Telecoms.com Podcast

In their second recording in two days, the lads are delighted to welcome back special guest Danielle Rios, CEO of Totogi. It is also the second day in a row of kicking-off with some bourbon, with Danielle significantly raising the bar with some extra special treats. They start by exploring how Totogi is going about introducing the latest AI developments into much of the telecoms stack. This inevitably leads to a broader AI discussion in the light of recent alarm bells raised by whistleblowers, before they have a quick chat about the latest iPhone and conclude with an Iain scoop about Nokia’s R&D division Bell Labs.

The lads celebrate a return to the studio by recording a pod two days in a row, so the lucky audience gets a bonus one this week. They’re delighted to welcome back special guest Ray Dolan, CEO of Cohere Technologies and they start with an update on the clever radio technologies Cohere is involved in. One of those involves the introduction of ISAC (integrated sensing and communication) so they move on to discuss the opportunities that offers, before concluding with an analysis of Huawei’s first new smartphone chip in years, including its geopolitical implications.

A studio pod is thwarted once more, this time due to train trouble, so the IRL reunion will have to wait another week. The lads start by talking about 5G+ - the marketing name for 5G Standalone – because Vodafone followed in EE’s footsteps by launching a dedicated slice of the network for super-duper performance. To labour the point they even held an event at a race track, which Iain attended just a few days after going to Tottenham Hotspur stadium with HPE to learn how great the wifi is there, so they go on to chat about that before concluding by noting the death of the telecoms ‘fair share’ debate.

The lads have just about finished their summer breaks but this is still a remote one because Scott is in the Canaries. They start by assessing the plausibility of claims made by super-entrepreneur Elon Musk that his satellite-based mobile communications tech can compete with the incumbent US mobile network operators. Another novel mobile initiative is then put under the microscope in the form of EE’s new ‘Fast Lane’ service, before they conclude by examining the growing moral panic around social media, which is causing it to be blamed for almost anything.

This special episode of the pod was recorded remotely with tech and science fiction author Cory Doctorow. Cory has recently published a book titled: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, so they start by exploring what a reverse centaur is in this context. Spoiler alert – it’s about the relationship between humans and machines. That takes them down a number of timely rabbit holes regarding what’s in store for us as AI becomes ever more powerful and ubiquitous. They eventually move on to discuss Cory’s previous book, called Enshittification, before concluding with a quick look at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.