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Ep 147 – ANTA: TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Accelerator (Guy Daniels)
Telco isn’t behind on AI. TelecomTV’s Guy Daniels shares the evidence and introduces TelecomTV’s new AI-Native Telco Accelerator.
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Ep 148 – To G, or not to G (Stefan Pongratz)
This week’s guest
Stefan Pongratz
Vice President of RAN & Telecom CapEx Research Dell’Oro GroupTo 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 it can bring.
Guest bio
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.
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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
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Frequently Asked Questions
1. What does it actually cost telcos to move to a new network generation like 6G?
Operators have spent roughly $2.5 trillion on wireless CapEx over the past 15 years (excluding spectrum)—about $150–170 billion a year, or 15–17% of industry revenue. As Dell’Oro’s Stefan Pongratz explains, the real choice isn’t between spending big on 6G or spending nothing; it’s between spending on the next G or continuing to spend on an aging one. See the numbers behind this in the Dell’Oro press release on global telecom CapEx.
2. How do boardrooms actually decide when to greenlight a new G?
It comes down to spare network capacity, competitive dynamics, technology maturity, and subscriber demand trends. Historically, a new G hasn’t generated incremental revenue; instead, it lowers the cost of delivering each bit as traffic keeps growing. Operators weigh the return on deploying the new G against the return on staying put, then decide whether they can afford to wait or need to move now.
3. What makes the 6G cycle different from 4G and 5G?
AI. For the first time, machines and AI agents—not just humans—are becoming network customers, which changes both traffic volume and traffic patterns, since machines don’t sleep. Dell’Oro’s base case is that 6G will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but thanks to AI, the odds it becomes more than “just another G” are higher than with any previous generation.
4. Why does being second to launch a new G become a risky position?
Operators tend to move as a herd. Being an early follower isn’t necessarily a problem—until the leader visibly delivers a better user experience, lower cost per bit, more agility, or AI-driven capabilities and starts gaining market share. At that point, competitive pressure accelerates quickly, as seen historically with Vodafone and Sprint in European 4G and T-Mobile and Reliance Jio in 5G.
5. How can operators figure out which cell sites actually deserve a next-G upgrade?
Most operators size upgrades by traffic, but the busiest sites aren’t always the most profitable ones. DR points to a smarter approach: building a live P&L for every cell site and ranking upgrades by revenue rather than raw traffic. The Totogi Ontology does exactly this, and Totogi already has a Latin American customer using it to decide where to invest. Shaving even one point off the CapEx-to-revenue ratio could free $11 billion industry-wide.
6. Where can listeners catch up with DR or dig deeper into these ideas?
Danielle Rios will keynote and host a party at TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Forum in Düsseldorf on September 8–9, and she’ll join VIVA Bolivia CEO Ryan Alvarez for a fireside chat at TM Forum’s Innovate Americas in Dallas on October 6, digging into which sites operators should *not* upgrade. She also recently published a blog on AI watermarking, arguing the EU’s new rule flags who typed the words, not who thought them.