Ep 135 - Telco has a context problem (John Abraham)

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 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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] andThe 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 knowFollow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20Follow DR on X @TelcoDRThe 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, TelcoDRSenior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo MediaSenior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard MarketingAudio Editor: Andrew CondellSupervising Producer: Amanda AveryAssociate Producer: Kriselda DionisioMusic: Dyami Wilson Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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]; andHow 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 knowFollow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20Follow DR on X @TelcoDRThe 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, TelcoDRSenior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo MediaSenior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard MarketingAudio Editor: Andrew CondellSupervising Producer: Amanda AveryAssociate Producer: Kriselda DionisioMusic: Dyami Wilson Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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]; andWhat'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 DRHave an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us knowFollow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20Follow DR on X @TelcoDRThe 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 guestRick 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 CreditsExecutive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDRSenior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo MediaSenior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard MarketingAudio Editor: Andrew CondellSupervising Producer: Amanda AveryAssociate Producer: Kriselda DionisioMusic: Dyami Wilson Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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]; andHow 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 DRHave an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us knowFollow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20Follow DR on X @TelcoDRThe 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 guestDean 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 CreditsExecutive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDRSenior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo MediaSenior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard MarketingAudio Editor: Andrew CondellSupervising Producer: Amanda AveryAssociate Producer: Kriselda DionisioMusic: Dyami Wilson Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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]; andWhy "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 DRHave an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us knowFollow Telco in 20 on X @TelcoIn20Follow DR on X @TelcoDRThe 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 guestGabriela 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 CreditsExecutive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDRSenior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo MediaSenior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard MarketingAudio Editor: Andrew CondellSupervising Producer: Amanda AveryAssociate Producer: Kriselda DionisioMusic: Dyami Wilson Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.