Senza Fili Sparring Partners

Getting UnLinkedIn the hard way. With Frazer McKimm, New Way Networks

Our identity, who we are, is increasingly becoming defined by our online self. For many of us, our LinkedIn presence has become the main or a major channel for professional social media. What happens if that disappears overnight? Literally during the night. You no longer have access to it, and someone else with a different gender, name and nationality takes over.
This is what happened to Frazer McKimm, Director at New Way Networks, who told us his story and how he managed to get himself back. I don’t want to spoil the story for you, but this is more of a thriller than other episodes.
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Ageism and talent in telecoms. With Nirlay Kundu, IMDEA Networks

It seems fitting to have a podcast on ageism after a popular one with Simona Marinova on attracting young talent in telecoms.
Ageism is not only hard on the people affected by it, but also limits the ability of the industry to benefit from the experience of the senior workforce. At the same time, letting older people run the show may also slow down innovation and make telecoms less appealing to the younger generations.
I talked to Nirlay Kundu, Head of Technology Standards at IMDEA Networks. I have known Nirlay for a long time since he was at Verizon. He has a precious long-term perspective on ageism and talent in telecoms, spanning the US and Europe, working at an operator, and now mentoring and doing research with the youngest generation. How do we strike a good balance between attracting new talent and benefiting from wisdom and experience? What’s the best way to work together and help each other?

The latest on APIs: Wi-Fi and adoption. With Markus Kümmerle, CAMARA and Deutsche Telekom

It was after the Sparring Partners with Markus Kümmerle, Chair of Marketing at CAMARA and Magenta API Exposure Tribe Leader, Deutsche Telekom, that I decided to write my report on APIs, and so we came full circle in getting an update on APIs and getting Markus' feedback on the report.
We started talking about how Wi-Fi and cellular APIs need to coexist and then went further into fixed APIs and non-telco APIs—those provided by Google, Apple, vendors, and those distributed by hyperscalers in their marketplaces.
Have a look at the report (it is free) for more information and to see the transcript of our initial conversation here:
https://senzafili.com/taking-telco-apis-to-the-market/
More on CAMARA
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Telco APIs from the TM Forum. With Andy Tiller, TMF

Most of the talk today is on network APIs, but the universe of APIs is much bigger, and it is not only proprietary, non-telco, and Wi-Fi APIs. The TM Forum APIs have been around for a long time and have been widely adopted by service providers.
I talked with Andy Tiller, EVP Products and Services at TMF, about what the TMF APIs do, what different role and functionality they have compared to network APIs (the CAMARA and GSMA Open Gateway), how they help operators, and what spurred their adoption. We discussed APIs within the Open Digital Architecture (ODA) and the trend toward automation and AI in telecoms.
For more on telco APIs, read the “Taking telco APIs to the market” report that I just published.
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Growing pains in telecoms. With Joel Brand, Marvell

Telecoms has become a mature industry after decades of explosive growth. How do we manage innovation, the introduction of new technologies, and the growth expectations in this new environment?
I talked with Joel Brand, at AVP Product Management at Marvell, about how we can adjust to the new environment and what changes we need to make. Telecoms has been and still is an astounding success, even though we often complain about not meeting our expectations. We spanned many topics, including dumb pipes, utilities, replacement rates, power efficiency and sustainability, network capacity and efficiency, 5G, learning from other sectors, the Lego model, AI (and hype) and AI-RAN.
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More on Marvell at https://www.marvell.com/
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Better indoor Wi-Fi connectivity with Passpoint and Wi-DAS. With Howard Buzick, American Bandwidth

Most indoor connectivity already goes through Wi-Fi. Why do we need Passpoint to improve access to Wi-Fi networks? How can a Wi-DAS deployment help? Howard Buzick, Co-Founder at American Bandwidth, told us how Passpoint makes our Wi-Fi connections more seamless and secure and how American Bandwidth helps retail, healthcare, education and government organizations use Passpoint and a Wi-DAS architecture to make it easier to connect to their networks and to improve coverage.
Check out American Bandwith at https://ameriband.com

Wireless ticketing on trains in the US: Why is it so hard? With Jim Allison, CCJPA

If you use public transportation across countries, you probably noticed how much easier it is to pay with your phone in Europe or Asia than in the US. In part, this may be due to the more limited public transportation infrastructure and use and lower use of contactless payments for non-cash payments (half that of Europe).
But what I learned from talking to Jim Allison, Manager of Planning, Capitol Corridor Joint Power Authority (CCJPA), is that setting up wireless ticketing in the US is extremely complex – more so that, say, in the UK. Jim managed to pull it off and tells us how he did it. It is a fascinating story about how regulation and ecosystem structure exert a power that no amount of technology can match.
I have worked with Jim for a very long time to get Wi-Fi on CCJPA and Amtrak, and we talked about that too. We now take free Wi-Fi on trains almost for granted, but it took some time and effort to get there.
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Real-life, revenue-generating network APIs at TIM Brazil. With Leonardo Siqueira, TIM Brazil

Commercial adoption of APIs is still in the early days in most markets, but there are a few exceptions. Brazil is one of them, with operators offering them to app developers and getting revenues from them, supported by market demand and a facilitating regulatory environment. I talked with Leonardo Siqueira, Data Monetization and Mobile Ads Director at TIM Brazil, about the API rollout from 2023, the use cases, business models and what lies ahead.
If you want to read the transcript or watch us on video go here.
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Open DAS: Open RAN and DAS converge. With Upendra Pingle, ANDREW

It is hard to overstate the need for more indoor capacity and better coverage when you think that over 80% of traffic comes from indoor locations. And to address this need, we need more indoor infrastructure. But what’s the best way to get there? DAS or small cells? Or is Wi-Fi enough?
I talked to Upendra Pingle, General Manager, Indoor Cellular Networks at ANDREW, an Ampehnol company, one of the most passionate advocates of indoor coverage, and we talked about what could be a third way: Open DAS. It is different from the expensive and complex traditional DAS, and closer to a small-cell open-RAN architecture. How should we think about the Open DAS? How can DAS benefit from disaggregation? And are we at a point where DAS and small cells converge into a hybrid model?
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Does 6G need private networks? Do private networks need 6G? With Dean Bubley, Disruptive Analysis

Dean Bubley at Disruptive Analysis and I had a broad and deep discussion on the future of private networks as we move to 6G. We talked about indoor coverage, Wi-Fi networks, standardization, 3GPP and future adoption. But I do not want to spoil your experience, so you have to listen to know what our answers are.
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DeepSeek, Agentic AI: Moving forward with AI. With Siavash Alamouti, mimik

What do DeepSeek and agentic AI have in common? They show how AI and GenAI are evolving. They are not just getting better. They are spreading out in multiple directions to better meet our needs, to be more efficient, and, ultimately, to make the adoption of AI easier and more compelling.
Siavash Alamouti, Co-Founder and Chairman at mimik, presents a fascinating and compelling vision of how AI is evolving, and a precise and insightful assessment of DeepSeek. No panic, no hype, but a realistic and positive outlook of what the future may bring us. 
Highly recommended: Siavash’s DeepSeek's $6M LLM: Efficiency Masterclass or Propaganda? and Quantifying Energy and Cost Benefits of Hybrid Edge Cloud: Analysis of Traditional and Agentic Workloads (mentioned in the podcast)
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AI-RAN: All you need to know. With Alex Jinsung Choi, SoftBank and the AI-RAN Alliance

Everybody talks about AI-RAN, but it is often unclear what they mean by it, how it relates to Open RAN, how AI will change the RAN evolution, and what AI in the RAN will help operators support new services or improve current ones.
Alex Jinsung Choi, Principal Fellow at SoftBank Corp. and Chair at the AI-RAN Alliance, explains it all with great clarity and a clear vision for what RAN evolution is about, drawing from his previous work at Deutsche Telekom, O-RAN ALLIANCE and TIP.
If you want to dig deeper, check out these excellent papers:
AI-RAN Alliance Vision and Mission White Paper (AI-RAN Alliance)
AI-RAN: Telecom Infrastructure for the Age of AI (SoftBank Corp.)

Attracting talent in telecom. With Simona Marinova, Bell Canada

Telecom is no longer the magnet for talent that it was when I joined. Talented people entering the job market now often prefer to work for hyperscalers or other high-tech companies. Why is it so? And how can we make telecom more attractive to the younger generations?
I talked to one of the super-talented young people, Simona Marinova, Solution Architect at Bell Canada, who bucked the trend and joined Bell Canada while doing her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto to see what motivated her to get into telecom and to talk about what we can do as an industry to attract her peers.
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Catching up with Yago Tenorio, Verizon: A new job and 2025 predictions

Yago Tenorio just moved to Verizon as SVP and CTO from Vodafone—and from Europe to the US. We talked about how Europe and the US compare, what he will do at Verizon, what the future holds for Open RAN and what 2025 looks like for telecom.
As always, Yago has deep and unique insights into the technology and the market, and in this conversation, we went off the beaten path to explore new perspectives on technology evolution – how we got here and where we are going.
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How will quantum computing change telecoms? With Sapphire Lally and Amit Nagpal, Aetha Consulting

Quantum technology promises massive increases in computing speed and efficiency. What will this mean for telecoms? Sapphire Lally, Consultant, and Amit Nagpal, Partner at Aetha Consulting took us on a fascinating overview of what quantum technology is and the role it can play in telecoms (spoiler: security is the low-hanging fruit, network efficiency is next).
While vendors and operators have started exploring quantum, we are still in an early development phase. What are the opportunities and challenges? What will the timeline be? Who will be part of the ecosystem? How should we get ready for quantum computing? We covered all this and more.
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Is RCS finally taking off? With Mario Betti, Mobile Ecosystem Forum

It has taken some time, but finally RCS is becoming ubiquitous in mobile devices. No longer confined to the Android world, it is now supported by Apple devices. In this conversation with Dario Betti, CEO at Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF), we talked about what the adoption of RCS means for subscribers, operators, enterprises and everybody else in a widening ecosystem. Is RCS going to replace SMS? Can RCS expand WhatsApp services or compete with it? Will revenues shift from SMS to RCS? And will they grow?
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More on MEF at https://mobileecosystemforum.com/

Blockchain enables new offload and sharing models. With Mario Di Dio, Nova Labs

Offload can improve subscriber experience and reduce operators’ costs, but it is still limited because we do not have the right economic incentives and transparency on the quality of the offload. Can blockchain help create new business models that combine transparency and incentives and that will get offload off the ground? Mario Di Dio, GM of Network at Nova Labs/Helium, presents a new offload model that uses blockchain to share KPIs and the real-estate value of Wi-Fi offload connections and to create a market for Wi-Fi hotspot owners and operators to manage offload.
More on Helium at hellohelium.com 
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Trump Administration: What should we expect? With Monica Alleven, Fierce Wireless

We don’t yet know for sure what will change in January with the second Trump term, but a picture is coming together on what may happen with anticipated nominations (Brendan Carr to head the FCC, and more) and with the expected influence of Elon Musk. Monica Alleven has explored this topic and written extensively about it at Fierce Wireless and shared her insight in this episode – and as always, it was a pleasure to talk to Monica. We covered BEAD, USF, satellite, fair share, net neutrality, FCC, regulation in the US in comparison to other countries, and more.
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FYUZ24 behind the scenes. With Eugina Jordan, TIP

FYUZ is the yearly event where the TIP community congregates. This year, it was last week (November 11-13) in Dublin. I talked with Eugina Jordan, CMO at TIP, who worked hard to make it a success, about what happened at FYUZ, what we like about it, what has changed, and what the trends are for next year in OpenRAN, OpenWiFi, and Open Optical, and how AI is going to impact them.
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5G lessons learned. With Azita Arvani

We are midway in our 5G journey. It may not have been as game-changing as many expected, but it did improve connectivity, and it is an impressive new technology. There is ample room for improvement, this much is clear.
What can we learn from the beginnings of 5G to continue the innovation? What should we do differently? Azita Arvani, ex-CEO at Rakuten Symphony North America, and I agree that we should not give up on 5G and wait until 6G arrives. But how aggressive should we be in pushing technological innovation in an affordable way?  
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Wireless/Wireline: Is the contraposition still relevant? With Mark Gilmour, ConnectiviTree

We usually think about wireline and wireless as alternative, complementary and at times competing ways to provide connectivity. But increasingly connectivity to any device requires the combination of wireline and wireless components. Access is mostly wireless through cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or other interfaces, and, eventually, the connection is transported to fiber. What is variable is where the wireless signal moves into the wireline realm. For instance, backhaul can be wireless or wireline.
Does it still make sense to think of wireless and wireline as separate? Or are they both inherently necessary components of connectivity? I debated these questions with Mark Gilmour at ConnectiviTree. He has been the wireless guy when working with wireline companies, and the wireline guy when working for mobile operators or vendors, so he has a uniquely deep and multi-sided perspective on the wireless/wireline contraposition.
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QuickFire | Was 5G a failure? With Geoff Hollingworth at Rakuten Symphony

Geoff Hollingworth, CMO at Rakuten Symphony, and I agree on many things, but we have sharply different views on the success of 5G. I think 5G did just fine; Geoff thinks it was a failure. So we set to debate this, and we had quite a revealing conversation (I don’t want to spoil it) on technology, standardization, 3GPP, monetization and, of all things, communism.
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QuickFire | Why does it take so long to innovate? With Sumit Roy, University of Washington

We often may feel that much of technology innovation in wireless either does not get deployed in commercial networks or that the process is very slow. Is that the case? And what sets the pace of innovation? Are there areas where we should be innovating at a faster rate to meet our connectivity needs, especially those of enterprises and other verticals?
Sumit Roy, a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, shared his perspective gained in work in the private sector, government and academia.
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QuickFire | How do analysts learn about the industry? With Emmy Johnson and Daryl Schoolar

Three analysts got together to talk about what we think works and does not work at in-person and virtual analyst events and other industry events. My guests were fellow analysts and friends Emmy Johnson, Founder & Principal Analyst at Sky Light Research and Daryl Schoolar, Director at Recon Analytics.
We compared notes of what we find useful and what our suggestions are to make our interactions with vendors and operators more effective for us and for the companies hosting them.
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