Telco in 20

To G, or not to G. That is the question every telco faces, and the 6G noise is getting louder. So how does that decision actually get made? Stefan Pongratz, vice president of RAN and telecom CapEx research at Dell’Oro Group, has watched operators wrestle with it through 16 years and three G cycles. He knows what it really costs, what’s on the boardroom chart, and why waiting has a price of its own. He also knows what makes this cycle different, and why the operators dimensioning their networks for humans might be planning for the wrong customer. Listen now to hear: Why launching a new G is expensive—and not launching is, too [04:40]; What’s on the boardroom chart when operators greenlight a new G [07:31]; Why being second is safe—until it suddenly isn’t [10:47]; and What happens when the network’s biggest users don’t sleep [13:11]. Links and Resources: Learn more about the report that’s behind the numbers Stefan shares— Global Telecom Capex to Normalize, Not Disappear, According to Dell’Oro Group . CapEx is past its peak but not falling off a cliff, with capital intensity easing toward 15% by 2029. Explore TM Forum’s Autonomous Networks framework , the “road toward Level 4.” Stefan name-checks it when he describes operators’ long quest to do more with less. Curious which of your sites actually earn their next-G upgrade? See how the Totogi Ontology builds a live P&L for every cell site and ranks them by the profit each one brings, so you can decide where to invest by revenue instead of raw traffic. Book your spot at TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Forum , September 8 and 9 in Düsseldorf, where I’m giving a talk and throwing another legendary Totogi party. Want an invite? Stop by our demo pod, or DM me on LinkedIn or X at @TelcoDR for more information. Catch me with VIVA Bolivia CEO Ryan Alvarez at TM Forum’s Innovate Americas in Dallas on October 6, where we’ll have a fireside chat about the exact question Stefan keeps circling: which sites should you NOT upgrade? Alvarez brings the real next-G decision that VIVA is weighing right now. Watch two pickleball obsessives in their natural habitat. Stefan took gold in the men’s open at the NVZ NorCal Summer Cup and I scored with the Austin Ballers, taking top prize at the MiLP DUPR16 50+ Nationals . I hope to bump into Stefan on the pickleball court someday soon! 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: Stefan Pongratz joined Dell’Oro Group in 2010 and leads the firm’s Mobile RAN market research programs. At the firm, Mr. Pongratz has expanded RAN research and authored multiple Advanced Research Reports to ensure the program evolves to address new RAN technologies and opportunities, including 5G, 6G , AI RAN , Open RAN , private wireless, Massive MIMO, mmWave, small cells, and CBRS. Before joining Dell’Oro Group, Mr. Pongratz spent 10 years at Anritsu Company. 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

Everyone has an opinion about how telcos are doing with AI. Almost nobody has evidence—until now. Guy Daniels, chief strategy officer and content director at TelecomTV, spent the year compiling the AI-Native Telco Index—the first 100% evidence-based report on telco AI adoption . It’s one piece of TelecomTV’s new AI-Native Telco Accelerator (ANTA), a community built to bring operators, vendors, and standards bodies together to share what’s actually working in our industry. I sat down with Guy to talk about what his research reveals, how ANTA works, and what’s coming at the AI-Native Telco Forum in Düsseldorf this September. Listen now to hear: What ANTA is, and the three pieces that make it run [04:21]; Which operators are doing impressive AI work [08:01]; Why so many telcos keep their best AI work hidden [09:08]; and The “AI in telco” myth that Guy’s research debunks [13:44]. Links and Resources: Read TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Accelerator (ANTA) announcement , the community launched to help operators move from AI pilots to deployments that actually scale. Learn more about ANTA and the AI-Native Telco Index —the first evidence-based read on how 56 operators are scaling AI. The members-only report drops this September at the Forum in Düsseldorf. Join the conversation! Book your spot at the AI-Native Telco Forum , September 8 and 9 in Düsseldorf. Learn how the Totogi Ontology keeps every AI decision in one governed model, so you can show which rule fired and why. It’s exactly the kind of real-world deployment ANTA is tracking. Watch it run at our demo pod in Düsseldorf or set up a meeting with Team Totogi . Catch up on the AI breakthroughs I rattle off at the top of the show: Anthropic’s “ When AI builds itself ” report lays out how AI now writes most of its own code and runs unsupervised for hours, even days. Fortune’s write-up covers how Claude Fable 5 helped disprove the 87-year-old Jacobian conjecture. Explore the two operators that Guy singles out as pace-setters: Read about Deutsche Telekom’s march toward AI-native and the customer-facing bot that’s posting published results. Check out Orange, which is putting AI at the center of its strategy and briefing investors on it, something almost no other telco does. Watch my keynote and panel from last year’s AI-Native Telco Forum, where a room of operators told me you can’t vibe code a carrier-grade BSS—so we built one live that day. See what Totogi shipped in Düsseldorf last year: 617,000 lines of production code, generated live, all captured in this LinkedIn recap . Go deeper in my blog, “ Düsseldorf changed everything for BSS ,” on why the use case is never the moat. Want an invite to the Totogi party while you’re at the AI-Native Telco Forum? Stop by our demo pod, or DM me on LinkedIn or X at @TelcoDR for more information. Speaking of parties, cue up some of the greatest ever put on film to help you prepare for a good time: the house party in Eddie Murphy’s Trading Places , the night that spirals in Bachelor Party , the rager that leaves the house a mess in Sixteen Candles , and the granddaddy party movie of them all, The Hangover . (Warning: explicit scenes, but they’re epic so I’m putting them in the show notes anyway!) 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: Guy Daniels is chief strategy officer and content director at TelecomTV, where he leads editorial strategy across the company’s events, including the DSP Leaders World Forum, the Great Telco Debate, and the AI-Native Telco Forum. He recently launched ANTA, the AI-Native Telco Accelerator—TelecomTV’s industry-backed initiative uniting operators, vendors, and industry bodies to help telcos move from AI experimentation to real-world deployment. A pioneer of online video in telecoms, Guy co-founded Decisive Media and TelecomTV in 2001 after a decade in telecoms publishing. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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 movie The 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

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

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

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

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

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 Telco DR 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

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

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 Telco DR 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

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 Telco DR 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

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

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

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

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