Telecoms.com Podcast Telecoms.com

After a brief pause the pod is back with a bang, thanks to the presence of special guest, analyst John Strand, who brought an obscene amount of beer with him. John is known for not pulling his punches on telecoms industry hot topics, and is especially strident on the threat posed by Chinese vendors, so they spend much of the time discussing that position, before concluding with a similar treatment of Open RAN.

The absence of a guest resulted in a total loss of conversational discipline this week. A meandering pod touches on the increasingly likely merger of Vodafone and Three in the UK, the semiconductor industry as it affects telecoms and upheaval in the world of digital media. This episode is a must for fans of the stream-of-consciousness ramblings of middle-aged telecoms hacks.

The podcast finally gains legitimacy from the inclusion of a special guest who has a book out. That guest is Professor Sean Ennis and they start by discussing his book – Internet Empire. Sean’s academic focus is competition policy so they move on to some telecoms-specific issues in that area, before concluding with a look at how Malaysia has found itself in the middle of the geopolitical battle of wills between the US and China.

The pod is delighted to welcome back former Chief Network Architect at BT Neil McRae, who starts by telling us about his new job. They move on to talk about 6G, with Scott and Iain having recently attended a conference on the matter, then get a report from Neil on a UK telecoms investment initiative he is part of, and conclude by trying to unravel the intricacies of the latest innovations in the Radio Access Network and why, if at all, we should care.

After a short break the pod returns with special guest Tom Bennett from Freshwave. His company is all about neutral host infrastructure, so they start with a look at that market. Inevitably, Open RAN works its way into the conversation which, in turn provides an opportunity to discuss interesting startup EdgeQ. The situation between the US and China is never far from telecoms chat these days either, and they conclude with a look at how that conflict is ramping further.

It’s the Easter holidays so we had to record this episode over Zoom because Pierre is on his travels. After another AI Armageddon tangent, the guys start by reflecting on a recent UK decision to investigate its public cloud market over competition concerns, which coincides with their broader concerns in this area. They move on to recap a recent visit to Vodafone, at which it showed off its energy-saving efforts, before concluding with a review of some recent corporate shenanigans.