David De Ridder

The industry is buzzing about Apple's support for RCS services—it's been a hot topic lately. As someone deeply involved in the RCS world, I can barely contain my excitement. Apple has long favored its messaging platform, iMessage, over adopting RCS. Its reluctance likely stemmed from wanting to ensure user experience and security. The adoption of RCS could ramp up Apple's competition with Meta, although it won't necessarily challenge WhatsApp directly. But it's a positive move for Google and MNOs. With SMS usage dwindling, RCS was being relegated to advertising, reminders, and one-time passwords. A strong person-to-person service is also essential to complement business services, which are now a primary revenue source. Without personal messages, opening rates and campaign ROI would plummet. If Google and Apple push RCS for deeper device integration, it could shake up the OTT/messaging landscape. This could be a game changer for businesses, allowing them to connect more effectively with customers. RCS streamlines enterprise-customer communication, unlike OTT apps that require downloads. With Apple’s adoption, the gap in rich messaging functionality between platforms will narrow. As a leader in the industry, I am eager to see how this shift will reshape the dynamics of digital communication. We all need to be ready as we step into this exciting new chapter. Globe Teleservices Pte. Ltd. GTS TechLabs Rajiv Singla Sudip Chatterjee Pallavi Kudtarkar Awnish Chaudhary Alok Maurya Ranga R S (He/Him) Murthy Muniyappa Prabhat Kumar CERF Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Chris Almeida Akbar Ladak

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10 airports have free fixed broadband Wi-Fi over 150 Mbps If you travel as much as I do, if your carry-on setup time is 30 min or less and it could last up to two weeks .... you might be very interested in this, Check out Ookla latest analysis of Airports in the United States. https://lnkd.in/exdx2kr6

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Lumen: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Lumen is enjoying a Renaissance under new CEO, Kate Johnson. She recognized the hard truth that Lumen had too much debt and managed to sell the South American and European assets above fair value to Colt and one other player. Less widely known is that Lumen sold off its ILEC business to Brightspeed for $7.5 billion. In addition, she is focusing on fibre-to-the-home deployment as opposed to trying to protect legacy twisted copper wire assets. Many telecom CEOs are unable to make the hard choice of cannibalizing or selling slow growth PSTN services like POTs and DSL in order to deploy new, technologically more advanced services. But the stock market approves the strategy as far sighted. Furthermore, Johnson has recognized that Lumen should finally integrate its five networks into one. These five networks reflect purchases of distressed assets that previous CEOs made over 15 years ago, including Qwest Communications, Time Warner Telecom, Global Crossing, and others. Integration is estimated to slash network expenses by a billion USD a year. If Lumen has integrated these assets in a timely fashion, Lumen's shareholders would be about $15 billion dollars richer today. It would still have its international assets and be a global player. Kate Johnson is making Lumen's focus the AI industry. This is good marketing and investors are likely to buy it short term. Nonetheless, AI has all the marking of a gigantic bubble as the revenue potential of generative AI is limited and certainly not great enough to justify the massive investments in the sector. Large language models are simply gigantic nonlinear statistical models that ape whatever language samples are used to estimate them. Reasoning ability is extremely limited. If a model was estimated using Donald Trump's tweets, it would insist that the 2020 election was stolen and that he is the most oppressed man on the planet. This so-called AI is basically regurgitation. It will be sensible if trained on the Wall Street and New York Times or downright crazy if trained on the proceedings of the Flat Earth Society. It is likely Lumen will benefit from being a partner of the Digital Titans, but I suspect the growth benefit will peter out in a few years when AI undergoes its own crisis just like the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2000. I would focus more on reducing head count as transport and transit services can be profitable, but only if the company is lean and mean. I wish Lumen the best of luck. #lumen #renaissance #integration #leverage #katejohnson #ai

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Another world-first: 1.6Tb/s. Learn about the technological advancements of WL6e in this Chalk Talk.

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Always scary listening to yourself, especially when "swearing in church" 😊. This is quite enjoyable since we are just speaking - ZERO corporate messaging! At least until we get right to the end when I couldn't help myself. Rakuten has a very clear customer promise... “We're trying to sell technology to people who don't care. Why are we doing that? Why are we screaming from the rooftops that you can get 5G here? Nobody cares, nobody cares, because it makes no difference to them. If we were selling hotel rooms, we'd sell a hotel room for the same price in Manhattan as we were in Oklahoma City. I mean, it's, we don't, I think we've lost touch as an industry with what we need to have as a customer promise. I think initially, because our customer promise was so tied to technology, it was a lot easier. So do voice everywhere, we're building networks that do mobile voice. So that's really simple. We've got disintermediated from the customer experience with smartphones. That's why the app economy took off and 4G was pulled through. It didn't lead it. It pulled through. We were hoping, by the way, as an industry, that someone invents something that pulls us through again. But (the fundamental problem) we haven't got a customer promise. Now, let me flip to my day job. And this conversation has had nothing to do with my day job, which is why I've enjoyed it so much. Rakuten has a very clear customer promise... Listen to the end to understand what that is. And thank you to Monica for being a wonderful host!Always scary listening to yourself, especially when "swearing in church" 😊. This is quite enjoyable since we are just speaking - ZERO corporate messaging! At least until we get to the end... Let me highlight that bit... “We're trying to sell technology to people who don't care. Why are we doing that? Why are we screaming from the rooftops that you can get 5G here? Nobody cares, nobody cares, because it makes no difference to them. If we were selling hotel rooms, we'd sell a hotel room for the same price in Manhattan as we were in Oklahoma City. I mean, it's, we don't, I think we've lost touch as an industry with what we need to have as a customer promise. I think initially, because our customer promise was so tied to technology, it was a lot easier. So do voice everywhere, we're building networks that do mobile voice. So that's really simple. We've got disintermediated from the customer experience with smartphones. That's why the app economy took off and 4G was pulled through. It didn't lead it. It pulled through. We were hoping, by the way, as an industry, that someone invents something that pulls us through again. But (the fundamental problem) we haven't got a customer promise. Now, let me flip to my day job. And this conversation has had nothing to do with my day job, which is why I've enjoyed it so much. Rakuten has a ver... Listen to the end to understand what that is. And thank you to Monica Paolini for being a wonderful host!

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Resilient network, resilient communities, and a resilient planet 🌎 In 2023, T-Mobile focused on how to use our scale and resources to benefit our customers and our planet. We’re moving forward together toward a cleaner, more equitable future. Read our full 2023 Corporate Responsibility Report here! ➡️ https://lnkd.in/g9WYTnR9

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If you want some pragmatic insight on how CSPs should look to leverage AI then check out this interview with Kailem Anderson #AI #blueplanet #OSS

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Telecom vendor selection isn't the same as other procurement. So if your vendor selection process tries to: - Only factor in price, - Rely on outdated information, - Overlook location-specific coverage... ...expect it to create sub-optimal connectivity at best, business disruption at worst. This one-size-fits-all approach might work in centralized procurement but in telecom - it falls short. Which is why I'm equal parts surprised & not surprised it's so common. Surprised because it's clearly the wrong approach. But also not surprised because it's easy to see how we got here... Telecom used to be very centralized. And, at that time, this made perfect sense. The carriers were limited. The options were standardized. Most services didn't leave the bounds of the office. These stakeholders needed to be able to control costs. The process supported that. It was only when remote work did end-users start having sway over connectivity decisions. In response, telecom procurement corrected course. But it over-corrected. And now the correction needs correcting. I'm not saying throw out procurement best practices. But I am saying that it should enable productivity as quickly & efficiently as possible. Eliminate the guesswork. Keep the oversight.

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Curious about what's next in the world of telecom?   Hear from Lumen Technologies CEO, Kate Johnson, on how Lumen is embracing #AI and reshaping the industry.   Click the link to find out why Lumen is the #TrustedNetwork for AI.  #InnovateWithLumen 

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Curious about what's next in the world of telecom?   Hear from Lumen Technologies CEO, Kate Johnson, on how Lumen is embracing #AI and reshaping the industry.   Click the link to find out why Lumen is the #TrustedNetwork for AI.  #InnovateWithLumen 

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To automate and optimize service lifecycle operations, CSPs need a single source of truth for their network inventory and data. Having a 'clean' set of data doesn't just accelerate the innovation and go to market for new services, its also critical for any AIOps strategy. Learn how Lumen is partnering with Blue Planet to achieve this, and so much more, through inventory modernization. thttps://lnkd.in/g4ZTzqra

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One highlight of this year’s Global PartnerPlus Xchanges was partners’ feedback that the transformation we outlined in 2023 around Infinera's revised partner program and product portfolio was very real and happening. Get more top takeaways from Jon Baldry on the blog: #PartnerPlusProgram #InfineraXchange #OpticalNetworking

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With Ciena Services Network Transformation Suite (NTS), leverage the rich and deep, customizable software capabilities for network transformation, network deployment, and operations that automate, expedite, and reduce risk in your projects, large and small.

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What are the four tenets to delivering digital equality? High speed, low latency, reliability, and affordability. Learn why, and get more key BEAD-centric middle-mile takeaways from WISPAPALOOZA, from Kurt Raaflaub on the Infinera blog: #DigitalEquality #RuralBroadband #MiddleMile

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This is a great article about #SuperBundling, well done Avi Greengart

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Traditionally, roaming has been a lucrative revenue stream for MNOs. However, as programs such as "roam from home" have become more commonplace, the volume of roaming traffic has grown without a proportional increase in financial return. The good news is that the global travel sector is on the upswing, and businesses are increasingly looking for scalable mobile solutions such as the Internet of Things (IoT). This confluence of trends presents a unique opportunity for MNOs to unlock new revenue streams through 5G roaming. 5G's network slicing technology allows MNOs to create distinct virtual networks within their main network, each tailored to specific needs. Ready to explore new opportunities with 5G roaming? Let's connect! ⬇️ #5G #Roaming #Connectivity https://lnkd.in/gsqik4WV

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This morning, we announced another quarter of outstanding results on our Q2 2024 earnings call, proving once again that our unique formula of best value, best network, and best experience drives differentiated outcomes. Here are some of my favorite highlights: 📈 Customer Growth: Our durable and differentiated profitable growth model led to another quarter where we outperformed our peers across the board. We added 1.3M postpaid net customers, our highest EVER Q2 postpaid phone net adds, crossing the incredible milestone of 100 million postpaid customers—a testament to our industry-leading growth. We also reached 5.6M customers for our high-speed internet product, with an industry-best 406k net additions. 💰 Financial Growth: We are successfully translating our customer growth into outsized financial gains. We led the industry in key year-over-year growth areas, including Service Revenue (+4.4%), Core Adjusted EBITDA (+9.4%), and Adjusted Free Cash Flow of $4.4 billion (record high and +54% YoY). These results show that our customers recognize we are the best at connecting them to their world. Reaching the 100 million postpaid customer milestone is a clear signal that we’re rapidly evolving from challenger to leader. On our way to becoming a truly digital-first company, we now have one super app #TLife which combines several domains including account management, rewards, Magenta status, broadband management, peace of mind, and much more. As we hit the halfway point, 2024 is shaping up to be another historic year full of profitable growth. Our confidence in our strategy is reflected in our raised full-year customer and adjusted free cash flow guidance. I’m incredibly proud to be part of the Magenta leadership team that keeps delivering such incredible results. Together, we’re driving T-Mobile to new heights! Check out more Q2 highlights and the full earnings call below ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/gCGs3jyx

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Are you ready for the next big thing in #NetworkEvolution? At #WindstreamWholesale, we’re not just keeping up with the future—we're building it. Innovation is just around the corner, stay tuned to see how we're redefining the industry. #MakingWaves #AI #FutureofConnectivity #Innovation #TechLeadership

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