Michael Bushong

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 So if your vendor selection process tries to: - Only factor in price, - Rely on outdated information, - Overlook location-specific coverage...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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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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ACG Research reports that Routed Optical Networking delivers TCO savings in the range of 48-62% depending on the application (DCI, Metro or Long-Haul). CAPEX Savings: 50-60%. Cisco estimates that customers will see power savings of 90% when using Digital Coherent Optics relative to traditional chassis-based transponders. The economics are compelling and the shift to Routed Optical Networking is accelerating. https://lnkd.in/dt28VPQS

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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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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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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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More accolades for T-Mobile from the latest Open Signal report! We swept EVERY category for overall network experience, with upload speed experience more than 2x faster than AT&T and over 1.5x faster than Verizon. Download speed experience is over 3x faster than Verizon and 2.7x faster than AT&T. We also won in #5GExperience categories including download speed and #5G availability, with our users spending over 5x more time connected to 5G than AT&T users and over 8x more than Verizon. See the full list of the latest wins: https://t-mo.co/4cKOO2W #5GConnectivity

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More accolades for T-Mobile from the latest Open Signal report! We swept EVERY category for overall network experience, with upload speed experience more than 2x faster than AT&T and over 1.5x faster than Verizon. Download speed experience is over 3x faster than Verizon and 2.7x faster than AT&T. We also won in #5GExperience categories including download speed and #5G availability, with our users spending over 5x more time connected to 5G than AT&T users and over 8x more than Verizon. See the full list of the latest wins: https://t-mo.co/4cKOO2W #5GConnectivity

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Did you know T-Mobile for Business has the only nationwide #5G standalone #network in the U.S.? 5G Standalone is a "100% 5G network," built entirely on the latest 5G technology—without depending on older 4G systems like non-standalone 5G does. Standalone 5G is faster and more efficient than our 4G systems. And you need 5G standalone for innovations like: ✅ Network slicing ✅ Ultra-low latency ✅ Private 5G networks Discover how 5G standalone can take your business further: https://t-mo.co/4bKYfiT

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FINISH BEAD is the mantra - speed, transparency, accountability and fairness are the key principles. Check out this piece and let me know your thoughts - Enjoy!

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Curious about the future of networking? Discover how Lumen Technologies is leading the charge in Network as a Service (#NAAS) and what it means for the industry.

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Curious about the future of networking? Discover how Lumen Technologies is leading the charge in Network as a Service (#NAAS) and what it means for the industry.

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We in Rakuten believe that AI should empower humans not replace them. This means we have to take AI to people not have people needing to come to AI, they are too busy and it will fail. We have seen this journey already in automation where people do not have time to do something new when they need to keep the lights (or base station) on now. Remember the famous cartoon of the medieval knight rushing off to war, passing the machine gun salesman... As with all humor, there is truth lying behind... We have approached AI in telecom by empowering our experts not by promising to replace them or expecting them to be data scientists overnight. All of us are dealing with a data scientist shortage that will not get easier, so we have focused on building a platform that scales and empowers those experts, allowing them to run at speed while minimizing risk. 1. Telecom experts are too busy (don’t want) to be data scientists. 2. Mobile operators want to control their AI destinies. 3. Pure AI data platforms are not the answer. To learn more about what is already in production today in Rakuten Mobile, Inc., reach out to Rakuten Symphony Anshul Bhatt and Rahul Atri who are at #DTW

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