a meeting.
Check out these additional Appledore Research reports: GenAI in BSS and Predictive Analytics and GenAI: Choosing the right tool for the job (paywalled).
Listen to my conversation with Rick Lievano from Microsoft, who talked about AT&T's AI agent deployment and why they pumped the brakes before going to production.
Curious how a Tier-1 operator turned a $1–2M dormant cell problem into tens of millions in CXO-level impact—all on the same ontology foundation? Listen to What's up with Totogi: The biggest AI use case for telco.
I once gave John a Yeti that he still raves about. Since then, he’s grown a beard and likes using Vikings Revolution products to take care of it. I guess our next gift to him will be a Mustache Guard mug.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2024 and 2025 MarCom Awards, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Creative Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

With over 16 years of experience in the telecom industry, John leads Appledore’s Digital Enablement & Monetization program. Previously, he was at Analysys Mason for 11 years, where he led the digital experience research segment as principal analyst. He has experience working with a varied client base on topics ranging from digitization benchmarking and procurement for CSPs; strategy and go-to market for vendors; and commercial and technical due diligence for financial institutions. Earlier, as a consultant at a BSS vendor, he led requirements gathering, solution definition, and implementation at multiple Tier-1 telcos in Asia and Europe. John holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Anna University (India) and an MBA from Bradford University School of Management (UK).

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

At MWC, vendors will flood the floor with AI demos that look impressive but can’t prove their actual value. Telcos have spent billions connecting systems, but connection isn’t comprehension. Most AI initiatives are blind—unable to see across the fragmented landscape of BSS, OSS, and network systems that speak different languages and live in isolated realities.

The Totogi Ontology is a semantic layer that gives AI the ability to understand your business. Once it does, the army of consultants you’ve been paying to manually stitch together data across systems becomes redundant—and the economics of everything changes. So when the same vendor selling you AI is also billing you for the consultants that AI should replace, ask them to show you the money.

Listen now to hear:

Why AI demos fail when they touch your architecture [03:11];
How the Totogi Ontology solved Zain’s dormant cell problem and turned 48-hours of troubleshooting into 30-minute fixes [04:34];
Why the ability to comprehend across systems and domains is so impactful [6:06] and
The one question that separates real AI value from empty promises [08:00].

Links and Resources:

Watch the video version of this talk, Show me the money, on YouTube.
Learn more about the Totogi Ontology and how it's helping Tier-1 operators turn AI into actual profit.
Want to see the Totogi Ontology in action and hear more customer success stories? Find Team Totogi in Hall 2 at MWC26 in Barcelona, running March 2-5. We’ll be showing off our telco ontology that manages enterprise context at scale. Set up a meeting.
Catch me taking part in MWC’s Agentic AI Summit, Monday, March 2, 9:00am - 1:00 pm, in Hall 6.
What telco execs need from every AI vendor is the same thing Cuba Gooding Jr. demanded from Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire: Show me the money!
Connect with me on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR to set up a time to meet.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2024 and 2025 MarCom Awards, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Creative Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:

Danielle Rios (DR) is the founder and CEO of TelcoDR and Totogi, and host of the Telco in 20 podcast.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The telecom industry is full of AI projects that fail. Most operators think it’s a data problem—connect the systems, feed AI the information. But data doesn't tell AI how to decide. Your processes do. Your rules do.

In this special “What's Up with Totogi” episode, I flip the script and have my friend David Haselwood interview me about BSS Magic. We dig into what a breakthrough biology project from the 1990s can teach telcos about making AI work, why BSS Magic isn’t actually a BSS, and why vendor consolidation won’t fix your real problem. I also share stories from Tier-1 operators who tried horizontal AI vendors, failed—and then came to Totogi for AI that works.

Listen now to hear:

What BSS Magic is … and isn’t [03:23];
How we proved it’s the real deal at TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Summit [06:39];
Why AI projects keep failing [08:59]; and
How Tier-1 operators are using BSS Magic to get real results [10:55].

Links and Resources:

Want to see BSS Magic in action and hear more customer success stories? Find Team Totogi in Hall 2 at MWC26 in Barcelona, running March 2-5. We’ll be showing off our telco ontology that manages context at scale. Connect with DR on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR to set up a time to meet.
Check out Lulu Cheng Meservey's post on why bragging about AI in 2026 is like bragging about cloud storage—customers want to see real value, not buzzwords.
Read how a Southeast Asian operator cut CPQ order creation time by over 80%—from 5 minutes and 50+ clicks to under 50 seconds with a single prompt using BSS Magic.
Learn how Totogi generated over 500,000 lines of BSS Code in one day—LIVE!—at TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Forum, proving that BSS Magic is the real deal. Check out our results.
Listen to another Telco in 20 “What’s Up With Totogi” episode to learn more about how BSS Magic functions as a telco-specific ontological layer and transforms BSS migrations from multi-year projects to just a few months.
Learn more about the Gene Ontology project and how biologists solved their semantic inconsistency problem in the 1990s.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR:

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2024 and 2025 MarCom Awards, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Creative Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest:
Danielle Rios (DR) is the founder and CEO of TelcoDR and Totogi, and host of the Telco in 20 podcast.

Podcast Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The telecommunications industry is heading to MWC Barcelona with a strong desire to skip AI hype in favor of AI proof. Telco executives aren’t looking for more possibilities—they’re demanding real deployments, measurable outcomes, and P&L impact.

For this episode, I’m joined by Rick Lievano, Microsoft’s CTO for the Worldwide Telecommunications Industry. We dive into Microsoft’s vision for network autonomy, real-world deployments delivering breakthrough results, and the barriers holding telcos back from deploying AI agents at scale.

Listen now to hear:

How Microsoft’s NOA framework automates telco network operations [03:29];
How T-Mobile built a self-healing network that even responds automatically to hurricanes [09:23];
What sovereign cloud really means [11:30]; and
What's holding back telcos from deploying AI at scale [14:18].

Links and Resources:

Learn more about Microsoft’s Network Operations Agent (NOA) Framework for network autonomy and read Microsoft’s white paper on NetAI, the autonomous networking framework powering Azure’s global network operations.
Watch this video about Microsoft Agent 365, the control plane that helps teams deploy, manage, and secure AI agents to support agentic AI at scale.
Check out how AT&T deployed 71 generative AI solutions to over 100,000 employees with Azure, reducing customer care resolution time by 33% and processing approximately 9 billion tokens daily.
Read how SK Telecom used Microsoft Foundry to create AI-native digital experiences that feel more like a lifestyle concierge than a traditional telco app.
Learn how T-Mobile unified its network data on Azure and built a self-healing network.
Learn about Bleu in France, where Orange and Capgemini operate a sovereign Azure environment with zero Microsoft access, enabling telcos to run sensitive workloads under strict data residency guarantees.
Did you know Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates’ has played pickleball for over 50 years, even playing on the original court built by the game’s inventors?
Did you know DR won the The Minor League Pickleball (MiLP) DUPR16 50+ Nationals? Watch her team, The Austin Ballers, take the top prize!
Who else is a birder? We talked about my love of birdfeeders. Here is recent video from my Bird Buddy, which I love!
Want to learn how to scale AI agents with confidence? Come find Team Totogi at MWC26 in Barcelona, running March 2-5. We will be showing off BSS Magic and our telco ontology that manages context at scale. Connect with DR on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR to set up a time to meet.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2024 and 2025 MarCom Awards, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Creative Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
Rick Lievano is Microsoft’s CTO for the Worldwide Telecommunications Industry. He works with customers and partners in developing telecommunications industry solutions and reference architectures to address the rapidly changing needs of service providers across the globe. He is an enthusiastic participant and speaker in many industry communities, an advocate of industry frameworks and open standards, and holds TM Forum Open Digital Architecture and Business Development Manager Career Certifications. At TM Forum, he is a member of the Composable IT & Ecosystems Mission, overseeing the effective creation and adoption of pragmatic best practices and standards to deliver value to the membership. As a board member at both Mplify Alliance (former MEF Forum) and Linux CAMARA, his contributions drive the industry toward a more connected and efficient digital future. Rick currently leads initiatives to help operators achieve more by infusing agentic artificial intelligence across their business in a secure and responsible manner.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

MWC26 in Barcelona is right around the corner, and the telco industry is already buzzing about what will unfold at the Fira. Four big themes will dominate this year’s event: AI-driven networks, network APIs, AI data centers, and regulation. But which of these present real opportunities for telecom, and which are expensive distractions or even potential minefields?

For this episode, I’m joined by Dean Bubley, founder and director of Disruptive Analysis. He and I give our takes on what telcos should prioritize in the coming year, where the real obstacles lie, and what it will take to win in 2026.

Listen now to hear:

Where operators should start with AI implementation [04:00];
The network API strategy that everyone is missing [06:24];
Why telcos will struggle to compete on AI infrastructure [10:02]; and
How a regulation-first mindset could lead to more missed opportunities [13:35].

Links and Resources:

Read Benedict Evans’ “AI Eats the World” report, which discusses hyperscaler investment strategies and the risks of under-investing in AI.
Check out McKinsey & Company’s report predicting that network APIs have a $300 billion dollar revenue potential, and its follow up piece, The future of telcos: Mapping the routes to renewed success.
Learn more about Twilio’s developer ecosystem with 10 million developers generating almost $5 billion in revenue.
Check out some of telco’s biggest AI infrastructure investments in 2025: SK Telecom’s AI data center expansion, Deutsche Telekom’s AI factory partnership with NVIDIA, and Verizon’s GPU cloud and enterprise workload initiatives.
Listen to Telco in 20 episode 105, NVIDIA’s vision for AI and the RAN, to learn about NVIDIA's approach to AI-RAN and monetizing network infrastructure.
Want to see what moving fast with AI actually looks like? Come find me at MWC26 in Barcelona, running March 2-5. Totogi will be showing off BSS Magic, a way to transform your telco without having to actually transform your systems. Connect with me on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR to set up a time to meet.
Dean shared his favorite passport stamp—Palau’s jellyfish and Palau Pledge, an environmental commitment visitors sign upon arrival. But passport stamps may soon be a thing of the past as the EU and other countries shift to digital border systems.
Want to hear more from Dean? He’ll be joined by Andrew Collinson at TelecomTV’s Unthinkable Lab: Agentic AI + Telecoms APIs = ? event on January 15 in London.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2024 and 2025 MarCom Awards, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Creative Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
Dean Bubley is the founder of Disruptive Analysis, an independent technology industry analyst and consulting firm based in London. He also jointly runs the Disruptive 6G initiative and is a convener of the 6G Reset forum and the Unthinkable Lab project. An outspoken analyst and futurist with over 25 years of experience, he specializes in mobile/telecoms fields, with an eye on broader technological, governmental, and societal contexts. He is one of the leading market observers and forecasters covering 5G, 6G, Wi-Fi, voice & network AI, spectrum & broadband policy, edge/cloud compute, enterprise private networks, IoT, new telecom business models, and voice/video communications.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

What an incredible year for telco, AI, and the public cloud. Hyperscalers shattered CapEx records, the first brownfield 5G cores migrated to the public cloud, and we had phenomenal conversations with telco heavyweights worldwide. One of our episodes really stood out this year: my conversation with Gabriela Styf Sjöman, Managing Director of Research and Network Strategy at BT Group. We’re bringing it back as our 2025 Telco in 20 Episode of the Year.

Gabriela cut through tech jargon with a brilliant, two-question framework to guide technology decisions: does it help us make money or does it help us save money? We dive into BT's dual AI strategy, why "best network" marketing is dead, and the cultural shift needed for telcos to become subscriber-centric.

Listen now to hear:

Why telcos must prioritize commercial transformation to move up the value chain [05:26];
BT's dual AI strategy for internal operations and customer service [07:31];
The cultural shift needed to embrace process redesign and customer-centric thinking [10:49]; and
Why "best network" marketing is dead and what telcos should focus on instead [13:31].

Links and Resources:

Watch Gabriela’s talk and our panel from TelecomTV’s 2025 DSP Leaders World Forum on BT's AI strategy and why telcos must focus on products over technology.
Check out Gabriela’s TelecomTV interview on how AI-powered network APIs will help telcos become insights-driven providers and why telecom standardization needs a revamp.
Read my blogs, The modern telco and To get AI value, shift left (and eliminate jobs), to learn how AI-driven transformation can improve telco profitability and operational efficiency.
Learn more about BT Group's network strategy and AI initiatives at bt.com.
Totogi’s BSS Magic uses AI to help operators solve their vendor interoperability problem. Learn how we generated over 600,000 lines of BSS Code in one day—LIVE!—at TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Forum, proving that BSS Magic is the real deal. Check out our results.
Looking for new ways to generate revenue? Learn how hyper-personalization can unlock revenue streams through advanced ML platforms like Totogi’s PlanAI.
Want to try albondigas Mexicanas, also known as Mexican meatballs? Here’s a recipe to get you started.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and the public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2024 and 2025 MarCom Awards, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Creative Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Gabriela Styf Sjöman is a global executive with extensive international business experience in the telecom and IT industries. She has held executive positions in numerous multinational organizations across functions such as strategy, technology, business, and sales. She is currently Managing Director of Research and Network Strategy at BT Group, where she oversees network strategy, industry standards, technology research, and research commercialization. Prior to joining BT Group Gabriela held various executive positions such as Chief Strategy Officer at Nokia, Deputy Chief Operating Officer and VP Head of Network Services at Telia Company, VP Head of Networks and TI Labs at Telecom Italia, and numerous positions at Ericsson spanning Technology and Business.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Most consumers can't tell the difference between Wi-Fi and cellular networks, yet our industry expects them to navigate over 200 confusing plan options. This complexity leaves no easy way for customers to compare networks, compare coverage at specific locations, or recognize if they’re on the right plan for their usage patterns.

For this episode, I'm talking with Thad Hwang, CEO and founder of Goji Mobile, a consumer super app that's bringing transparency to mobile. Goji is like Expedia for mobile—one platform where consumers can compare plans, evaluate coverage, and purchase refurbished devices.

Listen now to hear:

How hyper-local coverage maps help consumers choose the right carrier [05:31]
Why they stay with carriers even when they aren't meeting their needs [06:52]
Why so many customers overpay for data [07:35]
How simple plan adjustments can save people hundreds of dollars per year [11:07]

Links and Resources:

Check out the Goji Mobile website to compare carriers and plans, check coverage maps, and shop for phones.
Download the Goji Mobile app to get real-time measurement of your network performance.
Looking to upgrade your phone? Go to the Goji Store to buy quality refurbished phones at great prices. It’s currently offering a special 10% discount for our listeners! Use the code: TELCOIN20
Read the Goji blog, and follow Goji on Facebook and Instagram.
Thad compared choosing from 200+ mobile plans to ordering from the Cheesecake Factory menu—and he's not wrong. That thing is absolutely insane and takes at least 15 minutes to read! Take a look at the menu to see why.
Want to see the pickleball maneuvers Thad and I geeked out about? Take a look at these videos to see how to hit an Erne and ATP.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won 2024 and 2025 MarCom Awards, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Creative Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
Thad Hwang is the Founder and CEO of Goji Mobile, where he’s building a next-generation mobile marketplace that connects consumers with the best deals on phones and plans. He has deep dual-sided marketplace experience from his time at eBay and Lyft, as well as enterprise B2B expertise in sectors like automotive, data/tooling, and government, and executive leadership experience as Chief Product Officer at Replica and The Black Tux. Thad has a track record of scaling consumer products from zero to millions of users, building and leading cross-functional teams, and driving innovation across mobile, e-commerce, and SaaS.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The telco industry has been buzzing about AI transformation, but few operators have seen tangible results beyond pilot projects. The challenge isn't just adopting new technology—it's fundamentally changing how telcos build and maintain their business support systems (BSS).

For this special episode, I join Scott Bicheno and Iain Morris on the Telecoms.com podcast to discuss Totogi's recent AI demonstration at TelecomTV's AI-Native Telco Forum in Düsseldorf, Germany. This is one of our rare "double drops," where both podcasts share the same conversation. We talk about Totogi’s live coding demonstration in Germany, which used AI and BSS Magic to generate over 600,000 lines of BSS code, explore the concept of ontology in AI systems, and dive into why telcos struggle with AI implementation. Fair warning: this episode is longer than usual, but we cover a lot of important topics.

Listen now to hear:

Why telcos can't get past "zero to one" with AI—and where to start [19:01];
The inside story behind Totogi’s live coding feat [39:33];
How telco-specific ontology helps AI understand our industry’s business logic [41:28]; and
Why many veteran developers resist AI-generated code [53:05].

Links and Resources:

I have a big idea that needs bold execution: my BSS vision for telcos. I want to use AI to help operators solve their vendor interoperability mess by creating a product that helps them build their own BSS. Learn how Totogi generated over 500,000 lines of BSS Code in one day—LIVE!—at TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Forum, proving that BSS Magic is the real deal. Check out our results.
Watch my recent interview with Ray Le Maistre from TelecomTV where I discuss how coding with LLMs is approaching human-level capability.
Read my blog, Düsseldorf changed everything for BSS, where I break down three objections people have about BSS Magic and explain how we're systematically proving each one wrong.
Check out Scott Bicheno's article Totogi's automated BSS code-writing demonstration, The Fast Mode’s Totogi Demos AI-Built BSS From Scratch in a 'Single Day', Edward Finegold said Totogi “stuck their necks out” to show what’s possible with a new approach to BSS, and TelecomTV’s coverage Totogi creates new BSS system on AI-Native Telco Forum show floor.
Learn more about Totogi's BSS Magic and how AI is transforming BSS development.
Read my blogs to learn why telco is the perfect use case for AI-assisted development, how context engineering enables production-ready AI applications, and why your legacy BSS vendors won't rebuild as AI-native.
Read my blog on how the public cloud is YOUR problem.
Learn about my other companies, Skyvera and TelcoDR.
Check out my full 2-hour conversation with Scott Bicheno and Iain Morris on the Telecoms.com podcast.
Explore Gauntlet AI, the 10-week program my son went through that is training developers in AI-powered coding.
Scott, Iain and I also discussed how Wimbledon's switch to AI technology for line calls mirrors concerns about AI replacing human expertise. Read more about the controversy.
Want to know more about the beer we were drinking? Scott and Iain’s favorite is BrewDog’s Hazy Jane.
We talked about my love of both pickleball and tennis in this episode. If you're curious about the differences between the two sports, this video explains the seven biggest ones.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
The Telecoms.com Podcast is a weekly show produced by Telecoms.com and hosted by industry experts Scott Bicheno and Iain Morris. The format centers on irreverent and engaging discussions about current trends, controversies, and major news in the global telecommunications sector, often featuring special guests from telecom operators, vendors, and analysts.

As the Editorial Director of Telecoms.com, Scott Bicheno has been covering the mobile phone and broader technology industries for over 20 years. Prior to Telecoms.com, Scott was the primary smartphone specialist at industry analyst Strategy Analytics.

Iain Morris is the International Editor at Light Reading. Prior to boosting Light Reading's UK-based editorial team numbers, he was a successful freelance writer and editor covering the telecom sector. He was previously the lead telecom analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

If AI is so awesome, why isn't it having a bigger impact on your bottom line? I hate to break it to you, but the problem isn't with AI—it's with your leadership. Look no further than the quality of your ideas and capability of your execution to figure out why your team is not getting better results with AI.

In this episode, I sit down with strategic HR and transformation leader Jim Abolt. He has decades of experience helping organizations navigate major transformations successfully, and isn’t surprised that AI initiatives are failing to deliver. Listen to our conversation as we discuss the hard truths about “Big C” Change leadership, why you need big ideas and bold execution to be successful with AI, and why you should listen to me, DR, the “Disruptor Who’s Right.” We dive into how I'm delivering real results when it comes to implementing AI in my own organization.

Listen now to hear:

Why AI ROI failure is a leadership problem, not a technology problem [02:56];
How Totogi redesigned work to achieve 20x developer productivity [06:28];
Why telling employees the truth about AI's impact isn't reckless—it's responsible [13:05]; and
How thinking like a business person rather than a functional expert enables bold AI execution [15:27].

Links and Resources:

I have a big idea that needs bold execution: my BSS vision for telcos. I want to use AI to help operators solve their vendor interoperability mess by creating a product that helps them build their own BSS. Learn how Totogi generated over 500,000 lines of production BSS Code in one day—live—at the TelecomTV Forum event to show that BSS Magic is the real deal. Check out our results.
Watch my latest interview with Ray Le Maistre from TelecomTV where I discuss how coding with LLMs is approaching human-level capability.
Check out my conversation with Scott Bicheno and Iain Morris on the Telecoms.com podcast. We talk about Totogi’s amazing feat at the recent AI-Native Telco Forum and answer all the questions people have about it.
Read my blogs to learn why telco is the perfect use case for AI-assisted development, how context engineering enables production-ready AI applications, and why your legacy BSS vendors won't rebuild as AI-native.
Read the blog that Jim raved about, To get AI value, shift left (and eliminate jobs), to learn how to maximize the impact of AI in your organization.
Listen to Jim’s previous episode, “How to build an AI-first organization” where he shares a practical framework for AI transformation and AI's impact on jobs.
Listen to the “Invest Like the Best” podcast in which Joe Liemandt calls Jim "one of the most influential people in my career."
Jim mentioned that I am always right—with the public cloud and now with AI! Watch this clip from the movie, Groundhog Day, where life insurance agent Ned Ryerson tries to convince Phil that he’s right. “Am I right or am I right or am I right? I’m right.”
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
Jim Abolt is a retired HR executive who is widely regarded as an expert in leadership development, culture shaping, and large-scale organizational change. His career spanned multiple industries, disciplines, and continents. Starting as a labor relations specialist in a Midwest steel mill, he ultimately held global senior management positions with leading companies in the consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical, and software development industries. Jim holds an A.B. from Dartmouth College, and a J.D. and M.A. from the University of Illinois.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The telco industry loves to differentiate on technical specs—five nines of reliability, fastest 5G, most coverage. But Gabriela Styf Sjöman, Managing Director of Research and Network Strategy at BT Group, has a radically simple framework that cuts through the noise: every technology decision comes down to two questions—does it help us make money or does it help us save money?

In this episode, Gabriela breaks down BT’s dual AI strategy: “AI for networks” (using AI to optimize internal operations) and “networks for AI” (building networks that support customers’ AI workloads). We discuss why “best network” marketing is dead, how telcos need better customer segmentation beyond just “consumer vs. enterprise,” and why the biggest barrier to AI adoption isn’t technical capability—it’s cultural change. If you’re a telco exec struggling to get value from AI investments, this conversation will reframe how you think about technology strategy.

Listen now to hear:

Why telcos must prioritize commercial transformation to move up the value chain [04:00];
BT's dual AI strategy for internal operations and customer service [05:49];
The cultural shifts needed to embrace process redesign and customer-centric thinking [09:45]; and
Why "best network" marketing is dead and what telcos should focus on instead [11:49].

Links and Resources:

Watch Gabriela’s talk and our panel from TelecomTV’s 2025 DSP Leaders World Forum on BT's AI strategy and why telcos must focus on products over technology.
Check out Gabriela’s TelecomTV interview on how AI-powered network APIs will help telcos become insights-driven providers and why telecom standardization needs a revamp.
Read my blogs, The modern telco and To get AI value, shift left (and eliminate jobs), to learn how AI-driven transformation can improve telco profitability and operational efficiency.
Learn more about BT Group's network strategy and AI initiatives at bt.com.
Looking for new ways to generate revenue? Learn how hyper-personalization can unlock revenue streams through advanced ML platforms like Totogi’s PlanAI product.
Find out more about Totogi by meeting with us at TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Forum in Düsseldorf, Germany on October 23-24. DM me on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR to set up a time to meet.
Want to try albondigas Mexicanas, also known as Mexican meatballs? Here’s a recipe to get you started.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
Gabriela Styf Sjöman is a global executive with extensive international business experience in the telecom and IT industries. She has held executive positions in numerous multinational organizations across functions such as strategy, technology, business, and sales. She is currently Managing Director of Research and Network Strategy at BT Group, where she oversees network strategy, industry standards, technology research, and research commercialization. Prior to joining BT Group Gabriela held various executive positions such as Chief Strategy Officer at Nokia, Deputy Chief Operating Officer and VP Head of Network Services at Telia Company, VP Head of Networks and TI Labs at Telecom Italia, and numerous positions at Ericsson spanning Technology and Business.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

MIT research shows that 95% of enterprise AI projects fail, and the culprit is likely the daunting task of managing business context. When AI doesn't understand the full picture of your business, it makes poor decisions and delivers disappointing results that leave operators questioning whether AI can deliver real value.

In this "What's Up with Totogi?" episode, I'm talking with Michael Walker, who leads Enterprise AI Deployment Strategy at Totogi. He's focused on what we believe is the right approach for telcos: vertical AI, built specifically for telcos, that understands the industry and your business from day one. We dive into why most telcos are experiencing "context chaos" with their AI deployments, how Totogi's ontology approach eliminates the guesswork, and how our BSS Magic can turbocharge ancient legacy systems without expensive migrations, data aggregation, or swap offs.

Listen now to hear:

How context engineering makes AI work at scale [05:00];
How Totogi's ontology framework manages context across thousands of AI agents without operational chaos [07:49];
Why you don't need data lake migrations to make BSS Magic work [10:24]; and
A customer example of building a complex sales agent in just four weeks [13:09].

Links and Resources:

Check out my blog, Context is EVERYTHING, to learn how context engineering can turn expensive demos into successful enterprise AI.
Read MIT’s report, The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025, on why 95% of enterprise AI projects fail.
Learn about Totogi's BSS Magic and its telco-specific ontology approach.
Watch our conversation from MWC25, where Michael and I discuss how BSS Magic uses AWS Bedrock to bring AI intelligence to legacy telecom systems, solving vendor interoperability challenges that have held telcos back for decades.
Check out how Totogi's AI-powered BSS Magic reduced CloudSense's TM Forum API certification from 26 months to four weeks.
Watch my interview with TelecomTV, where I discuss how Tier-one operators are using BSS Magic to achieve dramatic results with BSS Magic AI, including 15% faster sales quoting and reducing support tickets from five hours to 15 minutes.
Learn how multiple Tier 1 telecom operators are using Totogi's BSS Magic to achieve 80% faster order processing and 75% cost reductions by deploying AI agents across existing legacy systems without costly replacements.
Find out more about Totogi by meeting with us at TelecomTV's AI-Native Telco Forum in Düsseldorf, Germany on October 23-24. DM me on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR to set up a time to meet.
Watch this Scandinavian mother explain why it’s “normal” to see babies nap outside in Sweden and the health benefits they believe it provides – leaving them outside in temperatures as low as −13 °F / −25 °C!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
Michael Walker leads enterprise ai deployment strategy at Totogi. He has extensive experience deploying enterprise AI solutions across industries including telecommunications, enterprise technology, automotive, and oil and gas. At Totogi, Michael leads the company’s BSS Magic initiative, helping telecom operators adopt AI at scale by leveraging BSS Magic’s universal ontology layer to accelerate transformation and unlock new business value.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

MVNOs are having their moment. From Ryan Reynolds with Mint Mobile to the Trumps launching Trump Mobile, everyone wants in.

But the truth is it’s tough to be an MVNO. MVNOs who pay millions in licensing fees struggle to actually go live because incumbent MNOs work overtime to squash them. Take Nigeria - regulators handed out 46 MVNx licenses and collected serious cash from hopeful startups. The result? Zero MVNOs have successfully launched to date.

In this episode, I’m talking with Allan Rasmussen, CEO of MVNO Services and one of the world's leading MVNO strategists. He has witnessed hundreds of MVNO dreams crash and burn while also guiding success stories that cracked the code. We dive deep into the regulatory challenges facing MVNOs worldwide and Allan's strategies for navigating the chaos.

Listen now to hear:

How the Nigerian MVNO market has been stalled by regulator-MNO power struggles [03:31];
How MTN's pivot to "network as a service" might be a strategic game-changer [10:31];
Why MVNOs should form alliances when battling regulatory roadblocks [12:55]; and
How countries like Canada, India, Pakistan, and Thailand are creating barriers to MVNO competition [13:54].

Links and Resources:

Allan does a great job keeping the MVNO community up to date on all the happenings in the MVNx space. Follow him on LinkedIn.
Read TM Forum’s article, “What’s fuelling the rise of new MVNOs?,” to learn how new MVNOs are surging due to eSIMs, MVNE platforms, and cloud-native technology like Totogi's multi-tenant charging system that enables faster MVNO deployments.
Check out my blog, “MVNOs don't need MVNEs (and MVNEs’ loss will be MNOs’ gain),” to find out how African MVNOs can bypass MVNE middlemen by leveraging cloud-native SaaS solutions and direct MNO wholesale platforms.
Read about the Nigerian Communications Commission’s MVNO framework and licensing in “Is Nigeria Ripe for MVNOs —Or Are We Just Licensing Hope?” from TechAfrica News.
Wanna get the scoop around the world on how challenging it is to launch an MVNO? Learn about Canada’s redefinition of MVNO requirements, listen to the MVNO Knowledge Hub podcast episode, “Thailand’s MVNO Collapse – The Regulatory Inaction that Killed an Industry,” to learn about Thailand, and catch up on Pakistan by reading “New PTA Policy Will Let New Telcos Launch Services in Pakistan Without a Physical Network”.
Learn about Totogi's Wholesale Solution for MNOs looking to monetize MVNO partnerships. Want to try it out? Book a demo!
OF COURSE the telcos don’t collude to box out the MVNOs. But it did remind me of that time the Dukes tried to corner the frozen concentrate orange juice market in the movie Trading Places. Watch how they lose their fortune over a $1 bet between Louis Winthorpe III (Aykroyd) and Billy Ray (Murphy).
Find out more about Totogi by meeting with us at the NOVACOM Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, on September 23-25. DM me on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR to set up a time to meet.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
Allan Rasmussen is an MVNA/MVNE/MVNO specialist with hands-on experience from more than 60 projects in both competitive and greenfield markets. His expertise includes business case development, execution, launch, and growth strategies. He is an advisor and consultant to MNOs, MVNAs, MVNEs, MVNOs, national regulatory authorities, government agencies, TMT industry associations, and innovation and investment banks. Allan is a well-known voice in the global MVNO space as a walking MVNO wiki, and is recognized for his expertise in spotting emerging trends and curating crucial industry news. He brings a unique blend of strategic foresight and practical experience to his work, all while championing his core values of fostering MVNO growth and sharing knowledge.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Telco transformation projects are legendary for their complexity. Operators must maintain 99.999% uptime while ripping out decades-old legacy systems that are deeply intertwined with every aspect of their business. They involve massive technical debt, vendor lock-in, regulatory compliance requirements, and the challenge of modernizing infrastructure—all of which need to be managed while serving millions of customers who expect flawless service. Add in organizational resistance to change, budget constraints, and the fact that many telcos still run critical systems on 1980s mainframes, and you have a perfect storm. Getting it wrong can mean network outages, customer churn, regulatory fines, and revenue loss that can run into the hundreds of millions.

In this episode, I'm talking with Amol Phadke, Chief Transformation Officer at Tech Mahindra. With over 25 years of experience spanning Google Cloud, Telenor, and now leading AI transformation at a major service provider, Amol has seen transformation from every angle. We explore why traditional projects fail, how successful telcos are building new revenue streams, and Tech Mahindra's framework for AI-driven transformation.

Listen now to hear:

Why telcos face a "perfect storm" of declining revenue and legacy challenges [05:27]
How successful telcos leverage trust to build sovereignty [07:51];
Tech Mahindra's six-pillar AI transformation framework [10:23]; and
Why one CEO said AI is everywhere except his P&L [11:03].

Links and Resources:

Learn about Tech Mahindra's six-pillar AI transformation framework.
Read about Tech Mahindra's Orion platform for agentic AI deployment.
Find out about Tech Mahindra Maker's Lab, an innovation center that transforms ideas into solutions.
Listen to my conversation with Dr. Lester Thomas, head of new technologies and innovation at Vodafone Digital and IT. He breaks down the transformation that moved 17 petabytes from 600 Hadoop servers hosted in 11 countries to Google Cloud.
BSS Magic is a game-changer when it comes to telco transformation—especially when migrating data to a new system. Forget iterative attempts until you get it right; you work right inside the BSS Magic platform and get the job done in 20% of the time. Want to try it out? Book a demo!
Find out how Totogi can accelerate your transformation project by meeting with us at the NOVACOM Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, on September 23-25. DM me on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR to set up a time to meet.
Besides telco transformation projects, do you know who else has a bad reputation? Joan Jett! I once saw her in Las Vegas. She’s a bad-ass rocker chick!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
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The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
Amol Phadke is a senior business executive providing leadership in AI, cloud, software networks and IT, Big Tech, and telecommunications. He specializes in strategy definition, execution of large-scale engineering and innovation development/delivery units, and leading global multi-discipline teams. He is Chief Transformation Officer at Tech Mahindra, where he supports the CEO on strategic initiatives across the company, including elevating the communications industry vertical globally. Prior to Tech Mahindra, Amol served as EVP and Group CTO at Telenor Group, and as a member of Telenor’s group executive management team. Prior to Telenor, Amol was served as Global GM for the communications service provider industry vertical at Google Cloud.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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The telco industry has long been plagued by sluggish software development cycles that stretch across months and years. But operators are now building and deploying AI-powered solutions in weeks using what Microsoft calls "hypervelocity engineering."

In this episode, I'm talking with Robin Cole, vice president of engineering at Microsoft, who works with telcos on their biggest technical challenges. She explains how operators like AT&T, KT Corporation, and Telefónica are using Microsoft tools and methodology to speed development timelines and modernize operations.

Listen now to hear:

The three components of hypervelocity engineering that accelerate development [04:13];
The spectrum between AI augmentation and full automation [07:00];
How AT&T is benefiting from Microsoft's AI advancements [12:33];
How KT Corporation is transforming its entire development strategy with Microsoft [13:34].

Links and Resources:

Watch Robin discuss Microsoft’s hypervelocity engineering at TM Forum’s DTW Ignite.
Learn more about Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry.
Read about Microsoft Copilot Studio, a low-code/no-code AI development environment.
Discover GitHub Copilot, an AI-powered coding assistant.
Read Microsoft’s blog, Microsoft AI ignites telecom innovation and growth.
See how AT&T improved operations and employee experiences with Azure.
Read about KT Corporation’s partnership with Microsoft to accelerate AI innovation in Korea.
Check out Telefónica and Microsoft’s collaboration to co-develop digital solutions using Open Gateway.
Watch Microsoft Copilot interview Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Satya Nadella as part of celebrating the 50th anniversary of Microsoft.
Find out how Totogi's BSS Magic can turn your AI development tools into telecom powerhouses at the NOVACOM Summit in Cape Town, September 23-25. DM me on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR to set up a time to meet.
Did you catch Robin’s Bugs Bunny reference when she says “took a hard right turn at Albuquerque”? Check out this compilation of all the times Bugs Bunny says his iconic line.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
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The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
Robin Cole is an accomplished business development, marketing, and engineering program management executive with 25 years of experience in Fortune 100 companies and startups. Her professional experience includes Sony, where she managed worldwide strategy and business development for Sony Electronics and Sony Corporation; Apple, where she led program management efforts across the MacBook portfolio of products; and Microsoft, where she has held a number of marketing, business development, sales and program management leadership roles across a variety of products.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Google Cloud runs the largest private network on the planet, managing billions of users with a fraction of the staff that regional telcos need. Now it’s opening up its playbook to share this AI-driven approach with telecommunications operators.

In this episode, I'm talking with Angelo Libertucci, global head of industry for telecom at Google Cloud, about its partnership with Ericsson to build a cloud-native, 5G core and autonomous operations framework entirely on Google Cloud that can self-heal and self-optimize without human intervention.

Listen now to hear:

How Google's partnership with Ericsson delivers instant service deployment for 5G networks [03:40]
Why the timing is finally right for telcos to move core network functions to the public cloud [04:56]
The math behind network utilization that makes public cloud for network workloads financially compelling [09:12]
How Bell Canada transformed its network performance using autonomous operations without moving workloads to cloud [13:55]

Links and Resources:

Read about Google Cloud and Ericsson's carrier-grade 5G Core-as-a-Service platform.
Learn about Google Cloud's Autonomous Network Operations framework.
Check out O2 Telefónica Germany and Google Cloud’s partnership to move 5G functions to the cloud with Nokia.
Watch my 2018 Interview with Google Cloud about Spanner (yes, I’ve been talking about telco and the public cloud for FOREVER)!
Angelo was a professional hockey player. Check out his jersey when he played with the Canadian All Stars.
I’m not a hockey player, but I do play tennis. Check out this sport that combines both, ice tennis — watch out for those slapstick backhands!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Angelo Libertucci heads the telecom industry for Google Cloud globally. He is responsible for business development and strategy, partnerships, and field enablement that will drive CSP service differentiation and value, leveraging Google Cloud's technology and platform. He also identifies and capitalizes on new opportunities across Google’s ecosystem.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Network APIs are the telecom industry's next big bet for unlocking new revenue, with McKinsey & Company projecting they could generate up to $300 billion in connectivity and edge computing revenue over the next four to six years. But the real challenge isn't technical—it's convincing millions of developers to adopt telco’s network APIs instead of sticking with what they already use.

In this episode, I sit down with Shkumbin Hamiti, Nokia's vice president of network monetization, who leads the Network as Code platform that has grown to over 50 partners since launch. We explore why winning over developers is the holy grail for network API success.

Listen now to hear:

How Nokia's strategy differs from Ericsson's Aduna approach [04:56]
Examples of commercial deployments that have moved beyond proof of concept [07:05]
Why telcos need to meet developers where they are [10:46]

Links and Resources:

Check out McKinsey’s report predicting network API’s $300 billion dollar revenue potential and its follow up piece, The future of telcos: Mapping the routes to renewed success.
Learn about Nokia's Network as Code platform and its Acquisition of Rapid.
Read about Nokia’s partnership with Deutsche Telekom for fraud prevention APIs.
Learn about Globe Telecom’s partnership with Nokia for enhanced banking security.
Check out Nokia’s partnership with robotaxi service Elmo, whose vehicles combine AI, sensors and Nokia’s network APIs to operate safely in busy urban environments.
Watch a demo of Elmo’s remote teledriving system at MWC25 in Barcelona, where you could control a real car that was over 2,000 miles away from Nokia’s booth.
Read about Nokia's partnership with Google Cloud marketplace for API distribution.
Shkumbin quoted my mentor, strategic HR veteran Jim Abolt, in this interview. Check out Telco in 20 episode 103 to hear more of Jim’s perspective on change management.
Shkumbin and I both love tennis. Did you catch the 2025 French Open men's final between Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and Italy’s Jannik Sinner? Their grueling match is considered one of the top 5 all time best matches. Watch highlights here.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Shkumbin Hamiti is vice-president and head of Nokia's network monetization platform business unit. He is an accomplished technology executive with 28+ years of experience spearheading transformative initiatives within the mobile and cloud industries at Nokia. He is based at Nokia’s headquarters in Espoo, Finland.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The telecommunications industry is at a crossroads, with strategic opportunities ready to reshape how operators generate revenue and compete. From network APIs, to GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS), to moving networks to the public cloud, telcos are weighing big bets that require capital and focus. The real challenge isn't identifying opportunities—it's knowing which ones to pursue and which to walk away from.

In this episode, I’m talking with Harrison Lung, group chief strategy officer at e& (formerly Etisalat). We're going to dive into e&'s four strategic pillars, Harrison's take on the big strategy ideas in our industry, and how the operator is applying AI behind the scenes.

Listen now to hear:

e&’s plans for the next five years, including its 4D strategic framework [04:15];
Harrison's take on network APIs, GPUaaS, and cloud-native networks [08:37];
Keys to driving strategic success [11:25]; and
The exciting new AI use cases e& is putting to the test [13:44].

Links and Resources:

Read more about Etisalat’s rebranding to e&.
Check out Harrison’s 2024 year-end wrap up of e&’s transformative progress.
Read Aduna’s announcement about e& becoming an equity partner in its global network API venture.
Learn about how e& is using AI in the Careem Super App to ensure quicker food delivery times.
Is your telco ready to drive strategic success? Check out my blogs for tips: So, you want to be a tech-co? and Telco’s shift to the public cloud gets real.
If you've ever visited the UAE, you can't have missed the iconic twinkling golf balls above the e& buildings—those magical spheres that shimmer like stars against the night sky, each one housing 940 tiny lenses and optical fibers that create their mesmerizing starry effect. I forgot to ask Harrison if e& will keep these beloved tributes to Etisilat!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 and 2025 Hermes Awards, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Harrison Lung is the group chief strategy officer at e&. He was appointed in May 2023 and oversees corporate strategy and planning, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), venture capital, Group transformation, ESG and sustainability. With over two decades of experience in the telecom and technology sectors, Harrison is directly collaborating with e&'s management team and board of directors to develop the overall business strategy, set the direction of the Group and develop plans to achieve e&'s business objectives.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Telecom operators worldwide need to modernize their infrastructure and reduce costs. While many have been hesitant to move critical network functions to the public cloud, a growing number of visionary operators are proving that cloud-native networks aren't just possible—they're the future.

Today, I'm speaking with Mallik Rao, chief technology and enterprise business officer at Telefónica Germany, who is leading the world's first brownfield migration of a 5G core network to AWS. We dive into the technical challenges his team faced, the organizational transformation required, and why combining cloud-native architecture with Open RAN is poised to revolutionize how telcos operate.

Listen now to hear:

Why Mallik Rao killed his first cloud migration project after 18 months; [05:08]
How AWS redesigned its hardware infrastructure for telco workloads, creating Outpost 2.0; [06:36]
The strategy behind disaggregating hardware and software lifecycles in RAN for maximum flexibility; and [11:19]
Why time-to-market improvements matter more than cost savings [13:37].

Links and Resources:

Read Telefónica Germany’s project announcement, 5G Cloud Core milestone with over one million users on the O2 Telefónica network.
Take a look at this article on how the operator shifted customers from an Ericsson 5G cloud core to one provided by AWS and Nokia.
Learn more about AWS’s second-generation Outposts racks.
Check out Telefónica Germany’s Open RAN strategy and collaboration with Samsung to modernize RAN.
Learn more about Totogi’s Charging-as-a-Service, a multi-tenant SaaS solution that delivers automatic scaling, usage-based pricing, CI/CD-driven upgrades, open APIs, and real-time event-based charging on the public cloud.
Can your charger scale to the equivalent of 1 billion subscribers? Totogi’s Charging-as-a-Service can, and we’ve got the proof. Check out this performance benchmark whitepaper.
Relocating for a new job can be hard! In the 1988 comedy Moving, Richard Pryor plays Arlo Pear, a man uprooting his life and family for his dream job. But when they reach their new home, they find the previous owners weren’t joking about ‘taking everything.’
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, a 2024 and 2025 Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Mallik Rao has been a member of the Management Board of Telefónica Deutschland Holding AG since the end of October 2019. He was initially responsible for the mobile and fixed network as well as the IT of Telefónica Deutschland in his role as chief technology & information officer. Mallik Rao has also been assigned responsibility for the business customer division and the company’s data platforms and artificial intelligence activities in his role as chief technology & enterprise officer. Mallik has more than 25 years of experience in the international telecommunications industry. He lived and worked in seven countries, bringing experience from technology providers like Ericsson and Nortel, and service providers like Vodafone and Aircel. He is passionate about working with various cultures and building technology solutions for customers.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The telecommunications industry has reached a critical inflection point where legacy IT systems can no longer support the demands of an AI-first world. Traditional telco technology approaches are too complex, slow, and fundamentally incompatible with the speed and agility required for modern digital services.

Today I'm speaking with Dr. Lester Thomas, head of new technologies and innovation at Vodafone Digital and IT, and a TM Forum Distinguished Fellow. Lester has driven some of the most ambitious cloud transformation projects in telecom, including Vodafone's groundbreaking data migration that consolidated servers across multiple countries into a unified cloud platform. We explore Vodafone's "Composable IT" vision and how the company is transforming its technology stack to be modular, open, and AI-ready.

Listen now to hear:

Vodafone's data transformation that moved 17 petabytes from 600 Hadoop servers hosted in 11 countries into Google Cloud, creating the foundation for AI adoption [04:20]
The company's strict "cloud native" definition requiring complete re-engineering rather than lift-and-shift, with 80-90% of digital workloads now truly cloud native [09:37]
Three principles driving Vodafone's Open Digital Architecture: machine-readable standards, open-source collaboration, and proof-of-concept testing over RFPs [14:18]
How AI is forcing complete software redesign, with Vodafone's AI Booster democratizing AI access across all business functions while maintaining governance [17:51]

Links and Resources:

Watch Vodafone’s announcement at Google Cloud Next 2019 to rebuild their Data Ocean on Google Cloud to eliminate 600+ on-prem Hadoop servers across 11 countries.
Check out my blogs, Vodafone is putting on a public cloud clinic and Be like Vodafone and move your analytics to the public cloud.
Take a look at this TelcoDR Vodafone Case Study, How Vodafone Saved Nearly 70% by moving analytics platform to the public cloud.
Read about Vodafone’s partnership with Google Cloud to process massive data volumes, enhance digital services, and drive innovation across Vodafone’s global operations.
Check out this Google Cloud blog on how Vodafone's AI Booster project is supercharging AI & ML at scale.
Listen to this episode of the TM Forum Inside Out podcast to learn how Open APIs spurn innovation.
Take a look at this article from TM Forum, ODA explained: Tools for implementation and deployment.
Watch my Gen AI Summit talk at MWC25 on Building an AI-first Telco.
Learn more about how Totogi’s BSS Magic, powered by AI and the public cloud, enables seamless interoperability, drives innovation, and unlocks new growth.
Lester Thomas has taken up wing foiling, an adventure sport combining sailing and flying. Here’s what it looks like if you are inspired and want to give it a try.
Check out a video version of this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, a 2024 and 2025 Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Dr. Lester Thomas is Head of New Technologies and Innovation and a Distinguished Engineer at Vodafone Digital. A 20-year Vodafone veteran, he leads Vodafone’s Open Digital Architecture strategy, driving innovation in Generative AI and cloud-native technologies. Lester is passionate about telecoms’ role in society and is a strong advocate for open standards and open-source. He has been recognized as a TM Forum Distinguished Fellow for his contribution to the Open Digital Architecture and Open-API initiatives. When not shaping telecom’s future, he enjoys adventurous sports, has a private pilot’s license and also enjoys sailing and other watersports.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The debate over whether telco network workloads can run on the public cloud has raged for years. While greenfield operators like DISH Wireless have demonstrated that a cloud-native 5G network is possible, critics dismiss these examples as outliers that don’t apply to established networks. But recent developments with brownfield operators and new infrastructure options are changing the conversation about what's possible.

In this episode, I'm talking with Dr. Ishwar Parulkar, Chief Technologist for Telecom at AWS. With extensive experience creating cloud solutions for telecom networks, Ishwar is at the forefront of helping operators transition their networks to cloud infrastructure.

Listen now to hear:

How AWS has created an "edge continuum" of infrastructure options to support network workloads [05:25];
What AWS learned from working with Telefónica Germany to run network workloads in a brownfield environment [07:31];
How telcos are leveraging generative AI to transform customer experience, reduce operational costs, and create new revenue streams [11:41];
Whether AI RAN workloads will be a new revenue source [15:03].

Links and Resources:

Take a look at how Telefónica Germany successfully completed a trial to load 1 million subscribers into the public cloud.
Read the AWS announcement on the New AWS Outposts Rack and Server Offerings for Telcos.
Watch my interview with Chris Penrose at NVIDIA about AI-RAN and using the extra capacity in the RAN to run AI workloads at the edge.
Take a look at how SK Telecom built a specialized telco AI model trained with Anthropic's Claude on AWS.
Learn more about how British Telecom is using Amazon Q to enhance developer productivity.
Come see me June 3-4 in Windsor, England at Telecom TV's DSP Leaders World Forum. I'll be on Tuesday's panel, Leveraging AI throughout the network, and hosting a garden party that night!
Ready for a movie night? Try this homemade popcorn recipe.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, a 2024 and 2025 Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
Dr. Ishwar Parulkar is the Chief Technologist for Telecom and Edge Cloud at Amazon Web Services. In this role he is responsible for setting AWS technology strategy, defining new cloud services and leading initiatives to enable AWS’ edge cloud offerings and next generation telecom networks and services. Prior to AWS, Dr. Parulkar was a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco and Chief Architect for business units responsible for telecom routing, mobile packet core, small cell and network orchestration products. He was a founding member of industry-wide initiatives around mobile edge computing and 5G and the conviction that cloud technology can transform the telecom field brought him to AWS in 2016. Before Cisco, Dr. Parulkar was a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems where he led the design data center computing infrastructure, including the first multi-core processor systems and first compute virtualization platforms in the industry. He started his career at Apple, where he worked on the Mac desktop/laptop product lines and on the Newton PDA technology, which had the seeds of the iPhone revolution.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

In today's rapidly evolving tech landscape, operators struggle with change because they are held back by their legacy systems and rigid processes. Bold transformation isn't just about upgrading networks or cutting costs—it requires fundamentally redesigning how the entire organization works. The future belongs to those with the courage to drive radical change — which is absolutely necessary in the age of AI and cloud.

For this episode, I'm talking with Mark Sanders, Chief Architect and Head of Autonomous Networks and AI Enablement at Telstra, about their composable architecture. Telstra is building on TM Forum's ODA to create a revolutionary framework that arranges telco knowledge into an ontology. We dive into how Telstra is leveraging a composable architecture to build an autonomous network, and using AI to create a future-ready organization.

Listen now to hear:

How Telstra's "Lego block" approach to technology architecture accelerates innovation [07:11];
The critical shift from automated processes to truly autonomous, outcome-driven systems [08:46];
Why developing a telco knowledge ontology is fundamental for effective AI reasoning [10:12];
The importance of bold leadership in driving transformative organizational change [14:39].

Links and Resources:

Read this interview with Mark Sanders on how Telstra is using composable network, cloud, IT, and data building blocks to underpin innovation and growth.
Check out this case study about Telstra's Reference Architecture powered by TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA)
Watch my talk, Avoid vendor lock-in with TM Forum Open APIs, that the telco industry dinosaurs demanded to be pulled down from TM Forum DTWS event in 2021. I guess Amdocs didn’t like being called out for not really supporting the Open APIs? Whatever I said worked: they’ve gone from 1 API supported to 35! Told you it wasn’t a technical reason they didn’t do it…
Learn more about Totogi’s BSS Magic and use our ontology to create your digital twin. Start modeling your processes and apply AI to reduce cost, reduce friction, and increase revenue. Tier 1 telcos are already trying it out.
Meet with Totogi at TM Forums DTW Ignite, June 17-19, in Copenhagen. Stop by our Catalyst project (C25.0.836) in the Autonomous Networks Innovation Zone, Kiosk #14, and see how we’re working with Infosys and CloudBlue. The Catalyst demonstrates AI-led simplification of telco service ordering using CAMARA, TMF, and MEF APIs.
Mark is headed to Antarctica, a place most people will never go! Take a look at some of the amazing sites he might see.
Mark compares his composable architecture to Lego bricks. Check out this ASMR Lego stop motion cooking video that’s insanely satisfying to watch. If only BSS was this easy! Sound on for maximum enjoyment.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
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The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, a 2024 and 2025 Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
Mark is a transformational leader working in the intersection IT, Networks, Data and AI in telecommunications. Mark stands at the forefront of emerging technology for Telcos: Decoupled and composable architectures, Orchestration, APIs, AI, and Autonomous network services. Leading the innovation that will transform how Telco builds, activates, and lifecycle Services. As the Chief Architect, Mark assumes responsibility for developing comprehensive architecture strategies, and technology patterns across the enterprise and cross-domains at Telstra. In collaboration with Telco and Standards Development Organizations, he plays a pivotal role in shaping the industry and influencing Telco Architecture. Mark leads a team dedicated to providing enterprise-wide technology leadership. Their primary objectives include ensuring compliance with the Telstra Reference Architecture Model, minimizing technical debt, facilitating cross-domain decision-making, and contributing to optimal technology choices.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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In today's telco landscape, operators are struggling with legacy BSS systems that are highly customized, expensive, and impossible to change. Rather than continuing the traditional approach of swapping out systems (ouch) or simply adding AI to siloed applications, a more revolutionary solution is emerging—one that creates a digital twin of your entire telco business and applies AI across all systems simultaneously.

For this episode, I talk with Marc Breslow, Field CTO at Totogi. We're exploring how Totogi’s BSS Magic is helping telcos leverage AI without replacing their existing systems while delivering dramatic results in weeks, instead of months. Listen now to hear:

How BSS Magic functions as a telco-specific ontological layer, not a replacement BSS system [04:12];
Why siloed AI approaches fail when trying to solve problems that span multiple systems [05:00];
How an Asian telco dramatically reduced their enterprise sales process time with BSS Magic [09:07];
How the BSS Magic transforms notoriously difficult BSS migrations from a multi-year project to just a few months [12:40].

Links and Resources:

Watch my Gen AI Summit talk at MWC25 on Building an AI-first Telco
Read my blogs, The AI-first telco won't wait 5 years for Amdocs and How to suss out the fake agents at MWC25
Learn more about BSS Magic on the Totogi website to say goodbye to rigid, vendor-locked BSS applications
Check out these BSS Magic Demos on Totogi’s YouTube channel:
- Inventory AI Agent
- Enterprise Sales Agent Flow
- Competitive Product Design
- … and many more! Find more on the BSS Magic Demos playlist
Build your first AI Agent for free! Kick-start your transformation by working with our Forward Deployed Engineering team to customize AI agent, at no upfront cost
If BSS Magic is breaking down the boundaries between systems, imagine what’s happening with the boundaries between functional organizations. This article talks about how companies (and the humans in them) will change in the age of agentic AI.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
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The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award and Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Marc Breslow is Field CTO of Totogi, where he is leveraging AI to revolutionize the telecommunications industry. A veteran of Accenture, Lehman Brothers, and Citibank, Marc has a proven track record of building scalable, high-performance systems. At Totogi, he leads the development of AI-powered solutions that drive tangible results for telcos: reducing churn, increasing ARPU, and streamlining business processes. Marc is responsible for customer proof points demonstrating these capabilities. When not engaging with customers, Marc leads teams building Totogi’s BSS Magic technology, generating applications and improving efficiency using AI agents and workflows.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The energy demands of artificial intelligence are skyrocketing. AI workloads are doubling every few months, pushing data centers' energy consumption beyond the capabilities of our aging grid infrastructure. As these facilities approach gigawatt-level power needs—equivalent to powering entire cities—the energy question has become the critical bottleneck for AI's future growth.

In this episode, I'm talking with Roy Illsley, Chief Analyst at Omdia who specializes in cloud and data center technologies. We explore how the world’s biggest data center owners—Amazon, Google, and Microsoft—are responding to these challenges, from renewable energy investments to nuclear power, and what it means for the industry. Listen now to hear:

Why hyperscalers are looking to nuclear energy solutions to meet their massive power requirements [03:23];
How Europe's data sovereignty requirements are complicating AI development in power-constrained countries [05:40];
What opportunity telcos have with AI inferencing at the edge, and why they risk repeating past mistakes [09:20];
The crucial software capability gap that could determine who wins in the edge AI market [12:14].

Links and Resources:

Read Omdia’s latest reports on cloud and data centers technologies.
Watch NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote at GTC on their future rack power requirements.
Check out this press release on Oracle’s $5 billion UK investment in cloud infrastructure.
Learn more about Verizon’s AI edge computing initiatives.
Read about Microsoft's exploration of nuclear energy options, including the re-opening of Three Mile Island.
Take a look at Google and Amazon’s investment in small nuclear reactors.
Listen to the previous episodes I mentioned in my Takeaway:
- Ep 1 (Jim Abolt) It starts with…transformational leadership
- Ep 110 (Charles Fitzgerald) Hyperscaler CapEx is going nuclear
Homer Simpson's nuclear career takes an unexpected turn in "C.E.D'oh" when he accidentally becomes Springfield Nuclear Power Plant's CEO after impressing Mr. Burns with business jargon. His executive dreams melt down faster than uranium-235 when he discovers the job requires making tough decisions, sacrificing family time, and actually understanding nuclear physics. Guess the CEO job isn't for everyone!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
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The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award and Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Roy Illsley has over thirty-eight years of IT experience, working for a variety of consultancy and end-user companies with experience in the defence, utilities, automotive, retail, and Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industries. He works in the Cloud and Data Centre practice and is recognized as Omdia’s expert on Cloud, Virtualisation, and Management. He also has experience of Data Centre technologies, Quantum Computing, IT Service Management, and covers IT Strategy and Policy. His most recent reports include a series of five on the topic of edge computing, and two on the topic of sovereign cloud. In addition to the reports, he has produced white papers and carried out primary research for leading global organizations. He has delivered keynotes speeches and webinars. He has also presented at external trade events all over the world on a wide range of topics.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The telecom industry is adopting AI at break speed. Unlike past innovations that demanded risky network transformations and long timelines, AI-based innovation is accelerating experimentation without disrupting core networks.

For this episode, I sat down with Kevin Shatzkamer, corporate vice president of customer experience strategy and operations at Microsoft, to explore the power of agentic AI and why it represents such a transformative opportunity for telcos. Listen now to hear:

Why AI could be the fastest technology adoption in telecom history [03:37];
How AI agents reimagine processes instead of retrofitting existing workflows [08:16];
Ways Microsoft's telecom customers are putting agentic AI to work in their business [12:00]; and
How telcos are unifying their data for deeper insights [13:17].

Links and Resources

Take a look at Kevin’s LinkedIn post about how AI has the potential to be the fastest adopted technology in telecom history.
Read Anthropic’s guide on building effective agents.
Watch my talk from MWC25 on how to build an AI-first telco, and how operators need to tackle the legacy tech debt in their BSS estate to do it.
Check out my conversations with TelecomTV and Mobile World Live about how Totogi’s AI-first solutions are delivering real revenue growth to telcos TODAY.
Learn more about the North American operator that switched billing systems and saved big bucks with Totogi.
Read more about Microsoft’s tools for telcos:
- AutoGen
- Semantic Kernel
- Copilot Studio
- Fabric
- Azure AI Foundry
How to write a book with AI tweet thread
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award and Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
With more than two decades of software and operational experience, Kevin Shatzkamer has a record of driving transformation and innovation at scale to improve customer experiences. In his role as CVP of Customer Experience Strategy and Operations, he holds operational, technical, and customer responsibilities. His portfolio of work includes strategy and planning, market insights, business performance, learning and development technical enablement, compliance, and AI adoption within Customer Experience. He serves as an executive sponsor for new Azure commitments and other mission-critical engagements, as well as oversees onboarding and AI innovation across key customers.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

A few weeks ago I gave my FIFTH Mobile World Congress talk at the GSMA’s Gen AI Summit. More than 2,000 people RSVP’d for the event, and the room was packed with telco industry leaders eager to learn more about building an AI-first telco.

But the big problem they have to overcome is their mountain of tech debt from their legacy BSS systems. In my talk, I explained how AI can help operators leverage their existing BSS estate and use it to drive toward an AI-first future. I’ve turned my talk into this podcast. Listen now to learn:

The transformation that happens when intelligence moves above all your systems [04:19];
How BSS Magic launches new products and offerings in minutes instead of months [04.55];
Why having enterprise-wide intelligence, purpose-built for telecom, accelerates transformation [07:34]; and
How AI can breathe new life into legacy systems and turn technical debt into a strategic advantage [08:33].

Links and Resources

If you missed my live talk, check out the video version on our YouTube channel.
Learn more about BSS Magic and book a demo!
Read GenAI for BSS systems: Telcos on the cusp of a new era, a free-to-download white paper from Appledore Research, sponsored by Totogi.
Check out Totogi’s announcement about how we’re ending the era of billion-dollar BSS failures.
Watch all my MWC talks! Start with the talk that began it all, my 2021 MWC keynote, The Paradox of the Public Cloud, and then check out my:
- 2024 MWC MVNO Summit talk, Unveiling the AI-First Future of BSS
- 2023 MWC talk, SUPERCHARGE your MVNO with personalization
- 2022 MWC talk, The Public Cloud is NOW!
Watch my interview with Ray Le Maistre from TelecomTV about all the things Totogi did at MWC25.
The great thing about BSS Magic is you don’t have to swap off your current BSS systems to use it—it adds an AI layer above all of your existing systems to make them more powerful. It reminds me of this scene in “The Jerk” where Steve Martin doesn’t need anything… except this.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award and Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The Big Three hyperscalers each hit an all-time high in CapEx spending in 2024, collectively investing almost $200 billion. For this episode, I speak with Charles Fitzgerald, managing director at Platformonomics, whose annual "Follow the CAPEX" report tracks the cloud providers’ spending. He pulls back the curtain on what’s driving investments, how AI and nuclear power are coming into play, and whether telcos have what it takes to sell AI workload capacity at the edge. Listen now to hear:

What happened with hyperscaler CapEx spending in 2024 [02:49];
Insights into the Stargate project, which aims to boost AI infrastructure and know-how in the United States [7:17];
How the cloud providers are addressing AI’s energy needs, and the role nuclear power is poised to play [11:06]; and
Why telcos may want to think twice before betting on selling AI workload capacity at the edge [14:25].

Links and Resources

Read Charles Fitzgerald's 2024 retrospective on public cloud CAPEX spending and check out his Cloud Reactor Tracker.
Take a look at Charles' 2022 paper calling on big tech companies to champion nuclear energy.
Learn more about the hyperscalers’ nuclear energy plans.
REad about telcos’ aspirations to make money by selling AI infrastructure at the edge:
- Verizon execs hint at making money from AI infrastructure
- AT&T and Verizon are pivoting into the landlord biz for AI
This is Charles’ third time as a guest on Telco in 20. He’s working his way to our 5-Timers Club! Check out the first Saturday Night Live 5-Timers club inductee, Tom Hanks, who was ushered in by Paul Simon, Steve Martin, and other special guests.
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award and Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Charles Fitzgerald is a Seattle-based angel investor, with a focus on developer platforms and infrastructure. Previously, he spent 20+ years working on platform businesses at Microsoft and VMware. He can see the cloud from his house.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The telco industry is in the midst of a GenAI revolution, with vendors and operators racing to integrate this technology into their products and services. But with all the buzz around AI capabilities, how can telcos tell which solutions can deliver real business value, and which are just marketing hype?

For this episode, I sit down with John Abraham, principal analyst and leader of the digital enablement practice at Appledore Research. We dive into how operators can identify true AI innovation, trends in BSS, and how telcos can start to address vendor interoperability challenges. Listen now to hear:

The definition of agentic AI [04:50];
Questions to ask to determine which vendors have great AI product visions [07:52];
The huge problem vendor interoperability presents to telcos [11:06]; and
How Totogi solves the interoperability problem—and DR shares Totogi's AI vision for BSS [13:52].

Links and Resources

Read more about BSS Magic and set up a time to meet with Team Totogi at MWC25 to see it in action.
While you’re in Barcelona, be sure to catch my epic talk, “Building an AI-first telco,” at the Gen AI Summit in Hall 6 on Monday, March 3 … and don’t miss Totogi’s exclusive VIP party on March 5. DM me on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR for an invite.
Learn more about the North American operator that switched billing systems and saved big bucks with Totogi.
I’ve written a couple of awesome blogs that explain the massive problem around vendor interoperability and how AI is poised to help telcos break free. Check them out!:
- Amdocs is ruining your business to keep their empire. AI to the rescue!
- The AI-first telco won’t wait 5 years for Amdocs
Read the article from Sequoia Capital about the shift from Software-as-a-Service to Service-as-a-Software, which incorporates outcome-based pricing and marks an evolution in how software companies monetize their products.
Headed to Barcelona for MWC25? Be sure to reserve a table at John’s and my favorite restaurants, Michelin-starred Disfrutar and Atempo.
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award and Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

With over 16 years’ experience in the telecom industry, John Abraham is a principal analyst at Appledore Research and leads the digital enablement practice. Previously, he was at Analysys Mason for 11 years, where he led the Digital Experience research segment as Principal Analyst. He has experience working with a varied client base on topics including digitization benchmarking and procurement for CSPs; strategy and go-to market for vendors; and commercial and technical due diligence for financial institutions. Earlier, as a consultant at a BSS vendor, he led requirements gathering, solution definition, and implementation at multiple tier-1 telcos in Asia and Europe. John holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Anna University (India) and an MBA from Bradford University School of Management (UK).

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

TelecomTV’s DSP Leaders Council is a hand-picked group of ~100 industry experts (including moi) that weighs in regularly on the state of the telco industry. A recent survey of Council members on the topic of Digital Support Systems (DSS) revealed that operators are grappling with mixed feelings about AI, with some dragging their feet on AI adoption, and others racing toward an AI-driven future. Today, I’m talking about the survey findings with TelecomTV Editorial Director Ray LeMaitre. We dig into where telcos are making progress, what’s holding them back, and what needs to happen to spark industry-wide AI transformation. And you know with Ray—it’s not a conversation unless we talk about COFFEE! Listen now to hear:

The good news about operators and startup BSS solutions [4:40];
Why the habit of waiting to be "ready" for change might leave slow-moving telcos on the sidelines [8:20];
The shocking percentage of telcos that don’t see AI as essential to their future [10:24]; and
Plans for the DSP Leaders Council and survey topics going forward [13:49].

Links and Resources

Learn more about TelecomTV’s DSP Leaders Council and its DSP Leaders Reports.
Read my blog about the DSS report findings, 3 key takeaways from TelecomTV’s DSS report—one will surprise you.
When Ray and I first met, I compared myself to Daenerys Targaryen from the blockbuster TV series Game of Thrones, because let’s face it, sometimes you need to walk through fire to get stuff done in telco. Check out this scene when Daenerys becomes the mother of dragons (warning: explicit scenes, but it’s epic so I’m putting in the show notes anyway!).
If you’re like Ray and love dark-roasted, Latin American coffee, check out this video about the best way to brew it.
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award and Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Ray Le Maistre was appointed Editorial Director at TelecomTV in April 2020. He has been an editor and journalist covering the telecoms sector for 29 years, previously as Editor-in-Chief at Light Reading, where he worked for 18 years. He is based in the UK, owns too many flowery shirts, and will bore you to tears on the topics of films, football, and coffee if you give him half a chance.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

As artificial intelligence (AI) adoption accelerates across the telco industry, operators are grappling with a big challenge: how to empower employees with transformative AI tools while ensuring responsible use. For this episode, I’m talking with McKinsey & Company Partner Ferry Grijpink who leads the global consulting firm’s Center for Advanced Connectivity within the Technology, Media & Telecommunications Practice. As one of the authors of a recent report, Responsible AI: A Business Imperative for Telcos, he has ideas on how telcos can find the right balance between innovation and managing risk. Listen now to hear:

The definition of Responsible AI and how it comes into play for telcos [02:27];
How to balance responsible behavior with innovation [04:28];
Guidance on guardrails and policies that can encourage responsible use across your teams [08:58]; and
How organizations can track AI usage and cost [12:56].

Links and Resources

Read McKinsey & Company’s recent report, Responsible AI: A Business Imperative for Telcos
Find out more about McKinsey’s Center for Advanced Connectivity
Ferry has been a guest on Telco in 20 two other times. Check out these great episodes for more of his valuable insights:
- Episode 83: Monetizing Network APIs
- Episode 45: Drumming up ways to increase ARPU with McKinsey
Ferry is famous for his scarves, but they can be hard to style. Check out this video on all the ways to tie a scarf.
My trademark: my Golden Goose sneakers! Don’t judge me on the cost; I save money by not buying heels! 👠 I’m partial to the Mid-Star; with their wingtip styling in the front, they qualify as business wear. Check them outI
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award and Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Ferry Grijpink leads the McKinsey Center for Advanced Connectivity within McKinsey & Company’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications Practice, and advises telecommunications companies on strategy, marketing, and operations, including mobile operators that are launching adjacent businesses in areas such as mobile health and money services. He also co-leads McKinsey’s research on deploying and commercializing next-generation infrastructures, such as fiber, mobile broadband, and 5G networks.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The telecom industry got a jolt of excitement in December 2024 when Alianza, a nimble cloud communications company, swooped in to buy Metaswitch from Microsoft. The deal promises to breathe new life into Metaswitch's legacy soft-switch technology while giving telcos a clear path to cloud modernization. For this episode, I’m talking with Brian Beutler, founder and CEO of Alianza, about why Alianza made this bold move and what’s next for Metaswitch customers. Listen now to hear:

Three reasons why Alianza pursued the MetaSwitch acquisition [03:00];
How it plans to create stability for customers and let them define their own cloud journey [05:13];
How the company plans to manage 5x growth [09:05]; and
The role AI will play in Alianza’s expanding portfolio [12:24].

Links and Resources

Check out Alianza’s announcement about its deal to buy Metaswitch from Microsoft.
Read more about the acquisition:
- Fierce Network Exclusive: Alianza buys Metaswitch from Microsoft in deal years in the making
- Fierce Network Op-Ed: Alianza resurrects Metaswitch from Microsoft grave
- Telecoms.com: Microsoft sells Metaswitch to Alianza
- Light Reading: Alianza buys Metaswitch from Microsoft
- UC Today: Telco 4.0 – Alianza’s Ambitious Deal Could Reshape the Market
Visit theAlianza website to learn more about the company.
Listen to my Telco in 20 conversation with Brian from March 2024, Ep 87 - scaling telcos’ cloud mountain with Alianza.
As with any acquisition being merged into a startup, there are going to be a lot of decisions Brian will have to make with the newly acquired company. A handy (and classic!) book I’d recommend reading is The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen. Brian will have a large Metaswitch customer base to support that’s still on legacy, old-school tech while he’s simultaneously investing in new tech with the Alianza product. It won’t be easy!
Ready to see how AI and the public cloud can transform your telco? Give Totogi a call!
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
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The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award and Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Brian Beutler is the founder and CEO of Alianza, the leading cloud communications platform for telco service providers. He is passionate about transforming the telecommunications industry by empowering service providers to deliver modernized, cloud-native core communications solutions to supercharge growth, simplify operations and reduce costs. Under Beutler’s leadership, Utah-based Alianza has forged a strategic collaboration agreement with AWS and counts Lumen Technologies, Brightspeed, Viasat and Xplore among its tier-one and nationwide customers.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business

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Most telcos use only a small portion of their available network capacity on an average day, but what if telcos could turn this underutilized asset into a new revenue stream? For this episode, I talk with Chris Penrose, NVIDIA’s global vice president of business development for telco, about how the company’s AI-RAN concept is poised to help telcos build efficiency and boost the bottom line. Listen now to hear:

The goals of NVIDIA’s collaboration on the AI-RAN Alliance [04:25];
The astonishing results of a NVIDIA-SoftBank AI-RAN field trial—including estimated profit margins of 220% for every AI-RAN server added [06:26];
The company’s efforts to build a sovereign, foundational LLM for Indonesia [12:12]; and
How other telcos can start to cash in on their unused network capacity and AI’s potential [14:42].

Links and Resources

Read about how NVIDIA and SoftBank designed the world's first combined AI and 5G network that runs telecom and AI workloads simultaneously.
NVIDIA also launched a major initiative in Indonesia to develop sovereign AI capabilities tailored for the nation’s 277 million Indonesian speakers.
Learn more about the AI-RAN Alliance, a collaboration by NVIDIA and other tech, industry, and academic institutions that aims to use AI to advance RAN technology and mobile networks.
Ready to see how AI and the public cloud can transform your telco? Give Totogi a call!
Chris and I both love the Texas food scene, so we were thrilled when the MICHELIN Guide started ranking restaurants in our home state recently. But right out of the gate, it made a HUGE miss by leaving Uchi in Austin off the list. No other place comes close! Chris also has two top dining picks in Dallas: Town Hearth and Gemma, which was a MICHELIN Guide Bib Gourmand pick for 2024.
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award and Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Chris Penrose works across the telco ecosystem to drive the growth of NVIDIA’s hardware and software solutions around the world. He helps to create telco-specific offerings that leverage AI/ML, Gen AI, 5G/6G, edge/cloud computing, and advanced networking. He also works with telcos to create sovereign GenAI factories for their nations. Prior to joining NVIDIA, as the COO of FogHorn, Chris led the go-to-market efforts across business development, technical sales, strategic partnerships, third-party distribution, marketing, advertising and public relations globally.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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I recently sat down with Jillian Forde on “The Official AWS Podcast” to talk about how Totogi’s AWS-first charging-as-a-service solution helped restore mobile connectivity to 23 million subscribers in Sudan during a crisis. For this episode, I’m bringing a condensed version of our conversation to listeners to spread the word on how having a cloud-native solution can mean the difference between complete service disruption and business continuity. Listen now to hear:

How Totogi's AWS-first architecture helped us restore mobile connectivity in 18 days [03:32];
Why choosing AWS services like DynamoDB and Lambda over cloud-agnostic solutions was crucial for our success [07:56];
How the public cloud transforms disaster recovery from an expensive, rarely-tested backup into an efficient, cost-effective solution [13:39]; and
Why regulated industries need to embrace public cloud now to take advantage of generative AI and stay competitive [16:19].

Links and Resources

Check out the original, uncut version of my conversation with Jillian Forde on The Official AWS Podcast.
Learn more about how Totogi Charging-as-a-Service can help you to eliminate your charger’s unused disaster recovery set up to quickly failover when you need it, only paying for what you use.
Check out our case study on our work with Zain Sudan.
I also talked about our remarkable work in Sudan with Ali Hussein Kassim, host of Ali Talks Tech in episode 95. Give it a listen!
Buy Totogi’s Charging-as-a-Service on the AWS Marketplace. Start at $0.01 per month!
One of my favorite movies about attending a business conference is “Cedar Rapids,” about naive insurance agent Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) who has never stayed in a hotel, never flown in a plane, and has never left his tiny Wisconsin hometown. Tim meets three veteran attendees (John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Isiah Whitlock Jr.), who coerce him into a life-altering weekend of wild times and sweet temptation. It’s hilariously awesome!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the transcript for the episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to transform telco, but many operators are struggling to fully embrace its potential. This episode’s guest, strategic HR veteran Jim Abolt, believes they need a critical shift in thinking to reach their goal to become AI-first organizations. He shares insight into what most companies are getting wrong about AI transformation, and offers a practical framework for using AI to achieve breakthrough business results. Listen now to hear:

Why starting with "let's go do AI" is the wrong approach [04:34];
A framework for successfully rolling out AI across your organization [06:59]
Jim's refreshingly honest take on AI's impact on jobs [10:07]
Why AI tools have to become integrated with employees' daily work rather than separate initiatives [14:07]

Links and Resources

Need help with telco AI use cases that drive business value? Give Totogi a call. We can show you how to Change the Work and get your employees using and loving AI.
Check out these resources to help you put AI to use the right way in your org:
- Ep 101 – Anthropic’s BIG PLANS for telco
- Ep 96 – How TELUS turned its data swamp into an AI oasis
- If you focus on business value, AI pays for itself
- Getting AI right is hard 🚀
- 10 examples of how telcos are using AI (BESIDES customer support!)
Jim has appeared on Telco in 20 more than any other guest, including on our very first episode back in October of 2020. Maybe I should start a Five Timer’s Club, like on Saturday Night Live! Listen to his other episodes next:
- Ep 7 – The HR Series: Telcos, get ready for workforce transformation
- Ep 1 – It starts with…transformational leadership
I love this brilliant ad from Fiverr that shows exactly what’s wrong with using AI only for AI’s sake.
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We've also won a 2024 MarComm Award, 2024 Hermes Award, and are recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Jim Abolt is a retired HR executive who is widely regarded as an expert in leadership development, culture shaping, and large-scale organizational change. His career spanned multiple industries, disciplines, and continents. Starting as a labor relations specialist in a Midwest steel mill, he ultimately held global senior management positions with leading companies in the consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical, and software development industries. Jim holds an A.B. from Dartmouth College, and a J.D. and M.A. from the University of Illinois.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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A recent Infosys report found that telcos use only 48% of the cloud services they commit to. Fortunately, the Big 3 hyperscalers offer significant discounts to enterprises that commit to spending targets, helping operators reel in cloud costs. A great example is Amazon Web Service’s (AWS) Enterprise Discount Program (EDP). But many telcos leave millions on the table by not using the right strategies and tools to capture these savings.

For this episode, I talk with Brandon Pizzacalla, CEO of CloudFix, to talk about how operators can maximize the benefits they get from AWS’s Enterprise Discount Program (EDP). Listen now to hear:

The biggest mistakes enterprises make when negotiating EDP with AWS [02:55];
Why ignoring "long-tail" expenses leaves millions on the table [06:25];
How CloudFix uses AI to uncover hidden optimization opportunities [08:40]; and
Innovative ways to get your team to invest in cost optimization strategies [11:07].

Links and Resources

Learn more about CloudFix.
Read this case study about how a company that spends $50 million per year with AWS saved ~$28 million over three years with CloudFix.
Don’t forget to check out the exclusive TelcoDR/CloudFix partnership that can save you even MORE money.
Read more about AWS’s Enterprise Discount Program, and similar offerings from Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Brandon’s favorite pizza crust is stuffed crust. If you don’t know, this type of crust is usually stuffed with cheese. Confession: I’ve never actually tried a stuffed crust; now there are all sorts of different varieties ranging from “grilled cheese” to “pepperoni stuffed” to “hot dog stuffed” (EW!). It was first introduced to the world in March 1995 by none other than Donald Trump.
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. We’re also ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Now! 🎉

If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Brandon Pizzacalla, CEO of CloudFix, has a robust history of building and scaling SaaS companies, driving innovation, and delivering impactful results.Before taking the helm at CloudFix, he co-founded and led an AI-driven sales engagement platform, guiding the company to $3.5 million ARR, listing notable firms like Xero and HelloFresh as clients. He exited the business in 2023 shortly after it was acquired by a private equity firm. Brandon brings valuable mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and corporate strategy experience to CloudFix from his tenure at Bell Canada. During his time there, he was involved in transactions totaling over $9 billion.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming industries at breakneck speed, with new capabilities emerging almost daily. As telcos race to harness its potential, questions around ethical use, safety, and practical implementation loom large.

In this episode, I dive deep into the world of AI with Neerav Kingsland, head of business development at Anthropic, makers of the AI model Claude. The company is known for its use of "constitutional AI”—an approach that builds ethical guardrails into its AI systems. Listen now to hear:

Why Anthropic's approach is centered on ethical AI behavior [04:04];
The company’s work with SK Telecom to create an “AI-first” telco [09:45];
The potential for AI to dramatically improve personalized marketing [12:03]; and
Just how powerful AI models will become in the next few years [14:11].

Links and Resources

Learn more about Anthropic and its use of constitutional AI.
Read more about the company’s $100 million deal with SK Telecom.
Watch how SK Telecom plans to become an “AI-first telco”.
Check out the GSMA’s Responsible AI Maturity Roadmap, which is designed to help operators evaluate and enhance their AI practices.
Learn more about Amazon Bedrock.
Find out how Totogi’s BSS Magic and PlanAI can help you turbocharge personalized marketing.
I write a lot about AI and telco. Check out these blogs to help you put AI to use in your org:
- Getting AI right is hard 🚀
- If you focus on business value, AI pays for itself
- 10 examples of how telcos are using AI (BESIDES customer support!)
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Neerav Kingsland is the head of business development at Anthropic. Prior to Anthropic, he was an executive coach to founders working on AI safety. Before working in AI, Neerav was the Managing Partner of City Fund, a national philanthropic organization backed by Reed Hasting, Steve Ballmer, and John Arnold. City Fund was created to scale the strategies that helped transform New Orleans public schools after Hurricane Katrina, where Neerav was a key leader. He is a graduate of Tulane University and Yale Law School.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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This podcast has hit a major milestone—the 100th episode! Can you believe it?

We've talked cloud, crushed myths, and pushed boundaries for 100 straight. But we're just getting started. I’ve dropped an episode every two weeks over the last four years, and during that time I've witnessed a dramatic shift in telcos’ attitude towards public cloud adoption. This special episode revisits key moments on the journey that highlight just how far we've come. Let’s celebrate the progress we've made together! Listen now to hear:

How sentiment about the public cloud has moved from deeply skeptical to optimistic [02:59];
The groundbreaking moves made by major telcos like DISH, AT&T and Telefónica Germany [08:48];
Why moving network workloads may be the key to true public cloud transformation [13:29]
How Totogi deployed a cloud-based charging system for a tier-one telco in crisis—in just 18 days! [14:16]

Be sure to listen to the end for the super funny DR BLOOPER REEL!

Links and Resources

Here’s the talk that started it all—my MWC21 keynote, The paradox of the public cloud, and check out the highlight reel from our time in Barcelona, including a tour of our mind-blowing CLOUD CITY.
Check out all the Telco in 20 podcasts featured in this episode with these amazing guests:
- Ep 1 – It starts with…transformational leadership with strategic HR leader Jim Abolt
- Ep 92 – The state of cloud in telco with Iain Morris from Light Reading with International Editor Iain Morris
- Ep 45 – Drumming up ways to increase ARPU with McKinsey with McKinsey & Company Partner Ferry Grijpink
- Ep 44 – DISH: The Telco Pioneer with DISH Wireless Chief Network Officer Marc Rouanne
- Ep 76 – Into the Nexus of GenAI with Microsoft with Microsoft Chief Technology Officer for Worldwide Telecommunications Industry Rick Lievano
- Ep 87 – Scaling telcos’ cloud mountain with Alianza with Alianza Founder and CEO Brian Beutler
- Ep 93 – The NETWORK will be the reason telcos move to the public cloud with senior telecom executive and transformation leader Juha Korhonen
- Ep 95 – African telcos: forge a new path! with entrepreneur, commentator, and host of the Ali Talks Tech podcast Ali Hussein Kassim
Ericsson bailing on #MWC21 was a big mistake (HUGE!) that I pounced on—just like in Pretty Woman. Amazing how a little bit of money can really change your look.
While a lot of telcos are still ramping up their efforts to get to the public cloud, my buddy Elon Musk has his sights set on Mars and plans to get there in just two years! Check out this Starship launch, the fourth flight test attempting to go farther than any previous one.
Are you still here??? In the famous words of Ferris Bueller, GO HOME! IT’S OVER!
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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TM Forum's Open Digital Architecture (ODA) and open APIs are aimed at revolutionizing telco BSS/OSS systems, and with successful adoption, they promise to enhance vendor interoperability. But implementing them comes with significant challenges for operators and vendors alike.

In this episode, I sit down with Caroline Chappell, founder and director of ccsquared and a former partner at Analysys Mason. We dive into the history and goals of ODA and open APIs, explore the real-world challenges operators face in putting them to work, and discuss why the data layer is crucial for true vendor interoperability. Listen now to hear:

How ODA aims to help operators build systems from best-of-breed components, and what challenges stand in the way [04:17];
Why the data layer is even more critical than standardized APIs for telecom operations [09:03];
Why procurement practices need to change to truly support innovation in the industry [13:32]; and
The disruptive power that combining LLMs and ODA can bring to telco BSS [14:50].

Links and Resources

Learn more about TM Forum’s ODA and open API initiatives.
Check out my interview with Ray LeMaistre from TelecomTV about harmonizing data structures and Totogi’s deployment at Zain Sudan, where our cloud-based charger replaced an incumbent system in just 18 days.
Watch my epic MWC24 MVNO Summit talk about BSS Magic and the AI-first future of telco business support systems.
Download this case study about how Vodafone saved nearly 70% by moving its analytics to the public cloud.
We're counting down to the 100th episode of Telco in 20 and celebrating with a special episode dropping October 1. Don’t miss it—like and follow today!
I love watching Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) videos of power washing courtyards, trimming overgrown lawns, and cleaning hoarders’ homes. What’s wrong with me?
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Caroline Chappell is a leading expert in the application of new software technologies – cloud, open APIs and AI – to telecoms networks and their operations. She has over 35 years of industry experience as a software engineer, research analyst and consultant. She is an influential advocate for the cloudification of the network and its evolution as a platform, the capabilities of which can be consumed as a service. Caroline was most recently a partner at Analysys Mason but has founded ccsquared to investigate the new and disruptive network architecture needed for tomorrow’s AI and extended reality-driven world.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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In 2007, Safaricom PLC (Safaricom) and Vodafone invented M-PESA, a mobile payment system that has transformed financial services in Kenya and beyond by bringing banking capabilities to unbanked populations. M-PESA has become a cornerstone of the Kenyan economy and helped Safaricom build a reputation for innovation.

In this episode, I'm talking with Fawzia Ali, chief consumer business officer at Safaricom. We discuss the success of M-PESA, the company’s efforts to use AI and machine learning for continued innovation, and how it’s preparing its workforce for an AI-driven future. Listen now to hear:

How M-PESA simplicity and wide distribution changed the game for unbanked populations [02:12];
How Safaricom is using AI and ML to create hyper-personalized plans [06:52];
The power of starting with small cohorts of customers and iterating quickly [09:45]; and
How Safaricom is boosting employees’ AI know-how and fostering a culture of AI innovation [13:00].

Links and Resources

In 2015, American television news show 60 Minutes told the story of M-PESA’s success, and in June of this year, Forbes continued the story with the article, M-PESA: Why the world’s first large mobile payment platform keeps on winning.
Earlier this year, Fawzia wrote an article for Marketing Africa Magazine called Learn, Unlearn, Relearn about the importance of setting personal and professional goals and learning new skills. Look for it on page 8.
Ready to unlock the power of your data and supercharge your customer experience? Listen to my MWC23 MVNO Summit Talk, SUPERCHARGE your MVNO with personalization where I talk about how you can use ML and hyperpersonalization to drive new revenue.
Fawzia and I both have a special relationship with shoes, and she’s even talked about her passion for them in this video from Engage+.
My go-to shoes are Golden Goose mid-stars: They have wingtip styling like a man’s business shoe. They’re my “business sneaker.”
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Fawzia Ali is a transformational commercial leader in the FMCG and telecommunications sectors, currently serving as the chief consumer business officer at Safaricom PLC, a leading technology company in Africa. With an impressive track record of success and a deep understanding of the ever-evolving consumer landscape, Fawzia plays a pivotal role in shaping Safaricom's customer-centric strategy and driving the company's growth in the competitive technology sector. She leads a diverse and talented team focused on creating value for Safaricom's customers.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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The telco industry is in the midst of a generative AI (GenAI) revolution, with vendors and operators racing to integrate this technology into their products and services. In this episode, I sit down with John Abraham, principal analyst and leader of the digital enablement practice at Appledore Research. We dive into how vendors are applying GenAI to their products, major trends in BSS, how the costs of implementing AI can be justified by real business results, and more. Listen now to hear:

The biggest trends in BSS that are driving telco transformation [02:34];
How vendors are trying to use AI to revolutionize their products [05:32];
Why using AI for code generation is such a big idea [07:53]; and
AI pricing strategies and questions operators need to ask about ROI [12:44].

Links and Resources

John and I sat down at TM Forum’s DTW Ignite to talk about how Totogi is using GenAI to save telcos huge amounts of time and money with their BSS. Watch a video of our conversation.
The real power of generative AI is code generation. Read my blog, The promise of AI is no UI, to find out how Totogi is using AI to accelerate change in ANY BSS system.
Check out these Appledore Research reports (paywalled):
- GenAI in BSS
- Predictive Analytics and GenAI: Choosing the right tool for the job
Learn more about Appledore Research.
Do YOU have a Yeti yet? John LOVED the insulated mug we gave him at MWC. The wonderful drinkware can keep anything cold or hot for HOURS. This Austin-based company is right down the street from my house. Check it out!
Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the episode transcript here.

Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
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The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

With over 16 years’ experience in the telecom industry, John Abraham is a principal analyst at Appledore Research and leads the digital enablement practice. Previously, he was at Analysys Mason for 11 years, where he led the Digital Experience research segment as Principal Analyst. He has experience working with a varied client base on topics including digitization benchmarking and procurement for CSPs; strategy and go-to market for vendors; and commercial and technical due diligence for financial institutions. Earlier, as a consultant at a BSS vendor, he led requirements gathering, solution definition, and implementation at multiple tier-1 telcos in Asia and Europe. John holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Anna University (India) and an MBA from Bradford University School of Management (UK).

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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From streamlining network operations to boosting customer experiences, artificial intelligence (AI) is helping trailblazing telcos stay competitive in a rapidly changing landscape.

For this episode, I explore Canadian telco TELUS’ AI transformation with its Chief Insights Officer, Jaime Tatis. We talk about how the operator is already using AI to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and get its workforce ready for the future. Listen now to hear:

How TELUS's AI-driven Fuel iX platform is transforming internal IT support [03:53];
Why now may not be the time to build telco-specific LLMs [07:29];
Why clean, well-organized data is crucial for AI success [09:32]; and
How TELUS uses AI to boost network technician efficiency and more [12:50].

Links and Resources

Learn more about TELUS and its Fuel iX project.
TELUS was savvy enough to realize that messy siloed data would weigh down its cloud transformation. Read more about how it worked with Google Cloud and Accenture to get its data future-ready.
In October 2023, TELUS became the world's first company to achieve ISO 31700-1 Privacy by Design certification for its Data for Good program, validating its commitment to responsible data.
Need some inspiration for ways to put AI to work in your telco? Read my blog, 10 examples of how telcos are using AI (BESIDES customer support!).
Check out one of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits of all time, Jimmy Fallon playing Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy, because NO ONE wants to talk to the IT guy.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the transcript for the episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Jaime Tatis, the Chief Insights & Analytics Officer at TELUS, spearheads the evolution of data, AI, and analytics strategy across the TELUS ecosystem. With a keen focus on fostering a culture of innovation, Jaime drives the company's transformation towards pioneering customer technology solutions. Leveraging data-driven insights and cutting-edge cloud-based infrastructure, Jaime empowers TELUS with state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning capabilities. Through this strategic approach, Jaime elevates business performance, enhances operational efficiency, and delivers unparalleled customer experiences, positioning TELUS at the forefront of technological innovation.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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It's no secret that telcos across the globe are grappling with how to monetize their 5G networks. But in Africa, only 1% of operators have implemented 5G, which puts them in a unique position to take advantage of new technology like AI and the public cloud, and apply them to old 2G and 3G networks.

I recently appeared as a guest on the Ali Talks Tech podcast, which focuses on Africa's changing technical landscape. Host Ali Hussein Kassim and I explored how African telcos can capitalize on using the public cloud with mobile networks and how AI and innovative tools are poised to drive real change across the continent. Listen now to hear:

How African telcos can benefit from the latest public cloud tech—even on 2G and 3G networks [02:31];
Zain Sudan’s groundbreaking work to connect older networks to AI and cloud services [11:02];
How cloud-based, pay-as-you-grow models are supercharging MVNOs in Nigeria [17:32]; and
How hyperscaler tools, AI and the public cloud can help telcos hyper-personalize offers and bring in new revenue [19:50].

Links and Resources

Show Notes:

Watch the video-version of my full conversation with Ali on the Ali Talks Tech YouTube channel.
Read McKinsey & Company’s January 2024 report, Africa’s leap ahead into cloud: Opportunities and barriers
Read the announcement of Totogi’s exciting partnership with Zain Sudan, and don’t miss my first conversation with Ali and Abdalla Hamid, Director of IT at Zain Sudan, where we talked about Totogi’s work to restore critical mobile services in Sudan after they were knocked out during the ongoing civil war.
Then be sure to check out my recent blog and Telco in 20 episode 89 to find out why the public cloud is PERFECT for Africa.
Take a look at the 2022 McKinsey & Company study about FinTech across Africa, African financial services are undergoing a structural shift, which Ali took part in.
Ali and I talked about the company that gave me my start back in the late 1990s, Trilogy. It was a $1B startup success story that garnered a lot of headlines at the time. Fast Company wrote about Trilogy in a piece called Insanity Inc. Here’s the cover from that issue. Look for me in the top right corner!
In 2015, the American news show 60 Minutes aired The Future of Money about M-PESA, Kenya's mobile money solution from Safaricom.
Check out the Ali Talks Tech podcast for insights on Africa's rapidly changing tech landscape.
Listen to this episode on our YouTube channel.
Read the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Ali Hussein Kassim, Ali Talks Tech founder and host

Ali is a serial entrepreneur and a regular commentator and contributor on all things tech and the policy and regulatory landscape across Africa and beyond. He consults on digital transformation, and serves in leadership roles on public and private sector boards including Africa Fintech Network, Association of Fintechs in Kenya, and Kenya ICT Action Network. He enjoys mentoring and investing in tech entrepreneurs across Africa.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Singtel is a leading mobile network operator (MNO) in the Asia-Pacific region with a reputation for innovation. Its pioneering culture is one of the reasons why Anna Yip, the operator’s CEO of business development and deputy CEO for Singapore, is constantly on the lookout for creative ways to build new revenue streams, customer satisfaction, and subscriber loyalty.

Anna recently toured the United States to scope out happenings in the industry, and we caught up for an in-person conversation in… (wait for it)… New York City! Listen now to hear:

How Singtel is leveraging its 5G Standalone network to boost revenue [03:45];
Why it’s taking part in a Global Telco AI Alliance with other operators to develop an industry-specific large language model (LLM) [08:55];
Its plans for a pioneering cross-border rewards program in partnership with seven other telcos, [11:23]; and
What telcos can learn from Taylor Swift's incredible work ethic and success [14:49].

Links and Resources

Learn more about Singtel.
Read about the Global Telco AI Alliance announced at MWC24. Singtel, Deutsche Telekom, e& Group, SoftBank and SK Telecom have joined forces to develop an industry-specific LLM. The operators shared their vision for the project at last week’s DTW24 - Ignite.
Singtel is also collaborating with other AsiaPac telcos on a cross-border telco rewards programme that offer perks to globe-trotting customers.
Check out Anna’s LinkedIn post from the opening night of Taylor Swift’s concerts in Singapore. (Seamless photo sharing compliments of the Singtel 5G Express Pass!)
Then check out my post on Instagram from Taylor’s concert in Houston, Texas. The Reputation album was calling my name!
You can find the transcript for the episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Anna Yip is a senior business leader with more than a decade of experience leading and scaling business in the technology sector. She has built a track record of driving 'intrapreneurship' and successfully building new businesses across markets. A committed people leader, Anna is passionate about mentoring young talent and supporting more women in tech.

Currently, Anna serves as the Deputy CEO Singapore and CEO of Business Development for Singtel. Under her leadership, Singtel Singapore became one of the first markets to successfully roll out 5G SA nationwide, with robust migration of customers to the latest mobile technology. Singtel continues to play an instrumental role in empowering people-centric digital lifestyles as Singapore advances as a smart nation. She has also been appointed a Board of Commissioner member of Telkomsel in Indonesia since June 1, 2021.

Before joining Singtel, Anna was the CEO and Executive Director of Smartone, a leading telecommunications company headquartered in Hong Kong. Prior to her role at Smartone, Anna headed up Mastercard's operations in Hong Kong and Macau. Anna holds a DPhil (PhD) from University of Oxford and a First-Class Honours degree in Business Administration from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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It's hard to believe it's been three years since CLOUD CITY stole the show at MWC 2021 and I boldly proclaimed the dawn of the public cloud era in telecom. It’s amazing how far the industry has come in its public cloud journey since then.

Juha Korhonen, a forward-thinking telco transformation leader, recognized the potential of the public cloud back then. At the time he was the head of innovation and digital services at Zain Group, where he was instrumental in launching Yaqoot, a digital mobile brand in Saudi Arabia. Since then, he has done a tour at Gartner as a senior advisor in BSS. I’ve invited Juha back to talk about where CSPs are today, how BSS and OSS are evolving, and the transformative power of AI across telco operations. Listen now to hear:

Telcos’ public cloud adoption trends across the globe [01:48];
Signs that telecoms are growing more comfortable using the public cloud [04:31], and even ready to think about moving network workloads [08:40];
The need for BSS and OSS to converge to deliver 5G monetization opportunities [11:07]; and
How AI can solve some of the industry's biggest challenges [13:44].

Links and Resources

Read more about Microsoft and AT&T’s deal to move AT&T’s 5G core network to Azure’s cloud platform, with Microsoft acquiring AT&T's Network Cloud tech and talent.
Check out this article by The Mobile Network’s Keith Dyer about O2 Telefonica Germany saying goodbye to traditional telco infrastructure and "Guten Tag" to the public cloud.

Here’s an article from NVIDIA highlighting how underutilized RAN resources can be. It notes that they typically operate below 50% capacity due to provisioning for peak traffic.

Listen to Telco in 20 episode 68, giffgaff is 1,000 times faster with AWS, to hear how the MVNO went all-in on the public cloud and used spot instances to reel in cloud costs.

Check out my conversation with DISH Network’s CTO Marc Rouanne about the company’s rollout of a cloud-native 5G network.
Read my blog about how telcos can unlock the true value of their BSS with AI.
Listen to Juha’s 2021 Telco in 20 episode, Ep 18 – A digital telco: Meet Yaqoot.
Watch my crazy first (!) keynote at MWC 2021—I was so nervous! But it was SO good - Ride that public cloud (and now AI!) dragon!
Remember CLOUD CITY and that EPIC Bon Jovi concert? I’ll never forget it.
Check out my backstage picture with Bon Jovi. And here’s one of Bon Jovi and Juha—what a day!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the transcript for the episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring. Or better yet, come find me at TM Forum’s DTW-Ignite in Copenhagen on June 18 - 20. Send me a DM on Linkedin or X @TelcoDR and we can set up a time to meet. Team Totogi will be in the AWS stand as a Featured Partner, so stop by to catch a demo of Totogi’s BSS Magic.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Juha Korhonen is a telecom industry veteran. In his 25+ years of industry experience, Juha has held C-level roles, including group director of digital and innovation with Zain Group as well as chief commercial officer for Zain Saudi Arabia and Wataniya Telecom in Kuwait. Lately, Juha worked as senior director, advisor at Gartner. Juha started his career in Europe with Telecom Finland and moved to the US to lead its mobile startup Zed. He has led reimagine and reinvention efforts at traditional operators. He built, launched, and operated a fully digital operator B-Brand called Yaqoot in 2020. Juha lives in the state of New Jersey in the USA, and he is married with three children.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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I've spent the last four years championing the game-changing benefits of the public cloud for telcos, from cost savings to faster innovation. While some operators are embracing the cloud (like the O2 Telefonica Germany deal that was announced last week to run their 5G network 100% on AWS), others are doubling down on building their own private cloud—but all signs point to a turning tide.

To get an honest take on where telcos stand, I’m talking with Iain Morris, international editor at Light Reading. He connects regularly with the industry’s top leaders to talk about their strategic priorities and technology plans, and writes regularly about where telcos are on their cloud journeys. Listen now to hear:

How telcos' perspectives on the public cloud have shifted since 2018 [03:50];
Where the line is for moving network workloads to the public cloud [08:39];
How DISH Network, AT&T and e& are moving things forward by jumping on the public cloud train [10:00]; and
How generative AI is influencing telcos’ interest in the public cloud [14:30].

Links and Resources

Read my blog, Telco’s shift to the public cloud gets real, about O2 Telefónica Germany and other telcos that are making big cloud moves.
Read O2 Telefónica’s recent announcement about launching a new 5G core network built entirely in the cloud.
Check out some of Iain’s articles in Light Reading:
- Telefónica Germany turns to AWS, Nokia in cloud core threat to Ericsson (5/14/24)
- The public cloud has failed to crack telecom (1/19/24)
- Telco cloudification poses a huge systemic risk (10/13/23)
Read what Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has to say about Bedrock in his 2023 Letter to Shareholders
Listen to my 2021 conversation with Iain and his podcast co-host Scott Bicheno in Telco in 20 episode 27, Talking public cloud with Telecoms.com.
Read AT&T’s June 2021 announcement about moving its 5G mobile network to Microsoft Cloud.
Check out this February 2023 article from Fierce Network’s Linda Hardesty about Microsoft reworking 5G core software from AT&T for sale to other carriers.
Iain’s son is a proud member of the University of Denver’s men’s tennis team. Read about their awesome 2024 season.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring. Or better yet, come find me at TM Forum’s DTW-Ignite in Copenhagen on June 18 - 20. Send me a DM on Linkedin or X @TelcoDR and we can set up a time to meet. Team Totogi will be in the AWS stand as a Featured Partner, so stop by to catch a demo of Totogi’s BSS Magic.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2024 and 2022 Hermes Awards, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Iain Morris is the International Editor at Light Reading, having joined the team as News Editor at the start of 2015. Prior to boosting Light Reading's UK-based editorial team numbers, he was a successful freelance writer and editor covering the telecom sector for 15 years. His work has appeared in The Economist and The Observer, and a variety of trade and business journals. He was previously the lead telecom analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, and before that worked as features editor at Telecommunications magazine. Iain started in telecom as an editor at consulting and market-research company Analysys (now Analysys Mason).

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Microsoft has been quick to pick up the GenAI reins, making huge investments in OpenAI and strategic acquisitions like Inflection AI. Now, the hyperscaler wants to help telcos bring AI into their organizations in meaningful ways.

For this episode, I spoke with Jason Hogg, GM for AIOps within Azure for Operators, about where telcos are on their AI journey, how Microsoft is helping them prepare data for AI workloads, and how CSPs can steer their organizations to make the most of the AI revolution. Listen now to hear:

How Microsoft is helping telcos manage siloed data to support AI, both in the cloud and at the edge [03:21];
How AI tools like Azure OpenAI and Azure Operator Insights are being used in operations, fraud detection, and more [05:20];
The importance of moving beyond AI experimentation to putting AI models to work in the business [09:22]; and
Why telcos need to redesign their organizations to be AI-first [13:10].

Links and Resources

Jason talked about Microsoft’s work with 3UK to use Azure Operator Insights to break down silos and generate new insights. Check out this video overview here.
Read my recent blog on how to transform your customer support with AI
At last year’s TelecomTV AI-Native Telco Summit, I took part in a panel on Using AIOps for operational efficiencies. Watch the on-demand recording.
Check out Frederick Winslow Taylor’s best-selling organizational design book, Shop Management.
Learn more about Totogi’s BSS Magic
Check out Accelerating telco transformation in the era of AI, a blog from Microsoft’s Jason Zandor.
In late March, the Telecoms.com Podcast welcomed former Telco in 20 guest Shawn Hakl, Microsoft’s VP of 5G strategy, to talk about the public cloud and 5G. Listen to the conversation.
Take a look at this video of “Extreme Buddy Skiing.” It takes a lot of fear, anxiety, and planning to get to the moment where you can drop in on a face like the one they ski. It reminds me of what it takes to make big moves to use the public cloud and AI the right way!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2024 Gold Hermes Award, 2023 and 2022 MarComm Awards, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

Jason Hogg is a General Manager responsible for the Azure for Operators (AfO) AIOps program, which includes Azure Operator Insights and Azure Operator Service Manager. Prior to AfO, Jason led the creation of the Azure Data Lake Storage platform and Azure Media Services’ AI based Video Analytics service. Jason has 30+ years of experience in software development, having spent the last 21 years at Microsoft where he has also worked in Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Research, and Developer Division. Jason holds a MSc (Comp Sci) from University of Washington.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Last week at the NOVACOM 1-to-1 Telco Summit in Kenya, I connected with fellow podcaster Ali Hussein Kassim, host of Ali Talks Tech, which focuses on Africa’s changing tech landscape. We decided to record a joint episode about Totogi’s recent work with Zain to restore critical mobile services in Sudan after they were knocked out due to the ongoing civil war.

Abdalla Hamid, Director of IT at Zain Sudan, joined us to talk about how Totogi got Zain back up and running in just 18 days thanks to the power of the public cloud. Listen now to hear:

The dire situation Zain Sudan faced when it suffered a 40-day outage of essential services, and how Totogi helped it get back online [06:14];
The way Totogi's Charging-as-a-Service revolutionizes telco charging, lowering TCO by up to 80% and deploying in weeks instead of 6-18 months [16:07];
Why I’m supercharged about Totogi’s ability to transform the telco industry and help the world's unconnected [20:40].
How Totogi and Zain plan to move forward together, leveraging the latest AI tech in Africa—even on 2G networks! [23:39].

Links and Resources

Read the announcement of Totogi’s exciting partnership with Zain
Check out my recent blog and episode 89 to find out why the public cloud is PERFECT for Africa.
Read McKinsey & Company’s recent report, Africa’s leap ahead into cloud: Opportunities and barriers
Check out the Ali Talks Tech podcast for insights on Africa's rapidly changing tech landscape.
See the graph showing the networks going down in Sudan in early February.
Everyone at the conference got a delicious local welcome gift: Mocha Bombs in dark chocolate. Delicious! Give them a try if you ever get a chance!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
Read the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2022 and 2023 MarComm Awards, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast, and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Ali Hussein Kassim, Ali Talks Tech founder and host

Ali is a serial entrepreneur and a regular commentator and contributor on all things tech and the policy and regulatory landscape across Africa and beyond. He consults on digital transformation, and serves in leadership roles on public and private sector boards including Africa Fintech Network, Association of Fintechs in Kenya, and Kenya ICT Action Network. He enjoys mentoring and investing in tech entrepreneurs across Africa.

About Abdalla Hamid, Director of IT, Zain, Sudan

Abdalla Isamaldin Abdalla Hamid is a results-driven professional with 15+ years of experience in project management, business analysis, and digital transformation. As Director of Information Technology (IT), he aligns IT strategy with business goals and oversees IT operations. Abdalla's expertise encompasses BSS, project and program management, software development, automation, IT infrastructure and digital transformation. He holds an MBA and certifications in project management and service engineering.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The hyperscalers are spending billions to build regions in Africa, setting the stage for the public cloud to revolutionize the continent’s telcos. With regulations easing and the number of affordable SaaS solutions growing, African telecoms are poised for an era of growth and success.

Are the continent’s telcos ready to make the most of all the public cloud offers? In this episode, I talk with Shay Assaraf, Totogi's chief marketing officer, about their progress with public cloud adoption and Totogi’s groundbreaking deal with Zain Sudan, a Tier 1 mobile network operator (MNO) in the region. Listen now to hear:

How all of the Big 3 hyperscalers are expanding their African footprint [04:57];
Examples of partnerships between African telcos and hyperscalers for connectivity, AI/ML, cloud computing and more [06:27];
Advice for navigating the continent’s data regulations and security concerns when adopting the public cloud [09:24]; and
How Totogi helped Zain Sudan to move off of its Ericsson charger in 18 days [15:03].

Links and Resources

Read the announcement of Totogi’s exciting partnership with Zain
Read DR’s blog on why the public cloud is perfect for Africa
Check out McKinsey & Company’s recent report, Africa’s leap ahead into cloud: Opportunities and barriers
Download a copy of the TelcoDR Data Regulations whitepaper
Read about these exciting partnerships between telcos and the hyperscalers!
- Vodafone and Google Cloud boost data analytics by consolidating data
- Vodafone and Microsoft bring GenAI, digital services, and the cloud to 300 million + businesses and consumers
- Vodafone and Amazon to extend connectivity in Africa and Europe through Project Kuiper
- Tomorrow.io and MTN Group work with Microsoft to deliver lifesaving weather early warnings in Africa
- MTN Group and Google CLoud join foces to improve customer experiences with AI/ML-powered insights
- AWS partners with Kenya’s Safaricom on cloud and consulting services
- Safaricom partners with Google Cloud to bring economic growth the Kenya
Next week find me at Novacom’s 1-to-1 Telco Summit in Diani Beach, Kenya, running April 23 - 25. If you’ll be there too, shoot me a DM on Linkedin or X @TelcoDR so we can meet! I can’t wait to show you our game-changing Totogi platform.
As a sponsor of the Summit and in honor of the telco execs attending, Totogi has adopted the Kakuma Vocational Centre in a refugee camp in Kenya as part of our work with Unconnected.org. We’re funding a computer lab for students of all ages with localized learning software, safety training, and free internet access for two years.
Wanna see what’s going on with hyperscaler regions in Africa? Take a look at our Hyperscaler Regions Tracker, which tracks live and planned regions across the globe.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
Read the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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The Telco in 20 podcast won 2022 and 2023 MarComm Awards, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast, Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast, and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Shay Assaraf

Shay is a seasoned tech B2B marketing executive with nearly 20 years of experience, specializing in positioning, go-to-market, product marketing and building growth marketing programs for disruptive technologies and practices. He currently serves as a CMO in Totogi where he is part of a leadership team aiming to help telcos monetize their networks through AI and the public cloud. He previously served as a CMO in Gentrack, Sapiens and Optiva, where he played a pivotal role in steering a significant strategic product and go-to-market shifts to enable growth through delivering value to customers and leveraging disruptive technologies and practices.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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If you’re partnering with one or more of the hyperscalers, their roadmap is your roadmap. It’s important to know where they’re steering their ships, and a great way to gain insight into this is to follow their CAPEX spending.

For this episode, I talk with Charles Fitzgerald, managing director at Platformonomics. His annual Follow the CAPEX report tracks spending by the Big 3 hyperscalers—Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud—and includes crystal-ball insights into their strategic plans and priorities. Listen now to hear:

How the hyperscalers spent money in 2023 and how their paths are diverging [02:10];
How AI strategy is affecting CAPEX spending [05:47];
The last word on whether cloud repatriation is really a trend [11:36]; and
Why it’s time for "clown providers" like IBM and Oracle to ante up or get out of the big top [16:59].

Links and Resources

Read Charles Fitzgerald’s 2023 retrospective on public cloud CapEx spending and check out his Q1 2023 Repatriation IndexTM
Take a look at TelcoDR’s Hyperscaler Region Tracker to see where the three “BIGS” have been putting their regions.
Check out this Bloomberg article about Amazon’s AI-focused data center investments, which includes quotes from Charles.
Charles is all about following the money—great inspiration for a $-inspired playlist:
- Money by Pink Floyd
- Can't Buy Me Love by The Beatles
- Money, Money, Money by ABBA
- Money for Nothing by Dire Straits
- She Works Hard for the Money by Donna Summer
I can’t wait to pounce on telco execs while I’m in Diani Beach, Kenya, just like my favorite Winnie-the-Pooh character Tigger would do.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
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The Telco in 20 podcast won 2022 and 2023 MarComm Awards, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Charles Fitzgerald

Charles Fitzgerald is a Seattle-based angel investor, with a focus on developer platforms and infrastructure. Previously, he spent 20+ years working on platform businesses at Microsoft and VMware. He can see the cloud from his house.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Despite having "as a service" in its name, traditional Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) deployments often fail to deliver on the promise of a true SaaS platform. One company, Alianza, has figured out a way to move UCaaS to AWS, offering a genuine SaaS solution that leverages the scalability and resilience of the public cloud.

I sat down with Brian Beutler, founder and CEO of Alianza, to discuss how his company is working to revolutionize the UCaaS landscape. Listen now to hear:

The challenges Alianza faced in moving UCaaS to the public cloud and how it overcame them [05:14];
How telcos’ mindset needs to shift to stay competitive with the evolving landscape [08:11];
The impact of Alianza's recent strategic collaboration with AWS on the future of enterprise communications [09:41]; and
Jimmy Chin’s advice for telco executives [16:55].

Links and Resources

Visit theAlianza website to learn more about the company.
Read the press release about Alianza’s partnership with AWS.
Did you know that I bought a UCaaS company, too? TelcoDR affiliate Skyvera bought Kandy Communications in March 2023 and we’re modernizing the product suite for the public cloud.
Check out findings from Alianza’s recent research report with Omdia, Reinventing Core Communications: Strategic Imperatives for Growth.
In 2019, Jimmy Chin won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for "Free Solo.” Here’s the trailer for that movie, which is about how Alex Honnold climbed El Capitan, the famous 3,200 ft rock face in Yosemite National Park, without a rope.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
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Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
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The Telco in 20 podcast won 2022 and 2023 MarComm Awards, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Brian Beutler

Brian Beutler is the founder and CEO of Alianza, the leading cloud communications platform for telco service providers. He is passionate about transforming the telecommunications industry by empowering service providers to deliver modernized, cloud-native core communications solutions to supercharge growth, simplify operations and reduce costs. Under Beutler’s leadership, Utah-based Alianza has forged a strategic collaboration agreement with AWS and counts Lumen Technologies, Brightspeed, Viasat and Xplore among its tier-one and nationwide customers.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Last week I gave my FOURTH keynote talk at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024 when I opened the second annual MVNO Summit to a standing-room-only crowd of industry leaders. Most were from MNOs, MVNOs, and digital brands that want to be at the forefront of an AI-powered revolution in telco business support systems (BSS).

In my talk, I introduced a new AI-first, fully customized BSS solution that blends speed, scalability, and affordability to deliver a next-gen experience that streamlines operations and lowers costs. In the middle of it, I chatted with an avatar and created a BSS right on stage!

We captured the talk on video, and I’ve turned it into this podcast. Listen now to learn:

Why the emergence of two major innovations—AI and the public cloud—is disrupting incumbent vendors, leveling the playing field, and making this the perfect time for BSS innovation [03:13];
How the killer demo in my presentation demonstrates the power of an AI-first BSS solution [08:50]; and
Why Totogi’s BSS Magic is the future of telco BSS [16:57].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Check out the video version of my MVNO Summit talk. It’s the best way to see the Totogi avatar in action and get a sense of just how easy BSS Magic is to use!
Learn more about BSS Magic and Totogi.
Read my blog about why now is the time for telco to have the perfect BSS, all because of generative AI.
I still get questions about taking over Ericsson’s space at MWC 2021 and creating CLOUD CITY! It was AMAZING. I made the call about the public cloud coming to telco, and for the same reasons, generative AI is coming to telco, too.
Watch all my MWC talks! Start with the talk that began it all, my 2021 MWC keynote, The Paradox of the Public Cloud. Then check out my 2023 MWC talk, SUPERCHARGE your MVNO with personalization, and my 2022 MWC talk, The Public Cloud is NOW!
Generative AI is MAGIC. To celebrate the launch of BSS Magic, I put together this playlist of magic songs. Can you tell I love music from the 80s?
- Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by The Police
- You Can Do Magic by America
- Magic Man by Heart
- Abracadabra by Steve Miller Band
- She Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby
- Magic, by The Cars

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
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The Telco in 20 podcast won 2022 and 2023 MarComm Awards, a 2022 Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

New Zealand Mobile Network Operator (MNO) 2degrees is taking a fresh approach to its wholesale business and relationships with MVNOs. Instead of struggling with sharing its tech stack or setting up expensive separate stacks for MVNOs, the company is tapping Totogi's multi-tenant charger to streamline their onboarding and support, and to capture additional revenue.

In this episode, 2degrees Head of Architecture Chris Bradley joins me to talk about why the company selected Totogi and how Totogi’s AI- and public cloud-driven vision is helping it prepare for the future. Listen now to hear:

How Totogi is helping 2degrees achieve its business goals [04:47];
Why buying a SaaS platform made sense for the company [07:39];
How easy it was for 2degrees to try out Totogi Charging-as-a-Service [14:18]; and
How 2degrees will use Totogi’s AI-driven features to stay ahead [17:32].

If you’ll be at MWC 2024, stop by Totogi’s stand in Hall 2 at the Fira to see the product demos that made it easy for 2degrees to choose Totogi as a partner. Even better, book a meeting with the Totogi team!

Links and Resources

Read the press release announcing this customer win.
Check out the Totogi website and find us on AWS Marketplace.
Visit the2degrees website to learn more about the company.
Will you be in Barcelona for MWC 2024? Don’t forget to grab a seat for my talk at the second annual MVNO Summit. Totogi is a Platinum sponsor!
After the Summit wraps, join me at Totogi’s AI-CONIC afterparty. DM me on LinkedIn or X @TelcoDR for an invite.
There are a lot of great movies filmed in New Zealand; the most famous being the ones that make up The Lord of Rings trilogy. But my favorite (not surprisingly) is Whale Rider. From IMDB: “Set on the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.” Sounds like me, in telco.
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
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The Telco in 20 podcast won 2022 and 2023 MarComm Awards, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Chris Bradley

Chris Bradley, head of digital architecture at 2degrees, is driving 2degrees' shift to becoming a software-defined company. With more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry across New Zealand and Europe, Chris has extensive knowledge in creating exceptional customer experiences. As a leader, he strives for innovation and fosters a people-first culture that embraces change. Chris has a passion for using AI and technology, and he and his team are part of the core group at 2degrees driving the adoption of emerging and public cloud technology for telco.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Startup MVNO MobileX is going after the US market with the belief that most mobile subscribers don’t know how much data they need. Instead of pushing unlimited plans, the company offers an AI-based tool that analyzes each subscriber’s usage and creates personalized plans for them.

I spoke with MobileX CEO Peter Adderton last year, and now he’s spilling the beans on what’s been happening with MobileX, its plans for 2024, and the company’s exciting new deal with Walmart. Listen now to hear:

How MobileX's AI-based data forecaster tool debunks the idea that consumers understand their data needs [02:18];
Strategies for using two SIMs, a primary and secondary, to lower costs while maintaining coverage [06:20];
The impact of MobileX's new agreement with Walmart [10:04];
What’s next for the company’s technology and marketing [12:35].

Links and Resources

Visit the MobileX website to learn more about the company.
Listen to my conversation with Peter in 2023 in Telco in 20 episode 58, Live and Learn: A new MVNO approach with Peter Adderton.
Learn about Totogi’s PlanAI product—and how to get your hands on our ML model that can predict churn 6 weeks in advance!
Follow @peter_adderton on X—he’s a great person to follow and is constantly dropping great insights about how to build a great MVNO.
The best part about following Peter? When he shares his real life-struggles with building MobileX or his wins with how people are swapping to MobileX.
Learn more about the upcoming MVNO Summit at Mobile World Congress 2024. Totogi is a Platinum sponsor, along with Amdocs (of all companies—can you believe it?). Let’s meet while we’re there!
Peter and I have strong opinions on whether or not mobile phones should be allowed in schools. Check out these letters to the New York Times on school cell phone bans:
- Should Schools Ban Cellphones?
- When Students’ Cellphones ‘Colonize Their Minds
Last year, Peter and US Mobile CEO Ahmed Khattak exchanged words after their Telco in 20 episodes ran. They have different views about whether consumers know how much data they use, and they took their disagreement to Twitter. It reminds me of the Netflix show Beef, which just won a bunch of Golden Globes and Emmys!
Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Peter Adderton

Peter Adderton is founder and CEO of MobileX, a wireless brand positioned to disrupt the wireless industry. He is the driving force behind two of the most successful youth brands established in the mobile industry—Boost Mobile and Amp’d Mobile. Peter catapulted the Boost brand to become one of the fastest growing wireless brands in its category in all markets with annual revenues over $500M and more than five million subscribers.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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It’s been a year since the GSMA announced its Open Gateway initiative and the telco industry is working to figure out how to monetize network APIs to their full advantage. For this episode, I talk with McKinsey & Company Partner Ferry Grijpink about the API economy and what operators need to do to capture revenue and build their strategic position. Listen now to hear:

Ferry’s advice for telecoms that want to monetize network APIs [03:18];
How telcos can leverage established relationships with enterprise customers to attract developers [06:58];
Ferry’s opinion on whether it’s important for telcos to own the developer relationship [09:22]; and
The importance of developing valuable use cases for network APIs to accelerate their adoption [13:22].

Links and Resources

Check out these resources from McKinsey & Company:
- Navigating the three horizons of 5G business building
- What separates B2B GTM outperformers in tech and telecom
Read more about Whoosh! and sign up for a meeting and demo at MWC24.
Read more about the GSMA’s Open Gateway initiative and its DevCon event at MWC24 on February 28.
Three Brazilian operators—Claro, TIM, and Vivo—just joined Open Gateway, bringing the total to nearly 40 operators on the Open Gateway train.
In this video, Ross Ortega, VP product management at Microsoft Azure, weighs in on Open Gateway, Azure Programmable Connectivity Architecture, and the future of network APIs
If you build it, they will come worked in the movie Field of Dreams, but I’m not sure it’s going to work for Network APIs. Not even if you had it to Azure and leverage their developer ecosystem. I think for this one, telcos, you’re going to have to do some work.
Ferry is a return guest on the Telco in 20 podcast. Don’t miss our conversation in episode 45, Drumming up ways to increase ARPU with McKinsey. I still owe him dinner for disrupting his talk! Maybe I’ll catch him in Barcelona.
A rare Ferry and DR sighting in the wild! I got the chance to meet Ferry in person for the first time a few months ago at TM Forum in Copenhagen.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2023 and 2022 MarCom Awards, a 2022 Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Ferry Grijpink

Ferry leads the McKinsey Center for Advanced Connectivity within McKinsey & Company’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications Practice, and advises telecommunications companies on strategy, marketing, and operations, including mobile operators that are launching adjacent businesses in areas such as mobile health and money services. He also co-leads McKinsey’s research on deploying and commercializing next-generation infrastructures, such as fiber, mobile broadband, and 5G networks.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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BT Group started its journey to the public cloud years ago, which has put the company in a strong position to take advantage of the strategic capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI). For this episode, I talk with Josie Smith, chief architect, digital, at BT Group, about the company's efforts to reduce its applications from thousands to hundreds, bring AI into the organization, and drive monumental change across its employee base. Listen now to hear:

How BT Group’s transformation program, Simplify, is poised save the company £3 billion by 2025 [02:53];
The details of its massive effort to slash technical debt and increase agility [05:29];
How BT Group’s workforce is responding to its digital transformation [08:57]; and
What the company is doing to unleash AI’s potential [12:24];

Links and Resources

Learn more about BT Group.
Check out this Light Reading article, BT eyes 100% shift to public cloud, not “pretend mist” of private, by Iain Morris.
Another great read is Raconteur’s piece featuring BT Group’s chief digital and innovation officer, Harmeen Mehta, who isn’t afraid to call out industry’s fear as a roadblock to innovation and growth.
AI productivity improvements are real. Journalists like to sensationalize job cuts but if you’re worried about your job being affected by AI, I have one piece of advice: learn AI and be the best at it. Companies need leaders and contributors who know how to transform work with AI.
Josie is such a Star Trek fan that she actually walked down the aisle to the theme song from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Check it out!
I like Star Trek, but I’m more of a Star Wars fan. My favorite Yoda quote? “Do, or do not. There is no try.” Watch the famous clip from the Empire Strikes Back.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2023 MarCom Award, a 2022 Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Josie Smith

Josie Smith is leading and driving the re-architecture of BT Group’s digital landscape from 2400 applications down to 500, taking BT Group from a telco to a techco, and from monolithic to modular, agile, and flexible. She is guiding a future for BT Group that connects for good and creates an exceptional experience for customers. Josie is a leader who engages with energy, creativity and fun, and a pioneer of outcome-based approaches as a method of truly linking strategy and execution at pace. She is an ambassador for women in tech/engineering and advocates for inspirational learning in the sciences across all ages to increase diversity within the STEM industries.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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It’s time to announce our top episode of 2023! It’s been an incredible journey for the Telco in 20 podcast—now clocking in with well over 100,000 total listens. We’ve had some great guests this year, like Mats Granryd from the GSMA, McKinsey & Company Partner Ferry Grijpink, and Microsoft’s Rick Lievano.

There were tons of popular episodes, which made it a race to the finish line to name our Best of 2023. In the end, none topped my conversation with Mobi CEO Justen Burdette. He joined me in April to talk about the Hawaiian MVNO’s public-cloud-native mobile core, its collaboration with Working Group Two, and the benefits of embracing the public cloud. Listen now to hear:

What makes Mobi unique from traditional MVNOs [3:51];
How having its own mobile core benefits its customers [08:03];
Why having a cloud-first mindset changes the game [12:25]; and
What makes Working Group Two's APIs so powerful [14:59].

Links and Resources

What does it take to be a top 10% podcast? Or even a top 1%? Top 10% podcasts get 50,000 listens per year, while the top 1% get more than 2 million! In 2023, the Telco in 20 podcast moved into the top 5% in annual listens. Yay!
Telco in 20 has now turned in 81 episodes. Eighty-one! I still remember recording the first one with Jim Abolt. I never dreamed I’d make it to 81! Did you know that only 50% of podcasts make it past episode 25? For 2024, we’ll pass 100! Yikes!
Wanna know what our top episodes of the year were? Including Justen’s episode, these were the other top episodes pulling in a combined 19,000+ listens:
- Ep 62 - Running your network on the public cloud with Juniper Networks
- Ep 71 - Save bookoo bucks with CloudFix
- Ep 76 - Into the Nexus of GenAI with Microsoft
- Ep 77 - Why do subscribers churn: network coverage or price?
Visit the Mobi website.
Learn more about Mobi’s work with Working Group Two.
Justen talked about the beauty of APIs—learn more about Totogi’s Churn Prediction Service, Charging as a Service, and Whoosh!
Read about Mobi’s deal with T-Mobile US to expand into the continental US 5G market
You can find the transcript of this episode here.
Listen to this conversation on our TelcoDR YouTube channel.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2023 and 2022 MarCom Awards, a 2022 Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Justen Burdette

Justen Burdette serves as the chief executive officer for Mobi, the regional wireless provider for Hawaiʻi. He previously served as vice president of products at Tucows, where he helped lead the growth of its Ting Mobile wireless brand to over $90 million in annual revenue before its acquisition by Dish (Nasdaq: DISH), at the time making it the fifth largest independent MVNO in the country including its Ting IoT business. He also led the launch of its Ting Internet fiber-to-the-home ISP in several regional markets, and helped manage the development of its in-house CRM, BSS, and OSS platform, which has since become a standalone SaaS startup, Wavelo.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Today’s telcos have all but given up on monetizing the insatiable growth of mobile data usage, instead settling for one-size-fits-all pricing plans. But rather than give up the fight, Totogi is using the public cloud, AI, and data-driven algorithms to help the industry adopt dynamic, personalized pricing that maximizes the bottom line.

In this episode, Totogi’s Chief Operating Officer Cyrus Mistry joins me to talk about how Totogi’s AI-powered charging is revolutionizing the industry, how it stands out from the other legacy chargers, and why Totogi’s optimized approach presents a huge opportunity for telcos. Listen now to hear:

Why revenue optimization in telco is such a big idea [04:21];
How public cloud and AI provide the one-two punch needed to enhance telco charging systems [05:05];
What separates Totogi’s future-focused, multi-tenant, SaaS solutions from on-prem chargers [06:10];
How having one model for all customers is actually a GOOD thing [09:33];

Listen to our conversation by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform – see the links in the right column above.

Links and Resources

Check out the Totogi website and find us on AWS Marketplace.
This episode is dropping while the Totogi team is at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas. Are you here too? Book a time to meet!
Amazon’s method of optimizing revenue, backed by a pricing team of 16 experts and a whopping 1,400 developers, wields two acres of underground servers operating with machine learning. Read this McKinsey article from 2017 that talks about how airlines can take revenue optimization to the next level. Now that’s what I’m talking about!
Check out Cyrus’ Ted Talk about his simple process for optimizing all areas of our lives, from health to wealth to relationships.
Cyrus and I have known each other for decades. In the 1990s, we appeared together on the PBS show Livelihood, which focused an episode on our work lives at Trilogy. That’s where our hard work started and pretty much never stopped. If you want to see what I was like in 1998, give it a gander.
Watch the inspiration behind our Totogi music, Saturday Night Live’s fan-favorite skit, What’s up with that. Keenan Thompson kills it!
You can find the transcript for this episode here.
Listen to this conversation on our TelcoDR YouTube channel. [LINK]

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2023 and 2022 MarCom Awards, a 2022 Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Cyrus Mistry

Cyrus is the chief operating officer at TelcoDR and Totogi. He was previously chief operating officer at GoGuardian, one of the largest EdTech software companies in the world, and director of product management at Google, where he was responsible for the commercial Chromebook hardware and software business worldwide. Cyrus managed the enterprise, education and consumer sides of several products at Google including Android, Chrome, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Tasks, and the Google Search Appliance business. He has over 25 years of hardware and software experience with roles in product management, program management, business development, marketing, consulting, and software development. Cyrus has four degrees from Johns Hopkins, with post-graduate work in natural language processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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When innovative new tech comes along, established software vendors face a balancing act between maintaining existing solutions for current customers and adopting disruptive new tools to stay competitive. For this episode, I talk with Bruce McClelland, President and CEO of Ribbon Communications, about his billion-dollar company’s efforts to juggle both priorities, its adoption of cloud-native software, and what it sees happening with telcos’ public cloud deployments. Listen now to hear:

The mix of hardware and software in the business [04:26];
Where Ribbon sees demand for the public cloud in telco and what’s driving it [08:17];
Why the company chooses to remain cloud-agnostic [10:56]; and
Bruce’s thoughts on network workloads running in public clouds [14:23].

Links and Resources

Learn more about Ribbon Communications.
Grab a copy of the 1997 best-selling business book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton M. Christensen
Bruce and I are fans of the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A. Check out comedian Tim Hawkins’ hysterical take on The Beatles’ classic song, Yesterday, which pays homage to the restaurant, sweet tea, and waffle fries.
Let’s meet up at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas on November 27 – December 1. I’ll be hosting a fantastic hospitality lounge with great food and drinks (and even a sommelier!) and zipping around the HyperLoop in a Tesla. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this video.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2023 and 2022 MarCom Awards, a 2022 Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Bruce McClelland

Bruce McClelland is CEO and President of Ribbon Communications (Nasdaq: RBBN), a global communications and network solutions provider to service providers, enterprises, and critical infrastructure sectors. Bruce is a technical business leader with a proven history of developing and growing sustainable, profitable businesses through technology and business cycles. Before joining Ribbon, Bruce was CEO at ARRIS and led its sale to CommScope, where he served as COO. During his tenure at ARRIS, Bruce held multiple leadership positions and had a key role in the successful acquisition and integration of multiple companies including Ruckus, Pace and the Motorola Home Business. Bruce began his career at Bell Northern Research and held several leadership roles at Nortel. He has served on the boards of ARRIS and Benu Networks, and actively supports the Georgia Cystic Fibrosis chapter. Bruce holds a BS in Electrical Engineering (Great Distinction) from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Telcos are finally heading to the public cloud and industry leaders are excited about its potential. But at the same time, old-fashioned thinking and technology are slowing them down. For this episode, I talk with Andrew Walker, communications and media industry lead at Accenture, about why the move is challenging, the transformative power of GenAI, and what telcos can do to get the right talent in place to help with the journey.

Listen now to hear:

How Accenture advises clients to start their move to the public cloud [03:46];
Why legacy vendors spread FUD—fear, uncertainly, and doubt—about telco and the public cloud [06:22];
Where Accenture sees AI taking hold in telco [11:11], and
How telcos can compete for highly skilled cloud talent [15:05].

Links and Resources

Read Accenture’s recent reports, Start at the center: Network-led transformation for growth and Technology Vision 2023: When Atoms meet Bits.
Don’t fall for legacy vendors’ SaaS-washing. Read my blog about five questions to ask to help you spot fake SaaS.
Need a use case on how the public cloud can help your telco? Listen to episode 68, giffgaff is 1,000 faster with AWS.
Andy likes skiing at Snowbird; I love Deer Valley. Snowbird is known primarily for its deep-powder skiing and snowboarding, whereas Deer Valley is known for its beautiful, sunny weather on fresh, powdery snow (and no snowboarders!). I like to attack the mountain by working all blue and groomed black runs, from left to right. I ski with a map and a pen so I can mark off the runs as I go!
Think you’re a great skier? Check out one of the most insane ski runs you’ve ever seen that even goes through a cave. It’s bad ass.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2023 and 2022 MarCom Awards, a 2022 Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Andrew Walker

As Communications and Media Industry Leader, Andy is responsible for the strategy, offerings, and business, as well as the network of professionals who serve Accenture’s Media and Communications clients around the world. Andy has consulted with communications, media and high tech clients for more than 20 years, and has advised leaders across the industry on issues ranging from their fiber strategy, to the profitability of their customers and products, to margin improvement efforts. Andy has been an advisor on multiple mergers, acquisitions and divestitures across the industry, and has helped a number of clients launch new businesses, including new wireless, technology services, and segment-specific businesses.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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There are more than 30,000 mobile phone plans available globally. That’s a staggering number, and one that at least partially explains why up to 90% of consumers are on plans that aren’t a good fit for their needs. For this episode, I sit down with Stetson Doggett, founder of BestPhonePlans.net and co-founder of CoverageMap.com. His mission is to help U.S. consumers cut through the noise to find the best cell phone plans and network coverage for their location and budget. He’s got insights into why subscribers churn that telco execs need to know.

Listen now to hear:

The number one reason customers shop for a new phone plan [04:12];
The biggest tradeoffs between MNO vs MVNO plans [09:07];
Whether or not consumers know how much data they use [11:32]; and
The idea behind the crowd-sourced CoverageMap.com and how it helps consumers [13:25].

Links and Resources

Learn more about BestPhonePlans.net and CoverageMap.com
Check out Stetson’s YouTube channel with more than 100,000 subscribers, and while you’re at it, subscribe to mine! Help a girl out!
Listen to Telco in 20 episodes with MobileX’s Peter Adderton and Ahmed Khattak from US Mobile, then go check out their barbs on X.
Ready to hear more great stuff about GenAI and telco’s future with the public cloud? Catch my keynote at MVNO Nation Live, running October 23 - 25 in Valencia, Spain.
Remember the crazy lengths we used to go through to save money on our phone bills? Check out this old school advertisement from AT&T reminding us to save money by making long distance calls on nights and weekends. How crazy is that?
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won 2023 and 2022 MarCom Awards, a 2022 Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Stetson Doggett

Stetson Doggett reviews and explains cell phone plans to an audience of more than 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. He also runs the website BestPhonePlans.net to help consumers compare cell phone plans. Most recently, he co-founded CoverageMap.com, a project building crowd-sourced maps of the cellular networks to help consumers identify the best network in their area.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Over the last few years, Microsoft has been working overtime to become a carrier-grade hyperscaler for the industry. For this episode, I talk with Microsoft Chief Technology Officer for the Worldwide Telecommunications Industry Rick Lievano about the recent general availability of Azure Operator Nexus, its work with AT&T, and Microsoft’s $13 billion investment in OpenAI.

Listen now to hear:

Where telcos are today with their move to the public cloud [02:33];
How Azure Operator Nexus is poised to change the game [04:02];
The latest on Microsoft’s network cloudification work with AT&T [7:17]; and
The company’s big bet on GenAI and how it’s paying off for telco [12:57].

Links and Resources

Check out this awesome story in Fast Company, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella is winning Big Tech’s AI war. Here’s how.
Learn more about Azure Operator Nexus and read the announcement about it becoming generally available this summer.
Listen to Rick’s first time as guest on the Telco in 20 podcast, episode 5, The BFCs: Putting Microsoft Azure to the test for telcos
Ready to hear more great stuff about GenAI and telco’s future with the public cloud? Catch my keynote at MVNO Nation Live, running October 23 - 25 in Valencia, Spain.
Learn about the ninja move of pickleball, the Erne, and learn how to do it yourself!
You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Rick Lievano

Rick Lievano is the Worldwide CTO for the Microsoft Telecommunications industry. He works with customers and partners in developing telecommunications industry solutions and reference architectures to address the rapidly changing needs of service providers across the globe. He is an enthusiastic participant and speaker in many industry communities, an advocate of industry frameworks and open standards, and holds TM Forum Open Digital Architecture and Business Development Manager Career Certifications. At TM Forum, he is a member of the Collaboration Sub-Committee, overseeing the effective creation and adoption of pragmatic best practices and standards to deliver value to the membership. Rick currently leads initiatives to help operators achieve more by infusing artificial intelligence across their business.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Nokia revealed a significant rebrand at Mobile World Congress 2023, signally a shift in the company’s focus to enterprise and B2B, which it sees as the future of telecom. For this episode, I talk with Nokia Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Europe Azfar Aslam about Nokia’s new direction, the challenge of refactoring legacy products, and what’s in store as the hyperscalers work to become carrier-grade cloud providers.

Listen now to hear about:

The balance of hardware and software in Nokia’s portfolio [04:34];
How the company is adapting products for a public-cloud-driven future [06:44];
How it weighs the benefits of refactoring for the public cloud against maintaining a common software base [10:30]; and
Azfar’s thoughts on network workloads running in public clouds [12:51].

Links and Resources

Check out Nokia’s technology vision for 2030. It talks about the network of the future (a network of networks!) and how open APIs and the monetization of those APIs will be key. Hmm, sound familiar? 🧐
Read about Nokia’s super cool rebrand in The Verge.
What is cloud native, and how can you be sure that vendors are designing their applications correctly? Watch my hilarious Top 5 List with TelecomTV and Ray LeMaistre where I explain this misused term.
Check out Totogi’s Whoosh! offering that can help CSPs pull developers from Twilio’s ecosystem and into an operator’s. You’ll need this for those network APIs.
Check out Nokia’s press release about its work on DISH’s 5G standalone core network
Learn about what DISH is doing with the public cloud and then check out my conversation with DISH Wireless EVP and Chief Network Officer Marc Rouanne.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.
Did we talk about dinosaurs in this episode? WE DID! RAR! 🦖 Sometimes dinosaurs can be cool, like when they’re movie stars and scare common folks. Watch the official trailer from Jurassic Park 2, which was filmed on Asfar’s favorite Hawaiian island, Kuwai.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Azfar Aslam

Azfar is passionate about driving customer success and has shaped technology and business strategies for over 60 Communications Service Providers and Large Enterprises globally. His experience spans new technology evaluations and product introductions, from portfolio and investment optimizations to E2E evolution of communications networks and AI-enabled automation. Azfar has also been deeply involved in corporate strategies, including M&A, new market entry, and establishing new lines of business. His current focus includes helping customers chart their journey toward new value creation in industry 4.0 in the high-performance critical networks era.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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The telecom industry agrees that the future of 5G and enterprise telco lies in monetizing network APIs. But communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) company Twilio has been eating telco’s lunch by not only capturing messaging revenue, but also dominating enterprise IT departments.

For this episode, I’m sharing my recent TelecomTV talk about how telcos can beat Twilio and take back what’s theirs. I share a three-step plan for regaining a strategic position within enterprise IT departments, and give a sneak peek at a new Totogi CPaaS product that can help.

Click play to hear:

What’s happened to telcos’ Application-to-Person (A2P) APIs market share over the last decade [03:51];
The big difference Twilio-compatible APIs could make [05:35];
How telcos can use owner economics to undercut Twilio pricing [06:38];
How Totogi’s latest product, Whoosh!, can help [07:45]; and
Why telcos need to start now [09:26].

Links and Resources

Check out the video version of my talk, released as part of TelecomTV’s Cloud Native Telco Summit. You know how much I rock a video talk!
Learn more about the awesome power of Whoosh!
Twilio has been running circles around telco. Read about why it happened in my monster blog, Telco execs: Are you jealous of Twilio?
Read about the activist fight over at Twilio in The Information (subscription) and Reuters.
Check out Twilio’s Investor Day 2022 deck - tons of great information in this resource.
Come meet the Totogi team at TM Forum’s DTW - Ignite in Copenhagen on September 19 - 21. Grab a delicious coffee at the Totogi Supercharged Cafe (plus, we’re donating to Unconnected.org for every cup served), and stop by our stand for a Whoosh! demo.
We’re partying in Copenhagen! Don’t miss our launch party on September 19 – DM me on X or LinkedIn for details and an invite.
Why all of the sudden interest in Twilio? Learn more about TelcoDR’s purchase of CPaaS company, Kandy.
View the transcript for this episode.
Did you catch my Mickey Mouse hands at the end of the video? It’s so I can slap Twilio around on behalf of telco. I’m thinking of taking the hands to Copenhagen and wearing them at the conference. Want a pair of your own? Buy them here

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) market is expected to hit $60 billion by 2030. Telcos deserve a big piece of this revenue—after all, their networks power CPaaS. But up until now, they’ve lost customers and revenue to companies like Twilio that make it easy for developers to add capabilities to products without having to navigate complicated telco organizations.

But the landscape is shifting. With the cloud native capabilities of 5G and initiatives like the GSMA’s Open Gateway, there are signs that telcos can take back the CPaaS reins. For this episode, I talk with Yesmean Luk, principle consultant and practice lead at STL Partners, about the future of CPaaS and what telcos need to do to recapture lost enterprise revenue.

Listen now to hear:

Why CPaaS is a huge opportunity for telco [04:32];
What needs to happen to make Open Gateway work [07:13];
Why enterprise developers will be key to recapturing lost revenue [14:49]
How having a software mindset can help [16:09].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above.

Links and Resources

Don’t miss my September 5 TelecomTV talk about why now is the time for telcos to take on Twilio. It includes a sneak peek at an awesome new Totogi CPaaS product.
The Totogi team will also be demonstrating our CPaaS offering and our game-changing Charging-as-a-Service at TM Forum’s DTW - Ignite in Copenhagen from September 19 - 21. (And of course we’ll be throwing an awesome party. DM me on X or LinkedIn for details and an invite!)
Yesmean and I met when we took part in a CPaaS Acceleration Alliance panel. Check out its recent State of CPaaS report.
Recent headlines confirm that a lot is happening in the CPaaS space:
- March 8, 2023: Skyvera Acquired American Virtual Cloud Technology Assets
- July 17, 2023: Proximus Group acquired a nearly 60% stake in Route Mobile
- July 21, 2022: Ericsson completes its $6.2B acquisition of Vonage
Read my recent blog, Telco execs: Are you jealous of Twilio?
You can find the transcript for this episode here.
Yesmean and I both think telcos are ready for a CPaaS comeback. Check out this highlight reel from one of the greatest comeback stories in sports history, when the New England Patriots rallied from being down 28 points to beating the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in Super Bowl LI.
When you’re done, take a look at this video of LL COOL J’s Mama Said Knock You Out, aka “Don’t call it a comeback!”

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Yesmean Luk

Yesmean is a principal consultant at STL Partners and leads the Private Networks practice. She has led major strategic growth projects with both operators and technology companies globally. Her focus has been on helping clients figure out how to drive growth in a B2B2X ecosystem, including in domains such as private networks, network slicing, edge computing and network APIs. She has also authored several thought-leadership reports across these areas and is a regular speaker at renowned industry events. Before joining STL, she held various consulting roles at Deloitte and IBM.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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During this year’s Mobile World Congress, the GSMA announced a game-changing initiative called Open Gateway. It aims to revolutionize how operators collaborate with developers and each other, with the goal of opening up new revenue streams beyond traditional rate plans through the use of network APIs.

For this episode, I sat down to talk with GSMA Director General Mats Granryd about the Open Gateway initiative and how network APIs may be the future of enterprise telco. Click play to hear our conversation about:

How opening networks will help telcos monetize 5G capabilities [03:29];
Why telcos are excited about Open Gateway and jumping on board [05:42];
The shift that’s needed to make telcos easier for developers to work with [08:59];
Strategies to attract enterprise IT developers to use Open Gateway APIs [13:55]; and
How 5G can enable new technical monetization models [16:23].

Links and Resources

I thought my conversation with Mats was so important that I flew across the Atlantic to meet with him in person. We met at The Shard in the center of London and recorded our interview, which you can watch here. Check out that view!
Learn more about the GSMA’s Open Gateway initiative.
Surely you heard the news that TelcoDR bought Kandy, a CPaaS company, out of bankruptcy in March of this year.
Be sure to catch the announcement of a new Totogi’s CPaaS product that will help telcos take on Twilio. I’ll be sharing a video about it on September 5 as part of TelecomTV’s Cloud Native Telco Summit. Don’t miss it—it’s MUST-SEE TV!
Come meet with the Totogi team at TM Forum’s DTW - Ignite in Copenhagen on September 19 - 21 so we can give you a demo and snag an invite to the launch party. DM me on X or LinkedIn for details and an invite.
Twilio has been running circles around telco, taking the enterprise IT developers and owning the platform. Read this monster blog I wrote about why it happened in Telco execs: Are you jealous of Twilio?
View the transcript for this episode.
I caught a few Wimbledon matches while I was in the UK. Check out this montage of 2023 highlights.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on X @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Mats Granryd

Mats Granryd is Director General of the GSMA and a member of its Board. He leads the GSMA in supporting its global membership across three broad pillars: Connectivity for Good, Industry Services and Solutions, and Outreach. Under Mats’ leadership, the GSMA has been instrumental in the advent of the 5G Era, advocating for timely and affordable spectrum access, supporting the global rollout of 5G and mobile IoT networks, creating an eSIM solution and providing the world’s largest platform to convene the mobile ecosystem and industry verticals at the MWC and M360 series of events.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Cloud migration is on every telco's roadmap these days, but a lot of leaders worry about runaway costs. Today’s guest, Rahul Subramaniam, is the founder and CEO of CloudFix, a cool SaaS platform that automatically optimizes AWS spend. It identifies savings, and after you approve them, implements them automatically without manual effort from your team. Listen now to hear:

How CloudFix works and what makes it fast and secure [05:15];
The profile of the AWS customer that can benefit the most [07:41];
Real-world savings success stories [08:25];
Why AWS wants to help customers save money [13:05]; and
The special discount telcos can get on CloudFix from TelcoDR [15:55].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Read about TelcoDR’s exclusive partnership agreement with CloudFix that can save telcos money
Listen to Rahul talk more about CloudFix on his AWS Made Easy podcast with co-host Stephen Barr, then check out the AWS Made Easy episode with Jeff Barr, chief evangelist for AWS
Visit the CloudFix website
Read how organizations can reduce compute, networking, and storage costs by up to 66% by migrating workloads to AWS in a report from Enterprise Strategy Group
To learn more about controlling cloud costs, check out episode 4 of Telco in 20 with cloud economist and consultant Corey Quinn, who talked about how his business, the Duckbill Group, can help you control cloud costs, and episode 39 with Michael Kearns from Virtasant, the maker of business software that helps optimize cloud spend.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
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Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
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The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
About Rahul Subramaniam
Rahul is Founder and CEO of CloudFix, and a board member of the FinOps Foundation. Throughout his career, he has successfully migrated 140+ enterprise software products to AWS and created revolutionary products that transform how users build, manage, and optimize in AWS. Rahul is also the founder and co-host of AWS Insiders, an industry podcast offering a no-holds-barred look at the state and future of AWS and cloud computing.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Almost every telco I talk to is doing some kind of work with Amazon Web Services (AWS). It has the biggest market share of all of the hyperscalers, operates tons of data centers across the globe, and keeps churning out powerful software and custom-built chips that are perfect for operators.

For this episode, Chivas Nambiar, director of worldwide solution architecture, AWS for telecom, joins me to talk about how AWS is working with our industry, how cloud software is changing the landscape, and the future of telco in an AI-driven world.

Click play to hear our conversation about:

What telcos are looking for when they come to AWS [03:08];
What holds them back when adopting the public cloud [05:37];
How the ability to easily run experiments with the cloud is moving the ball forward [08:38];
How SaaS solutions like Totogi are unleashing value and speed [10:49]; and
How GenAI will affect telcos business model and future [15:55]

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Learn more about AWS for Telecom.
Check out Chivas’ recent conversation with RCR Wireless about what it means to be a tech-co and why that's important for operators.
Get a demo of Totogi’s cloud-native, SaaS solutions for telco.
I first met Chivas outside of my awesome talk at MWC 2022 —The Public Cloud is NOW—which opened with an epic performance by a Taiko drummer. Watch it on demand and learn more about Taiko drums.
I’m so impressed that Chivas is learning to swim. Check out this scene from Ice Age where Sid the sloth helps saber-toothed tiger Diego overcome his fear of water.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Chivas Nambiar

Chivas Nambiar is the director of worldwide solutions architecture for the global telecom business unit at Amazon Web Services (AWS), leading a worldwide technical team focused on enabling communication service providers, network equipment providers, and independent software vendors to transform their business by moving to the cloud. Prior to joining AWS in 2020, Chivas spent 17 years in the telecom industry at Verizon Communications Inc.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Hey, look at that—I’m a guest on a podcast! I recently joined host Robert Curran and principal analyst John Abraham on the Appledore Research Podcast, and now I’m bringing that episode to you here. We talk about everything from the state of charging in telecom to CLOUD CITY’s rockstar takeover of Ericsson’s space at MWC21—a takeover that included an ACTUAL rock star. Click play to hear our conversation about:

How and when I became a public cloud convert [04:54];
The birth of Totogi and what it’s doing today [09:13];
The mission behind the $1 billion Telco Transformation Fund [13:37];
Why Totogi decided to go all in with AWS [22:19];
And one of my favorite topics—how to drive the culture change you need to make your digital transformation a reality [28:30].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here. [LINK]

Links and Resources

Learn more about Appledore Research and check out the Appledore Research Podcast.
Find out more about Totogi’s cloud-native, SaaS solutions and get in touch to set up a demo.
Check out my Siebel vs Salesforce talk from TelecomTV’s 2021 DSP Leaders World Forum.
We touched briefly on Open Gateway and network exposure function APIs. I wrote two recent blogs about these topics; Is Open Gateway the answer to telco’s Twilio woes? and How to save 50-90% on compute with spot instances. Give them a read!
I love talking about change management, and so does my buddy, transformation guru Jim Abolt. He talked about this topic on the very first episode of Telco in 20, and then came back for episode 7 to share even more insights.
My favorite Bon Jovi song of all time is Living on a Prayer, which he sang in CLOUD CITY. He doesn’t do it all the time because he told me once that the octave ranges are too tough on his vocal cords, but he did a sweet acoustic version for us that night and it was EPIC. What a magical experience!

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s bio

About Appledore Research

Appledore Research is a global research and consulting firm specializing in the telecommunication and software market. It provides market share, forecast, business models, industry trend reports, and custom research in the areas of network automation, 5G, Edge compute, SD-WAN, SDN, AI, and analytics, in the telecommunication and media market segments.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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In 2020, award-winning British MVNO giffgaff decided to go all-in on the public cloud with AWS. The bold move sped its software release process by 1000x, allowing it to focus on what matters: its members. Now the company is an all-star player in customer service and cloud innovation.

In this episode, giffgaff’s Chief Operating and Technology Officer Steve McDonald shares the inside story about how the courageous move happened, the challenges giffgaff faced along the way, and lessons learned that other telcos should know. Click play to hear our conversation about:

How technical debt was strangling the business [02:20];
How long it took to see release success and code improving [07:37];
What prompted giffgaff to speed its move to AWS [09:18];
What it did reel in cloud costs [12:17]; and
What Steve would do differently if he did it all over again [15:35].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Learn more about giffgaff.
Watch my talk from MWC23’s MVNO Summit, SUPERCHARGE your MVNO with personalization. I feature giffgaff’s journey to the public cloud prominently.
Keep up with the company’s IT evolution on its tech blog.
Read the 2020 announcement about giffgaff’s plan to go all-in on the public cloud with AWS.
Read how pundits said the move was a bad idea. Boy, were they wrong!
Get blown away by the performance of Yunchan Lim, the 2022 Cliburn gold medalist, audience award winner, and winner of the award for best performance of a new work
Steve McDonald loves Chopin. You know which piano piece I can’t resist? Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi, better known as The Peanuts Song. Which character are you in this clip? I’ve always identified with the twin dancing near Pigpen.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Steve McDonald

Steve McDonald is Chief Operating and Technology Officer at giffgaff. Having joined the company in 2017, he is driving significant change and innovation throughout the company. In 2020, he led the network’s milestone move as the first MVNO in Europe to move to Amazon Web Services. He is a motivational and inspirational leader, known for building high performing, agile teams. He uses technology to meet business ambitions by engaging teams across all verticals to apply cutting edge software solutions. Before giffgaff, Steve spearheaded the software development at major brands including Tesco, Sage Pay, and Deutsche Bank.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Telco stocks used to be Wall Street darlings, but in recent years have become stable dividend plays for grandpa investors. Can they return to their former glory?

Today’s guest, Recurve Capital Founder Aaron Chan, has well-informed thoughts on what the industry needs to do to restore its shine. He’s at the forefront of investment strategies and market trends in telecom, and not surprisingly, he sees its future linked to the public cloud.

Before you listen, it’s important to note that the thoughts Aaron shares in this podcast are his opinion, and do not constitute investment advice. Now, hit play to hear our conversation about:

What needs to happen to bring telco stocks back into the spotlight [04:02];
The opportunity the metaverse presents for the industry [06:28];
How the public cloud and hyperscalers can help telcos get back in the game [11:21];
How Starlink changes the equation for the rural broadband market [15:37].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Learn more about Recurve Capital.
Hear more from Aaron on Greg Bryan’s TeleGeography Explains the Internet podcast.
Want to read a book about creating outsized shareholder returns by taking calculated risks? Then pick up The Outsiders, by William Thorndike, which focuses on eight unconventional CEOs like John Malone of Liberty Media. He focused on generating cash flow, using leverage to create value, and investing in businesses with strong competitive advantages.
I’m running a vertical SaaS enterprise software company called Totogi. In a nutshell, we’re trying to run this thing using the Rule of 40. Software is soooooo much easier than telco; maybe after reading about Rule of 40 some telco execs will want to join me?
Aaron compared Elon Musk’s Starlink to The Avengers’ Thanos. Check out this video clip of Thanos snapping his fingers to destroy half the universe, so the other half could survive.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Aaron Chan

Aaron Chan is the Founder and Managing Partner of Recurve Capital. He has 20 years of long/short investing experience. Prior to founding Recurve Capital, he spent more than six years at MIG Capital, a long/short equity hedge fund. Before MIG he was a Sector Manager at Facet Capital Management, where he oversaw investments in Media and Telecom sectors. From 2011 to 2013, he was a Portfolio Manager at QM Capital, and began his career at Criterion Capital Management, a long/short equity fund focused on Technology, Media and Telecom sectors. He earned his B.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University in 2004.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success

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Telcos make it hard for enterprise customers to negotiate deals for affordable connectivity. A few innovative tech firms are building their businesses around making things easier. One of them is Gigs, which buys pre-negotiated connectivity and offers easy APIs to allow enterprise software developers to create and sell their own voice and data plans. In this episode, Hermann Frank, co-founder and CEO of Gigs, tells us how the idea for the company was born, why customers love it, and how the public cloud makes it all possible.

How GIGS simplifies the process of buying and selling data plans [04:09];
The problems it solves for its customers [05:14];
How Gigs reduced a process that took 15 months down to 15 minutes [06:18];
Why public cloud, API-based solutions are the future [09:40].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Learn more about Gigs
TechCrunch wrote an article on Gigs and how it recently raised $20M
Take a look at Totogi’s public cloud-native, API-based solutions
Check out Gigs emoji mascot—don’t you just love it? Hermann has a pair of sneakers with the mascot.
I love sneakers too—I have a 5+ pair collection of Golden Goose Mid-Stars. They’re made for skateboarding, or in my case, delivering MWC keynotes. My most recent pair has a pink sole! Love it.
As a foodie, I just love the idea of Gig’s Table. It makes me think of that great dining scene from the 1996 movie, Big Night.
And this is not a cooking scene, but it’s a hilarious sketch from Saturday Night Live about ordering lobster in a diner. If you love Les Miserables, you’ll love this sketch!

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
About Hermann Frank

Hermann Frank is the co-founder and CEO of Gigs, the world's first telecom-as-a-service platform that enables companies to quickly and easily launch their own mobile service while retaining full control over branding and pricing. Prior to Gigs, Frank worked as a startup entrepreneur, consultant and for the Fraunhofer Institute, among others. Hermann Frank studied business administration at Maastricht University (Netherlands) and at the Luigi Bocconi University of Economics in Milan, Italy.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Forward thinking, innovative companies are using the public cloud to deliver easy-to-use telco software that reduces costs and speeds deployments. Today’s guest, Erland Prestgard, is the CEO and co-founder of one of these visionary businesses, Working Group Two. His team has built a multi-tenant, public-cloud-native, mobile core running on AWS—something naysayers have said today’s tech couldn’t support. Click play to hear our conversation about:

Why building a mobile core network on AWS is revolutionary [03:03];
What business value it delivers [04:11];
How the telco industry is responding, and the outdated perceptions some leaders are still hanging onto [11:34]; and
The most important lessons Working Group Two has learned about the best ways for telcos to get to the public cloud [15:18].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Learn more about Working Group Two
Watch my talk about monetizing private enterprise networks with Ray LeMaistre on TelecomTV
Find out how Working Group Two helped Hutchison reduce its mobile core stack from 22 different vendors down to just one serving multiple countries
Listen to my podcast conversation with Justen Burdette, CEO of Mobi, a Working Group Two customer
Read about Totogi’s Charging-as-a-Service, built on AWS
Try out orienteering, one of Erlend’s favorite hobbies and a great analogy for what he and I are doing to get telcos to the public cloud
You’re going to need more than a map to navigate the public cloud. Just like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, you’ll need to do your research on the best services, pricing, and operational playbooks to get it working just right.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Erlend Prestgard

Erlend Prestgard is CEO and co-founder at Working Group Two. He has worked at the intersection of business development and technology with telecom operators, internet companies, and industry advisors. Before leading and co-founding Working Group Two, Erlend worked with the Telenor Group, Aspiro (including the music service now named Tidal), McKinsey & Company, and UBS Investment Bank. He is on a mission to radically enhance innovation in the mobile industry.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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In 2015, Hawaii-based MVNO Mobi decided to give up managing the radio components of its network in favor of focusing on creating awesome services for subscribers. To accomplish this, it needed to become a thick MVNO with its own mobile core, so it started working with Working Group Two to implement a public-cloud-native, mobile core running on AWS.

For this episode, Mobi CEO Justen Burdette joins me to talk about why the MVNO chose this path, the benefits it gained by teaming with Working Group Two, and why it’s so great to work with the public cloud.

Click play to hear our conversation about:

What makes Mobi different than a traditional MVNO [02:50];
How it benefits from having its own mobile core [07:06];
The advantages of working with cloud-first solutions [10:47]; and
How Working Group Two’s APIs bring value to the business [13:04].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Visit the Mobi website
Learn more about Mobi’s work with Working Group Two
Read about Mobi’s deal with with T-Mobile US to expand into the continental US 5G market
Justen talked about the beauty of APIs—learn more about Totogi’s Churn Prediction Service, instantly available via an API call, and Totogi’s Charging as a Service, too!
Brokerage founder Charles Schwab is as enchanted with the Big Island as I am. He and billionaire investor George Roberts founded their own golf course, Nanea, on the slopes of Mount Hualalai in 2003. Rumor has it that its creation was a billion-dollar way to thumb his nose at the Four Seasons.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
About Justen Burdette

Justen Burdette serves as the chief executive officer for Mobi, the regional wireless provider for Hawaiʻi. He previously served as vice president for product at Tucows, where he helped lead the growth of its Ting Mobile wireless brand to over $90 million in annual revenue before its acquisition by Dish (Nasdaq: DISH), at the time making it the fifth largest independent MVNO in the country including its Ting IoT business. He also led the launch of its Ting Internet fiber-to-the-home ISP in several regional markets, and helped manage the development of its in-house CRM, BSS, and OSS platform, which has since become a standalone SaaS startup, Wavelo.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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The amount the hyperscalers spend on the public cloud is staggering. It requires a $100-billion+ buy-in to be considered a serious player. Today’s guest, Charles Fitzgerald, tracks hyperscaler CapEx spending each quarter on his Platformonomics blog. He parses earning reports to gain insight into who’s putting their money where their mouth is.

Charles recently published his annual 2022 retrospective on the cloud players. In this episode, we get his thoughts on the Big Three, the other guys, and the telco clouds. Click play to hear our conversation about:

Why he started tracking the hyperscaler CapEx [01:57];
How the Big Three rank in spending and where telcos sit in the mix [04:02];
His insightful take on AWS’, Azure’s, and Google Cloud’s positions in the market [09:19]; and
Why he thinks IBM and Oracle are out of the race [15:45].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Read Charles Fitzgerald’s 2022 retrospective on public cloud CapEx spending
IBM thinks “$1 BILLION DOLLARS” is impressive. It reminded me of this hysterical scene from Austin Powers when Dr. Evil wants to hold the world ransom—for $1 million dollars
If you want fair share from the techCo’s, be ready to pay for their content budget, as noted in this Mobile World Live write up of Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters’ comments at MWC
Take a look at TelcoDR’s hyperscaler region tracker to see where all the 3 “BIGS” have been putting their regions
Look inside Barack Obama’s head — or at least what he read last summer — by checking out his 2022 summer reading list
It took me some practice to say “Platformonomics” for Charles’ intro. It reminded of this epic Muppet skits — Mahna Mahna

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

About Charles Fitzgerald

Charles Fitzgerald is a Seattle-based angel investor, with a focus on developer platforms and infrastructure. Previously, he spent 20+ years working on platform businesses at Microsoft and VMware. He can see the cloud from his house. Follow him on Twitter @charlesfitz.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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So much has changed with the public cloud and telco since I created CLOUD CITY at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2021. Back then, most industry folks said that the public cloud might be a good fit for enterprise IT and BSS workloads, but considering it for network workloads was an entirely different matter. Fast-forward two years, and now my question for the industry is, “are there any telco workloads that can't move?”

In this episode, I talk with Ben Baker from Juniper Networks about where we are in telco's network journey to the public cloud and which workloads the hyperscalers are ready to support. Click play to hear our conversation about:

The most important strategic decision for telcos [05:02];
Why the network is more important than ever [06:57];
Can telcos technically run network workloads on the public cloud [09:38]; and
How and why telcos should be using the public cloud [13:41].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Visit the Juniper Networks website.
Read about AWS Telco Network Builder.
Watch my EPIC keynote from MWC 2021, The paradox of the public cloud.
Dracyrus! Watch Danyres Targarian utter the famous DRAGONFIRE command as she takes over the Unsullied Army in this unforgettable scene from Game of Thrones, Season 3!
I’ve been nominated for Silverlining’s March Madness poll to name the most influential person in cloud. I'm up against some heavy hitters, so help a girl out and cast your vote here.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Ben Baker

Ben Baker is a Senior Director, Cloud and Data Center Marketing & Business Analysis, at Juniper Networks. Ben has been working with cloud and service providers around the world for more than 20 years, developing business cases for a variety of product concepts and new ventures. Ben holds a BS & MS in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from MIT.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

On March 1, I presented a keynote— my third in a row!— at MWC’s inaugural MVNO Summit. It was standing-room-only with leaders from digital brands, MVNOs, and MVNEs who were eager to learn how intelligent, SaaS software (like Totogi!) can help them delight customers and grow ARPU. We captured the talk on video, and I’ve turned it into this podcast. Listen now to hear about:

Why MVNOs need to start acting like internet companies [04:02];
How Totogi’s multi-tenant SaaS software is changing the game [05:29];
Why MVNOs should stop using pricing to win subscribers, and start using their crown jewel – the network! [12:52]; and
The supercharged power of Totogi Auto Plan [14:42].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Check out the video version of my MVNO Summit talk.
Learn more about Totogi and sign up (for one penny!) on AWS Marketplace.
Read my blog about machine learning - what it is, how it works, and why you need the public cloud to make your models great
Read my blog about why MVNOs need to stop differentiating on price and start personalizing the customer experience.
Everyone is still talking about my CLOUD CITY 2021! I’ll bet Ericsson would like to forget it. It was AMAZING.
Watch my 2021 MWC keynote, The Paradox of the Public Cloud.
Then check out my 2022 MWC talk, The Public Cloud is NOW!
No doubt you heard about the EPIC party Totogi put on after the Summit at Luce de Gas. One of the highlights was a performance by Cyberflamenco, which blends a laser show and traditional Spanish flamenco dancing.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

I spend a lot of time talking to telcos about how public cloud technology can help them delight subscribers and boost ARPU. Ahmed Khattak, founder and CEO of US Mobile, knows exactly what I’m talking about. He built the Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) natively on the public cloud from day one. In this episode, we talk about his vision for the company and how it benefits from its public-cloud-first design. Click play to hear our conversation about:

How Ahmed’s experience coming to the United States from Pakistan shaped his vision for US Mobile [01:50];
What sets the company apart from other US-based MVNOs [02:28];
The benefits of building in the public cloud [04:12]; and
The key public cloud attribute that Ahmed thinks is underrated by telcos [09:54].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Visit the US Mobile website.
Learn more about the upcoming MVNO Summit at Mobile World Congress 2023. Totogi is a gold sponsor—let’s meet while we’re there!
Check out MongoDB, US Mobile’s database of choice. It’s a single-table database like DynamoDB, which is what Totogi uses.
[google cloud/US mobile announcement / blog]
Don’t build your own charger! Instead try out Totogi’s Charging a Service
Read this March 2021 white paper about how US Mobile built pooled plans.
Ahmed has been an entrepreneur to watch for most of his career, like when he was included in Under30CEO’s list of the 30 Most Influential Young Entrepreneurs.
Check out my high-five photo with former U.S. President Barack Obama. Amazing!
Remember the 1988 movie Coming to Americawith Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall?

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Ahmed Khattak

Ahmed Khattak is the CEO and founder of US Mobile, a fast-growing Hybrid Network Operator that’s disrupting the wireless industry with more than 400 customizable plans, cutting-edge features, and world-class customer service. With a wealth of experience in the telecommunications industry, Ahmed is on a mission to democratize connectivity. He has been recognized as Bloomberg Businessweek’s “Top 25 Entrepreneurs under 25,” Under30CEO’s “Top 30 Most Influential Entrepreneurs under 30,” and a finalist for Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Entrepreneur of the Year.”

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Mobile World Congress 2023 is right around the corner, running from February 27 through March 2. This is the biggest event of the year for the telco industry, a place where the movers and shakers come together to discuss policy, see innovative ideas from exhibitors, and get deals done.

In this episode, I talk with Lara Dewar, chief marketing officer for the GSMA, which puts together MWC each year. Click play to hear our conversation about:

What’s in store for this year’s event [01:58];
The inside scoop on the GSMA’s ministerial program, which gathers policy makers from more than 160 countries to discuss and shape industry policies and regulations [07:45]; and
The down low on this year’s inaugural MVNO Summit, where Totogi is the gold sponsor [10:01].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Make your plan to attend MWC 23!
Read the latest news release from the GSMA about speakers, event features, and more.
Find out why Totogi, where I’m acting CEO, is perfect for MVNOs and digital brands, and then come find me at MWC23 to learn more. I’ll be giving a talk at the MVNO Summit and hanging out at the Totogi booth between Halls 3 and 5.
Read what Mike Dano from Light Reading says you should expect from this year’s event. His prediction? 80,000 attendees.
CLOUD CITY at MWC 2021 was unforgettable! Here’s a reminder of just how awesome it was.
If you’re traveling with me, you better not plan on checking a bag. Our podcast producer learned quickly when we started traveling together; this was her previous approach to packing—OMG! Buy some life-changing packing cubes and never check a bag again.
In honor of Lara’s love of dinner parties, I dug up this fabulous scene from the movie My Best Friend's Wedding. Lara wouldn’t approve of the rectangular dinner table, but who wouldn’t love a dinner guest with enough charisma to lead an entire restaurant in a sing-along?
I agree with Lara that specialty cocktails make a party shine. Here’s a list of the cloudy cocktails we created for our afterparty at MVNO Nation Live in November 2022 (with a splash of dry ice, of course!).

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
About Lara Dewar

Lara Dewar is responsible for driving the GSMA’s global marketing and communications strategy to support and enable business success for the organization and its members. She is a global leader with more than 20 years of knowledge in industries shaping our world. Since joining the GSMA in January 2020 as Global Head of Communications, Lara has successfully shaped its communication strategy during a tumultuous time. From financial services and energy to charity and telecoms, Lara has applied her strategic and collaborative approach to leadership to drive transformation in its truest sense.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Telcos have a ton of subscriber data at their fingertips, yet most never tap its value. MobileX is ready to show them the way. It’s using AI and subscriber usage insights to price personalized plans with transparency, and hoping to build trust between telco and customers in the process.

In this episode, I talk to MobileX CEO and serial entrepreneur, Peter Adderton. He’s going to tell us what MobileX is up to and how it’s filling an unmet need. Click play to hear our conversation about:

Why Peter started MobileX [03:10];
Why customer trust is key to its brand [06:23];
How the company benefits from being a digital first, app-driven business [08:38]; and
The economics behind MVNO success [13:57].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Visit the MobileX website to learn more about the company.
Follow @peter_adderton on Twitter—he’s constantly commenting on the industry!
Learn more about the upcoming MVNO Summit at Mobile World Congress 2023. Totogi is a gold sponsor—let’s meet while we’re there!
Learn about Stetson Doggett’s Best Phone Plans.
Check out Totogi, my company that’s building software to generate the perfect plan for every subscriber.
Peter is from the land down under and now lives in California. Check out the trailer from Crocodile Dundee, the 1986 movie about another Australian making his way in the States.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Telcos around the world are signing strategic deals with hyperscalers, setting big goals for public cloud transformation, and finding ways to cross the finish line. A great example is TELUS, which signed a 10-year strategic agreement with Google Cloud and is on a path to become a cloud-native organization.

For this episode, I talk with Hesham Fahmy, chief information officer at TELUS, about how the telecom built momentum for its cloud journey, what happened along the way, and what it learned that other telcos should know. Hit play to hear our conversation about:

TELUS’ plan to move 80% of workloads to the cloud by 2025 [03:56];
Where and how it decided to start its move [06:16];
How TELUS brought its team along on its public cloud journey [08:42].
Refactoring applications for the public cloud [12:18].

Listen to the episode by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Read the announcement of TELUS’ 10-year strategic alliance with Google Cloud.
Hear about another digital transformation in episode 52, featuring Nathan Bell, former chief digital officer of M1 Singapore, and now digital practice partner at Kearney.
Listen to my Telco in 20 conversation with change-management guru Jim Abolt about driving workplace transformation.
Read my blog about the importance of setting Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs). Don’t forget to publicize and celebrate the wins to align your team and build momentum towards the cloud.
Check out Hesham’s helmet-cam footage, captured while he was racing his motorcycle, and then find out what makes Turn 1 at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas so special.
Once you get moving to the cloud, you’ll want to keep your trains running smoothly. Learn how Tokyo runs one of the world’s best subway systems to get ideas on how to keep your organization on track.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback!

This week’s guest
About Hesham Fahmy

As Chief Information Officer at TELUS, Hesham Fahmy leads the team responsible for spearheading TELUS’ transformation to a fully-digital, software-centric and cloud-enabled organization. The CIO team brings humanized, digital-first experiences to life for customers, and champions technology to improve capabilities, efficiency and scalability across all current and future lines of business. With a bachelor of computer engineering from McMaster University and a master of software engineering from the University of Toronto, Hesham has innovated software products and solutions for 25 years, including 19 in senior leadership roles. He has a track record of launching disruptive products and platforms in retail, IoT, fintech and development tooling.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

I had some amazing conversations this year, but none grabbed more ears than my in-person interview with DISH Wireless Executive Vice President and Chief Network Officer Marc Rouanne. He offered a behind-the-scenes look at DISH’s new 5G network, its work with AWS, and more. The original episode went live in June, and since then it’s been listened to thousands of times. Hit play to hear:

How hyperscaler investments made DISH’s project possible [02:34];
What Marc would change about the AWS platform [04:20];
His experience working with software vendors’ cloud-native solutions [05:46];
How building on AWS changed the economics of network operations [07:26]; and
Marc’s vision for using open APIs to grow the business [9:55].

A few weeks ago at AWS re:Invent 2022, DISH released its first batch of Network APIs, just as Marc envisioned. It’s so exciting to watch it unfold! Listen to our conversation by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Watch the video of my conversation with Marc on the TelcoDR YouTube channel
DISH’s network APIs were huge news at this year’s AWS re:Invent. Don’t miss these headlines from Light Reading, Fierce Wireless and TelecomTV. Even McKinsey & Company Partner Ferry Grijpink chimed in. (Oh, and ICYMI, check out Ferry’s Telco in 20 episode—the second most popular of the year!)
Check out the DISH Wireless Developer Hub and read TelcoDR’s blog about it
Read about how Totogi joined DISH at AWS re:Invent to showcase its capabilities
Watch the fun holiday interview I did with Ray LeMaistre from TelecomTV about why the DISH project is a gamechanger for telco
Find out what happened to the mini computer vendors that didn’t see innovation coming until it was too late.

The best way to spread telco cheer is singing loud for all to hear. My favorite holiday song? Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas” of course! Put it on full blast and sing it the top of your lungs! Telco execs,wanna talk public cloud? Set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback!

This week’s guest

About Marc Rouanne

As Executive Vice President and Chief Network Officer for DISH’s wireless business, Marc is responsible for network architecture, RF network and strategy, core network architecture and strategy, cloud and edge strategy, security, transport, 5G lab management and interoperability testing. He brings to DISH more than 20 years of international management experience in the telecommunications industry, having held executive positions in R&D, customer operations and product management in the U.S., France and Finland.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Audio Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Last week I gave a keynote at the first-ever in-person MVNO Nation Live conference in beautiful Valencia, Spain. It was thrilling to talk to all of the entrepreneurial leaders at this event. They clearly see the huge upside of embracing public cloud technology and are poised to use it to become some of the world’s greatest brands. I’ve turned my keynote into this podcast episode. Listen now to hear:

Examples of how telcos and MVNOs are benefiting from public cloud technology [02:48];
How cloud-native telco tools (like Totogi!) can help MVNOs streamline work, increase speed to market, and lower costs [05:21];
Why giffgaff put data at the heart of its business [12:53]; and
How MVNOs can boost their NPS and ARPU by delivering an amazing, personalized customer experience [13:55].

When you’re done listening, check out the links to Totogi and the AWS Marketplace below, and contact us for a demo. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Read my blog about why MVNOs need to stop differentiating on price and start personalizing the customer experience
Watch the video version of my MVNO Nation Live keynote
Check out this great article about digital-attacker strategies from McKinsey & Company
Read my op-ed in Vanilla Plus about why MVNOs should be all-in on the public cloud
Read the original AWS press release on the giffgaff relationship
Learn more about Totogi and sign up (for one penny!) on AWS Marketplace
Find out how MVNOs can super-charge their BSS with Totogi’s BSS enhancement platform, starting with our Charging-as-a-Service
You KNOW that we rocked an awesome party at MVNO Nation Live. Check out the cloudy drinks and our dance moves on the 360 spinner!

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

Every telco leader, consultant, and analyst I talk to these days says the telecom industry’s move to the public cloud is in full swing. Today’s guest, Davide Bellini, agrees. As Accenture Applied Intelligence lead for the communications and media industry, he has his finger on the pulse of telcos around the world—what they’re thinking about, how they’re navigating challenges, and their vision for a future powered by the public cloud. Click play to hear Davide’s thoughts on:

Public cloud adoption trends around the globe [03:40];
What’s changed to make telcos more open to cloud transformation [11:28];
Their greatest hurdles to migration success [13:56]; and
Why freeing data from siloed databases has become a business imperative [19:29].

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Read the TelcoDR blog Think twice before building your own public cloud
Listen to an early Telco in 20 podcast episode featuring Forrest Brazeal, Lift Off: Telcos moving to the public cloud – beware of lift and shift. (This is the one I rap in – seriously!)
Want to know if there’s a hyperscaler region available in your neighborhood? Check out our handy spreadsheet of hyperscaler data centers (it changes by the week!)
Which hyperscaler is winning? This Light Reading article quotes TelcoDR as saying that it’s probably AWS, followed by Azure, and then Google Cloud. For a more in depth look, read the Informa report (subscription required).
Davide and his team recently released two reports on growth opportunities that small- and medium-size businesses are bringing to CSPs
- The SMB Opportunity for CSPs: A New Path for Growth (Part 1)
- The SMB Opportunity for CSPs: A New Path for Growth (Part 2)
The Great Telco Public Cloud Migration is on! Watch this video of the world’s great animal migration - the Wildebeest migration - that happens each year in East Africa.
Davide lives in Italy and shares his last name with the drink made famous by Harry’s bar in Venice, the Bellini. Learn the history behind the drink and how to make it in this video.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
About Davide Bellini

Davide is an Accenture Managing Director with more than 23 years of consulting experience with Tier 1 Communications and Media industry clients across the world. He is the Global Lead for Communications, Media and Entertainment Industry in Applied Intelligence, Accenture’s division focused on transforming clients' business with Data and AI at the core. Davide is also leading the Accenture SMB Growth offering for the Comms Industry globally, a transformational portfolio of end-to-end services to help CSPs generate value for the small- and medium-business segment with industry-specific, highly personalized, and sustainable communication and technology services.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

The signs are everywhere—the MVNO segment of telco is picking up steam. On November 16-17, 2022, MVNO leaders from around the world will gather at the inaugural MVNO Nation Live conference in Valencia, Spain, while 800-pound gorilla GSMA has plans to host its first MVNO Summit as part of the big show at next year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. This makes it a great time to explore the ins and outs of launching a successful MVNO or digital brand. In this episode, I’m talking with Scott Venuti, General Manager at Plum, a mobile virtual network aggregator (MVNA). He helps MVNOs get their businesses launched and ready for success. Click play to hear our conversation about:

How long it takes to get an MVNO set up [07:47];
Why being nimble is key [09:28];
Why getting plans to market is so important for successful MVNOs [10:51];
The importance of making the right decisions at the beginning of the journey [13:23];
Thoughts on MVNO profitability and margins [15:16].

Links and Resources

Read about Plum’s exclusive collaboration with T-Mobile
MVNOs and digital brands are great ways to experiment with new software. Those smarty pants over at McKinsey & Company agree and even wrote an article about their cool ideas
Find out how MVNOs can super-charge their BSS with Totogi’s BSS enhancement platform, starting with our Charging-as-a-Service!
Learn more about MVNO Nation Live, happening November 16-17 in Valencia, Spain. Totogi is the event’s Principal Sponsor—let’s meet while we’re there! And check out all the great reasons Totogi is a perfect fit for MVNOs
Next time you’re in the US state of Massachusetts, check out Scott’s family business, Bedford Farms Ice Cream
How many scoops of ice cream can you balance on an ice cream cone? Watch the record being set, complete with a cameo from the guy who holds the Guinness Book of World Records for “Longest Tongue,” which might come in handy with 125 (!) scoops

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Gold Hermes Award and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest
About Scott Venuti

As the General Manager of Plum, the wholesale division of UVNV, Scott brings more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunications space. He joined UVNV in 2019 as VP of Channel Development for UVNV's Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile brands before launching the Plum wholesale business in 2020. He is an industry veteran with expertise in carrier-side and MVNO-side wireless wholesale sales and operations, as well as consumer and business distribution and channel management. His wireless experience includes time at Sprint, Clearwire, and others while working with many of North America's top telecom providers, national retailers, and distributors.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

A couple of years ago, I learned that M1, a Singapore-based MNO, was doing exactly what I had been evangelizing about—going ALL IN on the public cloud. Leading the charge was then-Chief Digital Officer Nathan Bell. I’ve been hoping to have him on the podcast ever since I heard about what he was doing. Today, my wish comes true. In this episode, he joins me to talk about:

How Nathan and M1 got the idea—in 2019!— to go all-in on the public cloud [03:47];
The moment they knew they were going to be successful [14:41];
How they brought the team along on the transformation journey [16:11]; and
What Nathan would do differently if he had to do it all over again [19:01].

A quick side note: Nathan recently shared exciting news – a few weeks ago he accepted the role of Digital Practice Partner at Kearney. Congratulations, Nathan!

Links and Resources

Take a look at M1’s February 2021 news release about its digital transformation
Watch the TM Forum panel where Nathan and I first met, CSPs should run toward public cloud
Listen to The Cloud Strategy panel from Asia Pacific Telecom Summit 2022, where Nathan talked more about M1’s cloud move
Learn more about Kearney’s digital practice, where Nathan recently became a partner.
Get Nathan’s take on what bringing people along on a digital transformation has in common with the evolution of F1 racing
Nathan’s right, “with great power comes great responsibility” – so here’s a mash-up from Spiderman: No Way Home to remind you to watch your team when you give them free rein in the public cloud
Check out Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest Bruce Springsteen songs of all time - Born to Run is #1!

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Gold Hermes Award and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Nathan Bell

Nathan Bell is Digital Practice Partner at Kearney. He is an advisor and mentor to both businesses at scale and startups, helping to guide their journeys as they seek to leverage the value of digital agendas and scale digital offerings. As the Chief Digital Officer for M1, Nathan helped shape the future of M1’s business from how customers choose and consume services, to the experiences of its staff, to engagement with its partners. With more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunication industry, Nathan has held a number of senior leadership and sales positions in Europe and Asia Pacific at companies including AT&T, KPNQwest, BT, TelkomTelstra and Telstra.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

View Details

For the last year and a half, I’ve been obsessed with one of the biggest collaborations worldwide between a telco and a hyperscaler: AT&T and Microsoft Azure. In 2021, the CSP sold its network cloud to Azure. Since then, people in the industry have been wondering what’s been going on, who’s doing what, and how things are going. For this episode, Shawn Hakl, Microsoft VP of 5G Strategy, joins me to answer these questions and talk about:

Why the partnership made sense for both sides [02:37];
The benefit of handing over infrastructure management to a hyperscaler [04:22];
How Azure and AT&T collaborate and divide responsibilities [05:52]; and
The challenges of bringing it all together and adopting a new playbook [12:03].

Links and Resources

Read AT&T’s June 2021 announcement about Microsoft’s acquisition of its Network Cloud
Check out this Protocol article from July 2021, Why AT&T moved its core tech — but not everything — to Microsoft Azure
Here's Shawn’s update on the collaboration from early 2022
Listen to other Telco in 20 episodes featuring Microsoft Azure:
- Ep 5 Rick Lievano: The BFC’s: Putting Microsoft’s Azure to the test for telcos
- Ep 9 Yousef Khalidi: Microsoft’s big move
A big part of the strategy for Azure with its acquisition of AT&T’s Network Cloud is to refactor the code to run natively on Azure and then sell it to other operators. Read my blog on why refactoring for native public cloud is key to really leveraging the power of the public cloud.
Shawn is way into making antique furniture by hand, and even made a piece with a SECRET DRAWER. You know what else has a secret drawer? The Resolute Desk, at least according to the movie National Treasure. Watch how Nicolas Cage cracks the code and finds the hidden drawer.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Gold Hermes Award and was recognized on Forrester’s list of the Top 100 Channel Podcasts and Feedspot’s Top 10 Telecom Podcasts list. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Shawn Hakl

Shawn Hakl is responsible for building and executing the product strategy and partnerships for Microsoft’s Azure for Operators portfolio. His team works across product, engineering, and sales to help operators execute on the digital transformation of the core and edge networks. Prior to Microsoft, Shawn served at Verizon as the Senior Vice President of Business Product, responsible for a $29B portfolio covering services such as enterprise networking, 4G/5G, cyber security, collaboration, and IoT.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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India is a fascinating place for telco operators. It’s home to more than a billion subscribers, while also having some of the lowest ARPU on the planet. This means mobile operators there not only need carrier-grade software products, they need to get them for a low, low price.

Last week I delivered a keynote at Voice & Data’s “5G and the future of mobile data” conference in Delhi, India. I’ve turned that talk into this podcast episode to share why the public cloud is perfect for India’s unique telco market and how to unlock its full potential. Listen now to hear:

Why the public cloud is such a good fit for India’s operators [04:47];
Why using cloud native telco software is critical to success [06:40]; and
The simple way to tell if a telco software solution is truly cloud native, and not just “cloud washed.” [07:44]

Links and Resources

Read the article in Voice & Data or on my blog about why the public cloud is perfect for India
Watch Voice & Data’s full recording of the conference sessions
Check out the Totogi website and buy it on AWS Marketplace
Read this piece by Light Reading about India’s 5G spectrum auction
This is the 50th episode of Telco in 20 – can you believe it? Did you know that only 4% of active podcasts have more than 10 episodes?

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
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Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
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The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Gold Hermes Award and was recognized on Forrester’s list of the 100 Channel Podcasts and Feedspot’s Top 10 Telecom Podcasts list. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
Music: Dyami Wilson

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When it comes to rolling out enterprise software, no one takes one for the team like the guys and gals in charge of delivery. They’re always on the front line, ready to battle any obstacle to get the system up and providing value to customers.

Up until now, rolling out a telco charging engine has been a huge, heavy lift for the delivery folks. But not anymore, because the public cloud-based Totogi Charging System is delivered in a completely different way. For this episode, I’m joined by Totogi’s global head of delivery, Damon Wheaton, to talk about:

Why it’s so hard for telcos to deploy a traditional charging system [03:12];
What’s so different about deploying Totogi’s Charging as a Service [08:06];
Why building on the foundation of the public cloud is a total game changer [09:16]; and
Why Totogi is PERFECT for telcos in India [15:14].

Links and Resources

Check out the Totogi website and find us on AWS Marketplace
Read this piece by Light Reading about India’s 5G spectrum auction
Then check out this article in the Wall Street Journal about Reliance Group emerging as the big winner
Listen to the last episode of What’s Up with Totogi, The Future of Chargingwith Totogi CMO Hakan Dursan where we talk about the differentiation of the plan design system – built by marketers, for marketers
Years ago, when I worked at Trilogy, we gave out the Han Solo in Carbonite award to someone who went above and beyond to take one for the team, just like the delivery folks do every day. I mean, who doesn’t want a life-size figure of Hans Solo, the ultimate team player, in their office?
Enterprise software is NO-NO-NO-NOTORIOUS for being over promised and under delivered. Reminds me of the 1986 song Notorious by Duran Duran. Watch the original music video and sing along with me!
Watch the original “Wassup” Budweiser beer commercial—a true classic—and then check out the revival ad, launched during the pandemic

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Gold Hermes Award and was recognized on Forrester’s 2021 list of the Top 100 Channel Podcasts and Feedspot’s Top 10 Telecom Podcasts list. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Damon Wheaton

Damon Wheaton has worked with telecoms for more than 25 years and witnessed the evolution of analogue networks to generations of digital networks. He has extensive experience working for telecom operators, software vendors, network equipment providers, and global consulting and professional service organizations. As the global head of delivery for Totogi, he is instrumental in rolling out Totogi’s cloud-based BSS platform, which empowers operators and breaks legacy software vendor lock-in. He was formerly Global VP for Professional Services at MATRIXX Software, Inc.

Podcast Credits

● Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR

● Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media

● Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing

● Editing: Andrew Condell

● Music: Dyami Wilson

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Moving to the public cloud is a major transformation for most telcos. There’s a lot at stake, and failure can spell disaster for an organization and its leaders. But the hard truth is that 70% of big transformation projects fail according to research from McKinsey & Company. In this episode, I sit down with Teena Piccione, a change management expert at Google, to dig into what telcos can do to keep their public cloud journey on track. Click play to hear our conversation about:

The reasons big projects fail [03:15];
How to build support for change in your organization [04:14];
What to do to get a derailed project back on track [07:59]; and
How to handle resistance to change [12:14].

Listen to our conversation by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform – see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

This episode combines two topics I love – transformation and human resources. Here are other great TelcoDR insights on these topics:
- The first episode of Telco in 20! It starts with transformational leadership
- Episode 7, Telcos, get ready for workforce transformation
- Learn how Verizon has navigated its public cloud journey
- Read my blog about how to start your move to the cloud
Teena and I talked before she left for Alaska – the last of the US states she had left to visit. Here’s a picture from her trip.
Check out this trailer from Insomnia, starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hillary Swank. It’s a great movie about a veteran detective sent to a small Alaskan town to investigate the murder of a teenage girl.
Watch this fun scene from the 1987 movie, Overboard, with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Gold Hermes Award and was recognized on Forrester’s 2021 list of the Top 100 Channel Podcasts and Feedspot’s Top 10 Telecom Podcasts list. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Teena Piccione
Teena Piccione joined Google's corporate engineering team in February 2022 to lead the Technical Engineering Teams. She previously led Google Cloud’s Telco, Media & Entertainment, Gaming (TMEG) Industry Sales and Customer Engineering teams. She has served as the EVP/CIO for RTI International, a non-profit research institute, and held leadership positions at Fidelity Investments (COO) and AT&T (running the Big Data Center of Excellence startup). Teena sits on advisory committees with NC State University, the Digital Transformation Committee for the Governor of NC, and The Kenan Institute.

Podcast Credits

● Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR

● Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo

● Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing

● Editing: Andrew Condell

● Music: Dyami Wilson

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Let’s be real: shifting workloads to the public cloud is no easy task. I’ve met a bunch of telecom leaders who debate about what is the best approach - should we go in one giant leap, or a series of steps? Their hesitancy to go all-in has left telco vendors designing and supporting multiple solutions—including private and hybrid cloud offerings—to meet them where they are, wherever that may be.

If the shortest path between two points is a straight line, and if we all agree that the destination is the public cloud, why take a half measure? I think it’s a waste of time and money. Why spend on interim steps when you could be investing in gaining public cloud know-how and competitive advantages immediately?

Everyone knows how much I like to dig into topics like these with people who don’t see eye-to-eye with me. That’s why I’m super psyched to have Shaun Whalon, VP of digital monetization at CSG, on the podcast. There’s a lot Shaun and I agree about—like that the move to the public cloud is inevitable for telco—and a lot we don’t agree on, like the best way to get there. Hit play to hear our conversation about:

The difference between CSG’s Ascendon and Encompass products [04:00];
How CSG’s definition of SaaS and cloud native differ from mine [06:30];
How the speed at which hyperscalers are rolling out new regions is affecting telecoms’ cloud journey [10:09]; and
Why I don't agree with a hybrid approach, and why Shaun feels it can't be avoided [15:43].

Listen to our conversation by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform – see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Read CSG’s press release about Encompass
Shaun mentioned our episode with BT Chief Architect Neil McRae. Listen to him talk about BT’s multi-cloud approach. I’ll bet you can guess my opinion!
Shaun should know about head winds: he comes from the windiest part of Ireland, Donegal. Learn more about it.
Heed this ominous warning from a classic scene from the TV show Breaking Bad: “No more half measures, Walter”
Don’t miss this Porky Pig Looney Tunes – he gets stuck in a hotel with an expensive bill to pay. He can’t get out – the perfect metaphor for legacy telco software!
And finally, here’s a big shoutout to Shaun’s daughters and their YouTube baking channel – mini orange fairy cakes, anyone?

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

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Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Gold Hermes Award and was recognized on Forrester’s 2021 list of the Top 100 Channel Podcasts and Feedspot’s Top 10 Telecom Podcasts list. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Shaun Whalon

Shaun Whalon is a senior executive with 20+ years of experience in the communications industry. He specializes in software and hardware customer service delivery, customer support, outsourced managed services, and baselining and improving customer experience. He has worked in multinational environments including Asia, Australia, Central and South America, Sub-Sahara Africa, and UK/Europe.

Podcast Credits

● Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR

● Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media

● Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing

● Editing: Andrew Condell

● Music: Dyami Wilson

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One thing I’ve learned from talking to telco execs across the globe about the public cloud is that security is top of mind. Another thing I’ve learned is that many of them don’t know a lot about just how secure the public cloud is. So for this episode, I’m joined by Amy Zwarico, director of cybersecurity at AT&T, one of the world's largest and oldest telcos. She’s here to explain why the public cloud is more secure than the way many telcos are doing business today, and how AT&T has been preparing for its transition to use Azure. Hit play to hear our conversation about:

What convinced AT&T that the public cloud and Microsoft Azure were the path to the future [02:32];
How AT&T shifted operating models to run workloads in the public cloud [04:47];
What advice Amy has for teams starting their cloud move [08:23];
Why developing security patterns ahead of time is critical [09:11];
How AT&T has benefited from its cloud migration [10:40].

Fun fact: Amy is our first female guest on Telco in 20! We both want to see more women in tech leadership, so we finish our conversation by talking about how to encourage STEM learning and IT careers for young women. For every listen to this episode in the first 30 days, we’ll donate $1 to the Girls Who Code chapter of my high school!

Be sure to subscribe and follow this podcast. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

Read the June 2021 announcement about AT&T and Microsoft joining forces
Check out AT&T’s cybersecurity blog
Download this AT&T Cybersecurity report about securing the edge
Learn more about Girls Who Code, an awesome nonprofit that works to close the gender gap in technology
Check out pictures of my gorgeous high school alma mater, El Paso HIgh School. Don’t miss the super cool amphitheater football stadium. Famous graduates include F. Murray Abraham, Sandra Day O’Conner, Beto O’Rouke – and yours truly, of course!
Amy loves classical music and singing, and has performed with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra (ASO) in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Learn more about ASO.
I, on the other hand, am NOT a singer – but I did rap (terribly) in an early podcast episode featuring Forrest Brazeal. Check it out!

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Gold Hermes Award and was recognized on Forrester’s 2021 list of the Top 100 Channel Podcasts and Feedspot’s Top 10 Telecom Podcasts list. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Amy Zwarico
Amy Zwarico is a director in AT&T’s Chief Security office. She’s been involved in Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) security since the Amsterdam release, and currently serves as vice chair of the ONAP Security Subcommittee. Amy has worked in the telco industry for more than 25 years, focusing for the past 20 years on app sec, cloud security, applied cryptography, mobility security, software supply chain security and policy.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Music: Dyami Wilson

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Telco leaders have been scratching their heads about how to monetize their 5G network. One of the world’s top think tanks, McKinsey & Company, has opinions on this topic—and research to back them up.

For this episode, I’m joined by McKinsey Partner Ferry Grijpink, founder of the McKinsey Center for Advanced Connectivity. He’s got great insights into how data analytics can help telcos personalize the subscriber experience and boost ARPU. Listen now to hear our conversation about:

What McKinsey’s research reveals about monetizing 5G investments [03:19];
Why telcos need to un-commoditize their products [04:36];
How delivering more personalized offers can boost ARPU [09:30]; and
Why the public cloud, AI, and ML are critical to achieving ARPU growth [16:19].

Links and Resources

Check out these resources from McKinsey & Company:
- The value of getting personalization right—or wrong—is multiplying
- How AI is helping revolutionize telco service operations
- Unlocking the value of 5G in the B2C marketplace
Find out how the Economic Times looks at personalization in this article: Which way 5G wind blows; significant shift in how telco operators engage with customers
Read this piece from Light Reading’s Mike Dano, Could 6G mark a return to usage-based pricing?
Telcos are starting to play with personalization. Read this article on Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom’s early experiments on combining their data with personalizing the experience.
I owe Ferry dinner BIG TIME, and he can name the place and time whenever he wants to! That’s because I disrupted his talk at MWC22 with my talk, The Public Cloud is NOW (oh, the irony!). Check out those drums at the beginning!
If I took Ferry to dinner in Austin, we’d head to my favorite restaurant, Uchi. I know - sushi? In Texas? But it brings in fish daily from Toyosu, Japan, and it might be the best sushi restaurant in the United States. It’s better than Nobu!

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Gold Hermes Award and was recognized on Forrester’s 2021 list of the Top 100 Channel Podcasts and Feedspot’s Top 10 Telecom Podcasts list. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

About Ferry Grijpink

Ferry leads the McKinsey Center for Advanced Connectivity within McKinsey & Company’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications Practice, and advises telecommunications companies on strategy, marketing, and operations, including mobile operators that are launching adjacent businesses in areas such as mobile health and money services. He also co-leads McKinsey’s research on deploying and commercializing next-generation infrastructures, such as fiber, mobile broadband, and 5G networks.

Podcast Credits

Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
Editing: Andrew Condell
Music: Dyami Wilson

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DISH Wireless EVP and Chief Network Officer Marc Rouanne talks about DISH’s cloud-native 5G network, its partnership with AWS, and more.

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BT Chief Architect Neil McRae talks about the company's digital transformation and strategies for working with hyperscalers ... and pinball, of course!

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Amol Phadke, Google Cloud's MD & GM for the Global Telecom Industry, talks about what the hyperscaler is doing in the telco space.

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When it comes to charging, the database you use is critical. Database expert Alex DeBrie talks about the pros and cons of database options.

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Telcos need to hire a gazillion people with cloud skills. How can CSPs cultivate the talented teams they need? Good news – there are new workforce management strategies and AI tools that can help.

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A cottage industry has popped up to help companies optimize their cloud environment and spending. Find out what you can do to hack cloud costs.

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Nothing new has happened in charging in decades – until now. Find out why Totogi’s API-based, pay-by-the-use system is a game changer for telcos.

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I had a great conversation with Claus Verner from AWS at MWC22. We talk about how the public cloud is helping to build innovative telco software companies, the launch of TelcoDR, and more.

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Listen to the most exciting talk from MWC 2022 to learn how to turn the public cloud into a competitive advantage.

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Microsoft Azure’s private network offering unites 5G, edge computing, and a robust partner network to deliver private networks to enterprises. Shriraj Gaglani, GM, Azure Private MEC, tells us what this means for telco.

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CLOUD CITY is back, baby! And 100% in the cloud this year. Find out what we’ve done to bring an in-person experience to our virtual platform, and what you’ll find during the event.

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Amazon Chime SDK general manager Sid Rao shares insights into what this set of real-time communication tools can do for telcos.

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In this special episode, we take a look at telco and public cloud trends to watch in 2022. Tune in to find out what you need to know.

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Nanda Kumar, executive director of cloud engineering at Verizon, has helped pilot the company’s successful digital transformation. He tells us about the journey, which started back in 2016.

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Totogi APIs can help CSPs bring new features to market fast, and boost customer satisfaction and ARPU in the process.

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In our most popular episode from 2021, transformation leader Juha Korhonen shares his experience with the successful launch of Yaqoot, a digital mobile operator in the Middle East.

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Telco in 20 sits down with Mats Granryd, Director General for GSMA, to talk about the future of the public cloud and telco.

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Telco in 20 sits down with Scott Bicheno and Iain Morris of the Telecoms.com podcast to have an awesome conversation about the public cloud and telco.

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TM Forum’s Open APIs are giving telcos a way to build IT solutions that are easier and cheaper to deploy, integrate, and upgrade. It’s time to change your thinking about the best way to build applications.

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Former Roshan CFO Imtiaz Esmail and his team refused to be sidelined by two devastating attacks on the Afghan telecom. Instead, they guided the company through a successful digital transformation.

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Here's the latest on Totogi, the telco software darling built specifically for the public cloud – 80% lower TCO, anyone?

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AWS' Rick Houlihan tells us why flexible and scalable NoSQL databases are a great fit for telco.

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Jonas Wallenius, Strategic Product Manager at Digital Route, has a clear view of the public cloud's potential for telco, and ideas about how the industry can get there.

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CLOUD CITY shifted the spotlight to the public cloud for telco for the first time in MWC history.

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There are massive upsides to the public cloud for telcos, but that’s not the whole story. TelcoDR CEO Danielle Royston tells it all in her MWC21 keynote.

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Switching from being network-centric to customer-centric is not only necessary, but also the best thing you’ll ever do for your bottom line.

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Transformation leader Juha Korhonen shares his experience with the successful launch of Yaqoot, a digital mobile operator in the Middle East.

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LastMileXchange’s cloud-based access quoting solution shines a spotlight on how the public cloud can transform telecom.

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The rumors are true... Public cloud is taking center stage in Barcelona and TelcoDR is leading the way!

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Remember the David-and-Goliath business story of Siebel vs Salesforce? There’s a new public cloud startup in Telco that will change everything – webscale charging engine Totogi.

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Andriy Zhylenko, CEO of PortaOne, talks about leading a pivot to the public cloud via Oracle Cloud.

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Jon Fagan, Senior Principal Cloud Architect at CSG, talks about what the billion-dollar company is doing with the public cloud.

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Telcos are making huge investments in 5G. Will ROI follow? Pete Bernard, Senior Director of Azure Edge Devices, Platforms and Services, talks about how 5G, IoT, AI and the edge can work together to help monetize the network.

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The Software Series, Part 1: MATRIXX Software CTO Marc Price talks 5G, designing for the public cloud, and why customizations will be the death of vendors AND telcos.

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In this special episode, we take a look at 2020’s big headlines and trends to watch in the coming year. Tune in to find out who will be in the winner’s circle at the end of 2021.

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Microsoft wants to be THE hyperscaler for the telecom industry. Yousef Khalidi, corporate VP for Azure for Operators, shares exactly what Azure is up to and why telcos need to pay attention.

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The HR Series, Part 2: What has two heads, two keyboards and two monitors and can help you squash the competition? It’s time to adopt pair programming.

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The HR Series, Part 1: If telecoms are going to survive the inevitable move to the public cloud, they need to start focusing on people - retraining, hiring, and yes, letting some workers go.

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Neil Bunn, Head of Customer Engineering, Media and Telco, for Google Cloud Canada, reviews the coolest features of Google cloud technology and offers an unexpected reason why GCP should be at the top of telcos’ list (hint: think, Anthos).

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Rick Lievano, Worldwide Director of Technology Strategy at Microsoft, builds a good case for why Azure should be telecom’s cloud platform of choice, not the least of which is Azure for Operators -- a game changer in the quest for carrier-grade cloud.

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Find out how telcos can control public cloud spending and avoid leaving money on the table. Featuring cloud economist and snark-master Corey Quinn.

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Using a lift and shift strategy for public cloud migration demands clear vision around what’s waiting on the other side. Cloud architect Forrest Brazeal explains what you need to know and why.

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Telcos need to start moving to the public cloud, like, yesterday. Migration specialist Troy O’Brien offers his advice on smart planning for a smooth journey.

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Telco needs disruptive leaders with the courage to drive change. Find out what sets these trailblazers apart and why it takes big changes to big things to succeed.

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You’ve found my podcast! Telco in 20 presents my vision for where the telco industry will be in 20 years and how savvy leaders will get there. New episodes, specifically for telco executives, drop every two weeks. Get the latest insights and best practices – and enjoy a few laughs!

Telco in 20: Recent Episodes

Danielle Royston, TelcoDR