TeleGeography Explains the Internet

Wanna look at some cool voice data? The recent expansion of the i3forum's Insights tool has quite a bit of that. I've been itching to talk about it on TeleGeography Explains the Internet. So today we're chatting with the i3forum, a nonprofit industry body focused on "accelerating transformation across the carrier ecosystem." Put another way: this consortium of carriers routinely collaborates on solving some of the biggest challenges facing their industry. And they have a really innovative...

Meet Aaron Chan, Founder and Managing Partner at Recurve Capital. As an investor in the “technology media and telecom” space—or “TMT” as they say in finance circles—Aaron has something of an outside perspective. In this episode, we discuss how investors view the telecom industry and how Aaron classifies publicly traded telecom companies. You'll hear Aaron's view of the long-term profitability of network operators and what he looks for in making investment decisions in the telecom space. We...

There's a good chance that you first heard about TeleGeography through one of our maps. Our own Research Analyst Lane Burdette was introduced to TeleGeography when she came across our Submarine Cable Map a few years ago. Now part of the team that creates this map, Lane is understandably stoked about this week's 2023 Submarine Cable Map launch. It seems like the perfect time to welcome Lane—along with our incredibly talented Designer and Cartographer Larry Lairson—to TeleGeography Explains...

Rohan Singh knew his future was in networking and communication when he saw his first network diagram at around 12 years old. That's probably why he feels like he's been involved in networking for most of his life. Now Vice President of Client Services at Marlabs, Rohan joined us at TeleGeography Explains the Internet to talk about all that goes into the modern digital transformation. While we had a lot to say about WAN optimization and partner ecosystems, it was getting into the future of...

Why has it taken us this long to welcome Senior Research Manager Paul Brodsky—an A+ podcast guest—to TeleGeography Explains the Internet? We brought Paul on to discuss our most recent voice report, but we couldn’t help getting into a whole lot more. We talk about the history of telecom and how voice and internet networks compare—and how that is impacting voice traffic and revenue. The conversation also covers the cash cow that voice once was and what's happening now. Voice enthusiasts will...

It's one thing to make predictions. It's another to go back and assess how those predictions shook out. One month into 2023, Mattias Fridström, Chief Evangelist at Arelion, very kindly agreed to scrutinize his 2022 forecast with us. As you will hear, Mattias has been at Arelion (formerly Telia) for a long time. From his perspective within a tier 1 provider, he has an outstanding view of the industry. He uses that vantage point to write a forward-looking article every year, reviewing trends...

This week on TeleGeography Explains the Internet we welcome Jeremiah Ginn, Software Defined Cybersecurity Evangelist at AT&T and author of Diving into SASE. In this episode you'll learn how to define SASE based on your audience and identify the key elements that belong in the SASE framework. We then dig into the fast-paced update cycle for security software. Why is it necessary for the modern network? And what are the implications for upskilling and managed security services? Next,...

This week's guest on TeleGeography Explains the Internet has a deep history in networking. Khalid Raza was involved in some of the earliest large-scale MPLS deployments. Then, after seeing the limitations of MPLS, he co-founded Viptela–diving head-first into the SD-WAN revolution. Khalid is now the Founder and CEO of Graphiant, a Silicon Valley-based startup. In this interview, he describes how enterprise networks have changed and why we need an approach beyond MPLS and SD-WAN. We also...

You thought we were going to do a major end-of-year review of telecom trends and leave out all things WAN? No, no. Not on our watch. Host and Senior Manager of Enterprise Research Greg Bryan broke out the data for this bonus New Years episode of TeleGeography Explains the Internet. Fans of our annual WAN Manager Survey will enjoy getting a peek at our 2022 results. We've also got intel on NaaS, SASE, MPLS, and all the other acronyms that mattered to the WAN world in 2022. Happy 2023,...

We're looking back at all things telecom in 2022. And we're doing it the best way we know how: rounding up our analysts and inviting them to discuss major findings in their areas of research on TeleGeography Explains the Internet. If you want to dive in from the very beginning, you can listen to part one over here. And if you're ready for more, keep scrolling. Part two takes us on a journey through the last 12 months of submarine cable news, SD-WAN, security, and major world events that...

Greg Bryan kicks off the first of a two-part telecom year in review, welcoming experts Patrick Christian, Rob Schult, and Jon Hjembo to highlight the major trends they saw in their principal research areas. Part one takes us through the year in wholesale internet, cloud services, transport pricing, data centers, and lots more. We talk inflation, we talk energy, we talk geography. And we're only just getting started. From This Episode: Episode 301 | Wholesale Pricing and the WANEpisode...

James “Jim” Capuano has logged over 30 years in the telecommunications industry. And he's the CEO of Horizon, a service provider with more than 125 years of telecommunications experience. We recently asked Jim to share some of his knowledge on TeleGeography Explains the Internet. In this episode, we view middle mile problems and solutions from a provider perspective and discuss how the middle mile is developing in the current WAN environment. Then we turn our focus to the digital divide....

Last year, MEF CTO Pascal Menezes walked us through the work MEF is doing on standardizing the enterprise network. Nearly a year and a half later, Pascal is back on the pod to discuss what MEF has been doing since then. Our first topic: Lifecycle Service Orchestration. What is it, how has it progressed, and what does it do for the carrier community? We also get into enterprise automation, operational APIs, new SASE and ZT standards, and more. This episode of TeleGeography Explains the...

This week, with the help of Jeremy Villalobos, COO of Orchest (formerly known as GoldConnect), TeleGeography Explains the Internet tackles automation from a carrier perspective. What is it? How is it being used in telecom? And why is it crucial that carriers move toward automation? Of course, we had to tie in the impact on the enterprise WAN, as well as the future of automation—including practical uses for blockchain telecom. From This Episode: Episode 305 | Upskilling Network Architects...

This week, we're talking about NaaS. We've covered NaaS in various contexts on TeleGeography Explains the Internet, but this episode focuses on fabric providers and where they're headed. For that, we're so glad to have on our outspoken and knowledgeable friend Michael Wynston, Director of Network Security Architecture & Automation at Fiserv. Michael has now been on TeleGeography's podcast not once, not twice, but three times—and it's safe to say that he really knows his stuff. What are...

If you want to review the state of the corporate WAN—in light of digital transformation, the cloud, SD-WAN adoption, and MPLS utilization—there's no one better to talk to than Phil Gervasi, Director of Technical Evangelism at Kentik. Lucky for us, he was this week's guest on TeleGeography Explains the Internet. We covered the state of lift-and-shift into the cloud, the perseverance of MPLS, real use cases of SD-WAN, and, of course, lots on how network changes have impacted the...

Let's do it. Let's talk satellites! And we have the perfect person to help us out. We're thrilled to welcome Dr. Peter Wood—TeleGeography analyst and resident satellite guy—to the pod. We discuss how—while wires still reign supreme—satellite is having a bit of a resurgence. And maybe even the potential to disrupt the wireline market? Listen to our conversation to find out. It was also a great opportunity to get Alan Mauldin on the line to talk more about his latest blog post, which is all...

Our guest today is Waheed Adam, Global Board Director of the Mobile Ecosystem Forum and Executive Chairperson at iTouch Messaging Service. He was a fantastic guest who brought a wealth of knowledge—and some really excellent stories—about mobile adoption as infrastructure in Africa. Senior Research Manager Patrick Christian joined in to discuss mobile-first economies, the role of hyperscalers/data centers in Africa, and the future of African telecoms. From this Episode: 2022 Africa...

When we reached out to today's podcast guest—Jim Poole, Vice President of Business Development at Equinix—about being on the show, we asked if he'd be willing to dig into NaaS or edge data centers. But as we got to talking before our interview, we realized that these two topics are deeply interrelated. And Jim has lots of insight to share about where the market is headed. We waded through how Equinix is approaching NaaS from a solutions standpoint and what it means to truly be an edge data...

To kick off Season 4, we're going deep into the supply chain as Greg welcomes Dr. Michael Lebby, CEO of Lightwave Logic. The pair get into making a better mousetrap for the light-switching world. Listen up if you're into the technology that makes optical transport possible—and specifically how this technology fits into the telecom transport ecosystem. Fasten your seatbelts. This episode has new tech talk, optical transport pricing intel, a big Shannon Limit shout-out, and lots more.