I asked John Strand, of Strand Consult, on the Good, Bad and Ugly Telco Podcast after I read his Research Note on the misinformed (and it turned out predictable outcome) takeover of TDC seven years ago. To give some context to this, TDC was the well capitalised incumbent operator with over a century of service, and it is now facing an uncertain future. To quote John’s Research Note In a significant development, three prominent Danish pension funds ATP, PFA, and PKA are divesting their 50% stakes...
May 26, 2025•38 min•Ep. 93
We were delighted to talk to our good friends Luke and Deryck in this Telco Industry Review Special Luke Kehoe is a well-known Industry Analyst with Ookla, he provides very insightful and data based reporting on the state of the Telco, Mobile and Fixed, and the implications for the future of the industry. Deryck Fay is an experienced Requirements Guru, Product Owner, Agile Transformer and author ‘Connecting A Nation’ which relates the story of the growth of the Telco Industry in Ireland over 160...
Oct 31, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 92
We were delighted to talk to our good friend Dr Roslyn Layton talking about how we can ensure that the Mobile and Broadband Industries become attractive for investment. We are in the sorry state where the long-term Capital Return in the Mobile and Broadband industries are effectively zero or negative. In comparison the Big Tech Industries who are the main users of these Networks have returns up to 9,000% in the long term. And they are resisting any change in the Telecoms Business Model, a model ...
Jun 20, 2024•32 min•Ep. 91
We were delighted to talk to our good friend Michael Becker about Personal ID and Personal Data online. Michael is an expert and visionary in this important and constantly developing area that is becoming more and more critical to the Digital World. Michael updates us on the Mobile Ecosystem Forum Conference in London on the 21 / 22 May 2024. The conference is free and both in person and online – register below. If you need to know more about Online ID, Online Age verification and managing perso...
May 16, 2024•21 min•Ep. 90
We were delighted to talk to Matthew Hewston, who is Co-Founder of PassionFruit. Matthew has a background in Marketing and spent five years at Google developing his skills and networks. We’ve often lamented the lack of marketing innovation in the Telecoms and the PassionFruit team have come up with a great proposition to totally change the marketing of Telecoms services. The availability of eSIMs and the tried and tested MVNO business model can be allied with the Marketing Power of the community...
Apr 24, 2024•18 min•Ep. 89
We were delighted to talk to James Williams, well known Telecoms Industry Enabler and Communicator. James is now VP Business Development for XConnect (a Somos company). We talk about James’s career and how he moved into Telecoms. We discuss the power of Mobile Operator Brands and how the potential market share for Messaging Services in the SME sector is still not being tapped into fully. James points out the importance of the Phone Number, which can be argued to be more important than a National...
Mar 27, 2024•27 min•Ep. 88
We have a very interesting guest on the Podcast this week. Deryck Fay has written a fascinating book about the history of Telecoms in Ireland called “Connecting a Nation” and it’s a very surprising history. Its starts in the 1850s, yes, when the first sub-sea cables were being laid and Ireland was the natural hub for the first Transatlantic cables. Later its proximity to Nova Scotia made it the natural hub for the first Marconi radio services. We then talk about the state of Telecoms during the ...
Mar 14, 2024•30 min•Ep. 87
We were delighted to talk to Luke Kehoe, Telecoms Analyst and World Traveler. Luke has moved to Beijing to study, and he gives us his impression of the city, the food, and the consumer digital ecosystem. Luke updates us on a range of important Telecoms Industry topics. He comments on the state of the Global RAN market, contrasting growth across the various regions. Luke gives us his views on where the European Mobile Telecoms Market is going in relation to business pressures, competition, and th...
Mar 12, 2024•24 min•Ep. 86
We were delighted to talk to Niall Norton, ex-CEO of Openet (an Amdocs company) about the success that Openet is now. Niall talks about his early career and how he gained experience across a number of industries before deciding to move into the Telecoms Software Infrastructure space. Over the years Niall and the Openet team built the company into an incredible success and secured some of the largest Mobile Operators in the world as customers. Niall touches on a number of key points that made the...
Jan 09, 2024•34 min•Ep. 85
We were delighted to talk to Neil Wisdom, CEO of Siprotect about Fraud and Hacking in Voice and VOIP. Neil's company provides a comprehensive suite of solutions to detect and prevent this hacking, using a range of techniques such as their software solution which implements Firewalling, Session Border Controllers and the latest intelligence on what’s actually happening in the wild. Neil also talks about the impact of DORA and the NIS 2 Directive on Operators and Enterprises in general. He discuss...
Dec 19, 2023•23 min•Ep. 84
We have a great Podcast with Sheila Kavanagh, who is Chief Network Officer of Vodafone Ireland. We start by learning about Sheila’s career, she started with Eircell and that was ultimately taken over by the Vodafone Group. Being a Network Engineer at the time, she was delighted to get the assignment to develop the Roaming Business as this gave her great International Experience and travel opportunities. Later in her career, Sheila got the opportunity to become Chief Technical Officer for Vodafon...
Nov 30, 2023•24 min•Ep. 83
There was very big news in the Messaging Industry last week, after a decade since Apple launched iMessage and Google had standardised on RCS, Apple announced that it plans to support RCS in 2024. This will mean messaging interoperability between iOS and Android phones. But what does it mean for the A2P or Rich Messaging Business (RBM)? We reached out to Bill Dudley of Sinch to get his informed opinion about what it means. Bill has a very good analysis of what we know, what it means and what it c...
Nov 20, 2023•27 min•Ep. 82
We have a great guest with Patrick Lopez, Telecoms Analyst, who provides us with insights into how Mobile Operators can fully exploit the opportunities provided by 5G Network-as-a-Service Patrick has vast amount of experience in Telco and Cloud implementation and he advises on strategy - his experience includes working as a vendor, an operator and an analyst Among the topics discussed we cover How Slicing, RIC and Network-as-a-Service enables Enterprise Customers to build new Services for their ...
Nov 06, 2023•29 min•Ep. 81
We’re delighted to talk to John Strand of Strand Consult, based in Copenhagen Denmark. John has extensive experience of providing Consulting services to the Mobile Industry, John relates the intriguing story of Huawei and TDC in Denmark and how pressure was applied to the Danish Government to lobby TDC to choose Huawei Infrastructure. To the question “Is Huawei Dangerous?” John has a very simple example of the answer. We also cover the origins of the Premium SMS industry and we end on John’s vie...
Sep 11, 2023•24 min•Ep. 80
We have a great guest with Luke Kehoe, Telecoms Analyst, who provides us with an insightful analysis of the Irish Telecoms Market. The issues faced by the Operators in the Irish Market are common to Operators in all Mature markets which makes the analysis interesting Among the topics discussed we cover The 5G Investment Cycle The opportunities of O-RAN Industry Consolidation Who will win between the Mobile Industry and the Tech Giants? As always, we finish on how Luke enjoys his spare time, he h...
Aug 29, 2023•31 min•Ep. 79
It was great to catch up with our friend Bill Dudley of Sinch today. Bill always has great insights into the Messaging and CPaaS Industries. Bill and his colleagues have developing the 10 Digit Long Code (10DLC) service for Non-Consumer to Consumer messaging in the North American market under the auspices of the CTIA, and he explains this development and the technical and legal issues behind it. 10 DLC has enabled a new and fast-growing market for SMEs and Mom and Pop businesses to easily and ch...
Jun 20, 2023•32 min•Ep. 78
We are delighted to present Michael Becker (Advisor, Author and Speaker) as a Special Guest on the Good, Bad and Ugly Innovation Podcast Michael is a World Class Expert in Online ID and Authentication and is a deep thinker about the possibilities, the pitfalls and the potential of Online ID. He talks through the possibilities and the pitfalls in this tour-de-force Podcast. We cover a wide range of topics in this Podcast: The Exponential Change that is happening now The Three domains interested i...
May 10, 2023•35 min•Ep. 77
We’re delighted to have Eileen Carroll on the Podcast this week, Eileen is CEO of Púca (business SMS Messaging) and a Co-Founder of Prommt (Remote Payment Communications) Eileen has extensive business experience and talks about how both businesses are targeted and how both are scaling by focusing on different markets. In her spare time, Eileen admits to being a bit of a nerd (aren’t we all !?) and is also interested in a wide range of music, her choice of the playout song will probably surprise ...
May 02, 2023•20 min•Ep. 76
We’re delighted to have the Chief Product Officer at Cubic Telecom, Cian Ó Cuinneagáin talking about IoT as it relates to high value Mobile Assets, particularly cars. Cubic is a supplier to a number of large customers including Audi. Cian covers the issues of regulatory, different administrative and regulatory regimes and how these affect issues such as SIM and Cloud Storage options. We also cover the issues that are driving Mobile IoT and we cover new markets such as Agricultural Equipment and ...
Apr 17, 2023•21 min•Ep. 75
We’re delighted to have Roslyn Layton, who is an expert on Regulation and Strategy, Roslyn has studied numerous countries and has looked at the actual outcomes from Regulatory Regimes as opposed to the desired outcomes. Roslyn puts forward the idea that that rigorous regulation is reducing consumer choice of services and price points, in Europe in particular. Roslyn is a very clear and persuasive communicator and I found her ideas and examples to be very interesting and challenging to my assumpt...
Apr 04, 2023•27 min•Ep. 74
Welcome to the Good, the Bad and the Ugly Telecoms Podcast and we’re delighted to have Scott Bewley of pwc as our Guest. Scott has extensive and wide experience of working in the Mobile Industry both with Operators and with Vendors, he is now Director of Technology with pwc and providing solutions to his customers. Scott gives his views on the evolution of the Mobile Industry, the promise of 5G, and the IoT Use Case, and the effect of the SaaS model on the industry and what he is doing today for...
Feb 28, 2023•23 min•Ep. 73
We’re delighted to have the well respected Pamela Clark-Dickson, Principal Analyst with Omdia, where she looks after analysis of the CPaaS and Advanced Messaging and Communications industry, on the Podcast today. Pamela firstly covers the range of services on offer from Omdia and then we talk in detail about the development of CPaaS and the A2P markets and how the market participants are effectively blending their offerings. We cover topics such as the Market Disruption by Cloud Communications n...
Feb 08, 2023•29 min•Ep. 72
Our Christmas 2022 Special Edition. We’re delighted to have Stuart Mitchell, Global Business Development at Sinch talking about the evolution of Messaging through different Technologies over the last decade. Stuart talks about all the important areas of SMS, RCS, Omnichannel and Spam. It turns out that Stuart has a surprising background relating to Music as you will hear!! https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartmitch/ ---- This Podcast is sponsored by Nettzer – Digital First Selling - www.nettzer.com...
Dec 15, 2022•26 min•Ep. 71
We’re delighted to talk with Chris Horn, Entrepreneur, Investor and Academic about a surprising topic - Ireland’s early, and relatively unknown, Computer Pioneer, Percy Ludgate As you will hear Ludgate proposed a Computer Design in 1909. Chris explains how the machine was designed and how it compared to the better known and earlier Babbage Design. Ludgate died (at just 39) on 16th October 1922 – so the 100th anniversary of his death is this month. We finish with a good talk about Chris’s eclecti...
Oct 04, 2022•27 min•Ep. 70
We have a great Podcast with Uku Tomikas from Messente who are based in Estonia. We talk about a wide range of topics including: What Messente does and how it grew Uku talks about his surprising educational background and lets us know what he was known as a National Champion for (!) We also talk about what it is like to live in Estonia with the current International situation while being an Artillery Platoon Commander in the Estonian Army Reserves and what the situation means to all Estonians Fi...
Jun 27, 2022•24 min•Ep. 69
We’re delighted to have Waheed Adam, Executive Chairman of iTouch South Africa as our guest on the show. Waheed grew up under Apartheid in South Africa and he tells us how the discrimination he experienced affected his outlook. He relates one event in particular that helped give him the motivation to become an Entrepreneur and he also talks about his early business venture even as a student. We talk about the current state of the CPaaS / Aggregator Industry and discuss three challenges that need...
Jun 09, 2022•24 min•Ep. 68
We have a very interesting guest on the Podcast this week. Deryck Fay has written a fascinating book about the history of Telecoms in Ireland called “Connecting a Nation” and it’s a very surprising history. Its starts in the 1850s, yes, when the first sub-sea cables were being laid and Ireland was the natural hub for the first Transatlantic cables. Later its proximity to Nova Scotia made it the natural hub for the first Marconi radio services. We then talk about the state of Telecoms during the ...
Mar 14, 2022•31 min•Ep. 67
We’re delighted to have Anurag Aggarwal of Tanla Platforms, Head of Partnerships, as our guest this week. Anurag tells us about his early career choice in a totally different Industry and how he ended up in the CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) Industry. You can hear that Anurag is truly a people person and he says that’s fundamental to his approach to business. He talks about the Tanla Platforms CPaaS offering, called the Wisely Platform, and how he is working with Partners to extend...
Feb 21, 2022•20 min•Ep. 66
We’re delighted to have, Andy Jones, Head of Sales for Mobile Squared who is an expert in Mobile Marketing Channels talking about how they help their customers with their Business and A2P channel development Andy firstly talks about how his career moved from BT, to Mavenir and onto Mobile Squared. Andy relates a very interesting discussion on how RCS developed, how Google moved into the market and how he see RCS developing. His work with Mobile Squared enables their customers to analyse the effe...
Feb 16, 2022•24 min•Ep. 65
Firstly, we’re delighted to have Jimmy Jones, Head of Security at Zariot, as soon as you hear Jimmy’s accent you’ll know where he’s from. Jimmy is has a very interesting story about his life before he got into Technology which I think will surprise you. Jimmy started at the bottom in Worldcom installing Switches across Europe. As he developed his career he took on more of a Security role and developed a lot of expertise in this area. Jimmy talks about IoT and how its moving from acquiring Data f...
Feb 03, 2022•24 min•Ep. 64
