Podcast

Ep 20 – The paradox of the public cloud

June 30, 2021

WE. DID. IT. As this podcast is hitting the feed, we’re about to take a victory lap after an eye-popping, jaw-dropping, mind-blowing Mobile World Congress 2021 (MWC21). Most of you know that in early March, I took over Ericsson’s 6,000 square meter booth at the event and created CLOUD CITY – a huge hub for all things public cloud. (If this is news to you, go check out episode 16, #SaveMWC). CLOUD CITY was an outta-the-park home run. In less than three months, we designed and delivered an unforgettable experience for both in-person and virtual attendees.

MWC asked me to deliver a keynote during the show, which I’ve turned into this podcast episode. The topic is the paradox of the public cloud for the telecom industry – the cloud presents massive opportunities for telcos, but it’s not completely risk-free. But it’s coming to telco, and telco leaders need to deal with it. Burying your head in the sand is NOT an option.

A few things you’ll find in this episode:

I call myself the Elon Musk of telco and compare myself to Steve Jobs in the keynote, but hey, I’m not known for my modesty [2:30];
How and why the telecom industry is poised to be the big winner in our post-pandemic workworld [6:22];
What Rakuten, Vodafone, and DISH understand about the public cloud that most don’t [8:57];
Why telco industry software needs to be completely rewritten for the public cloud [11:43];
How the chore of collecting identity information is really the foundation for a HUGE strategic advantage [12:55]; and
Why it’s time to start riding dragons.

Here’s the bottom line: the public cloud is coming to telco. It’s time to go ALL IN, use the public cloud the right way, and revitalize your telco. Let’s do it.

Links and Resources

You can find the transcript for this episode here.
Watch my keynote on CLOUD CITY ON-DEMAND
Check out my DSP Leaders World Forum talk about webscale applications and Totogi
In early June, I took part in Mobile World Live Themed Week and talked about how telcos can double their ARPU by turning network interactions into customer love. Watch the session and live Q&A
Visit the Totogi website – it officially launched at MWC21!
Read about DISH plans to build a 5G network on AWS and have US cities live before the end of the year
Check out Vodafone’s announcement that it’s building one of the world’s largest Open RAN networks
Learn more about how Vodafone shifted its analytics practice to GCP in this case study on my website
Read about MWC21 highlights on the MWC Barcelona website
You didn’t think I’d forget dragons, did you? Here’s my favorite dragon moment from Game of Thrones.

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The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Gold Hermes Award and was recognized on Forrester’s 2021 list of the Top 100 Channel Podcasts and Feedspot’s Top 10 Telecom Podcasts list.

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