Light Reading Podcasts

This episode features Steve Smith, chief revenue officer at LiveOak Fiber, a service provider formed in July 2022 with plans to bring fiber broadband to Glynn County, Georgia and Okaloosa County, Florida. We talk about LiveOak's background story and buildout plans, which are funded with $150 million from InfraRed Capital Partners, and we discuss what a new fiber network will mean for the communities on Florida's Emerald Coast and Georgia's Golden Isles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Light Reading editors Kelsey Ziser, Mike Dano and Phil Harvey sign off from MWC with a 10-minute informal recap of the work week ended September 30.The rest of the show notes and story links can be found at https://www.lightreading.com/lr-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features Maura Mahoney, chief marketing officer, and Patrick Coughlin, chief development officer, with FirstLight Fiber, a digital infrastructure provider servicing enterprise and carrier customers on a 25,000 route mile fiber network. We discuss how the company's middle-mile fiber network is helping bridge the digital divide "from Bangor to Buffalo," how the company factors network stability into its buildout, the process of applying for NTIA infrastructure grants and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike Dano returns to the podcast to discuss Helium Mobile, which recently signed an MVNO agreement with T-Mobile. Helium Mobile customers will be able to access T-Mobile's existing 5G network and the do-it-yourself, Helium-branded 4G network in exchange for cryptocurrency rewards. Mike explains how the MVNO will work and which new and noteworthy elements Helium Mobile will bring into the US wireless industry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Light Reading editors Mike "can't be bothered" Dano, Phil "the higher the hair the closer to heaven" Harvey and Kelsey "finger guns" Ziser get together for an informal recap of what's happened during the work week ended September 23, 2022.The stories covered include:10G, PON and pandemic PR: Light Reading's super-official SCTE Cable-Tec Expo wrap™Ericsson gets US clearance for Vonage take-offEricsson's $6.2B Vonage deal has befuddled investors – no wonderThe iPhone satellite service looks desperately niche5G may expand into 12.7GHz-13.25GHz nextRiPSIM promises to show carriers the bright side of eSIMsIf you want to skip around and listen, here are a few more things covered in this interview:SCTE Cable-Tec Expo show recap (00:50)Kelsey finally gets a new iPhone after hanging onto the XR for four years... but the satellite service on her iPhone 14 isn't available just yet (02:30)Ericsson hints at an update to the Vonage acquisition (Note: The update from Ericsson is coming out on September 26, not this week as initially stated during the podcast. Stay tuned for more from Light Reading on the acquisition next week). (06:17)The NTIA spectrum event and why Mike hates the phrase "the race to 5G" (09:21)Metaverse woes and why Second Life still sucks (12:30)Startup RiPSIM launches a new eSIM product (14:17)Things you never needed to know including the fact that New York ranks 8th for best states to go fishing in (not to be confused with phishing) (20:30)See you at Mobile World Congress Las Vegas, but don't ask Phil or Mike for an Elvis impersonation (23:51) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jessica Epley, vice president of regulatory and external affairs at Ziply Fiber joins the podcast to discuss the company's fiber buildout strategy in the northwest US, how it's preparing for the opportunities and competition presented by Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funding, and why permitting reform would help accelerate broadband delivery where it's needed most. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Enterprises have fully moved their IT stack into the cloud, and network infrastructure is next. Dave Ward, PacketFabric’s CEO, joins Light Reading to discuss the need for serious positive disruption in telecom, the flexibility of a cloud-native network, and how PacketFabric delivers real-time connectivity anywhere you want to go. #sponsored Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've been in the cable tech industry for more than five minutes, there's a good chance you know Bob Gold, the super-energetic PR/marketing guy and Cable TV Pioneer who's been representing cable tech companies and startups since the late 1990s. Gold got his agency start representing a video remultiplexing company (sexy, right?) called Imedia. Since then, off the top of this hack's head, he's flacked for is currently flacking for companies such as Canal Plus, Pioneer (back when it was making cable boxes and interactive guides), Media One, Incanta and ClearBand (we'll get to that those in more detail), Plume, the recently rechristened National Content & Technology Association (NCTC) and Vidgo, a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) that competes in the market with the likes of YouTube TV, Hulu, Philo and Sling TV.Full disclosure – he and the crew at Bob Gold & Associates have pitched a ton of stories to me about many of them over the years. Bob and I don't always see eye-to-eye, but I've written about many of them over the years. And Gold did nominate me for the Cable TV Pioneers class of 2018, so perhaps I wasn't as big of a jerk to him, his staff and his clients over the years as I thought I was. Hey, I tried. Usually news tied to Gold has to do with a company he represents, but this time it's all about Bob – his agency recently turned 25-years-old. He got that up and running about the time I started writing about the industry and had to Google "DOCSIS" to figure out what the heck I was about to do my first story on.So, we've got a lot of industry stuff in common, enough that it made sense to get together on the podcast and hop in the "Wayback Machine" to reminisce about the last two decades-plus.You can download a lightly edited transcript of the podcast here. If you want to skip around and listen, here's a timestamped list of the convo: How Gold and the crew celebrated the silver anniversary. And, yes, a PR crisis did interfere (1:15) How Gold, whose background includes marketing and communications exec roles with major cable programmers, turned a disaster into a new career as the head of an agency that focused on the crazy world of tech – and other stuff (5:50) How a top exec of a company didn't even believe in a fiber-based product that was being pitching to the press (12:30) How startups like Incanta and ClearBand had great ideas about streaming TV to devices but were just too early with respect to tech or content rights… or both (14:00) How Gold pitched me on a cable theft story, and I royally screwed up the embargo and the bad guy got away (15:30) Which client was Gold's greatest completed Hail Mary (18:30) Why Dan Aykroyd was Gold's favorite celeb to work with, back when video-on-demand was just appearing on the cable scene (20:30) Why Gold, at one time, viewed Amazon Prime as the most infuriating organization (24:00) Gold's biggest gain. After the fact, he told me to add Plume to the list (26:44) Gold's proudest moment – next to being my guest on the podcast, of course (27:30)— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Service providers have been banging on about the benefits of private 5G networks for the manufacturing industry, but that vertical has been reluctant to move forward with 5G technologies.In this podcast interview, Omdia analysts Pablo Tomasi and Anna Ahrens explain why the manufacturing industry, oft-cited as fertile ground for 5G, hasn't been that excited about private 5G network adoption."[5G] has a large promise of ultra-reliable, low-latency communications, which is actually a basic requirement of industrial communication," said Ahrens. "But what no one counted on or what no one expected is that it is not ready to go technology, it is a technology which still needs to be evolved."In addition, Ahrens and Tomasi dive into their joint research report, Demystifying Private 5G in Manufacturing: How to Seize a New Opportunity, and explain what can be done about the mismatch of expectations for 5G between the telcos and manufacturing sector.You can download a lightly edited transcript of the podcast here. If you want to skip around and listen, here are a few more things covered in this interview:Why the manufacturing industry is hesitant about adopting 5G (02:45)The reality of ROI for 5G (04:01)Why the manufacturing sector is resistant to disruptive technologies (06:07)Why the manufacturing industry is slow to adopt new technologies provided by telcos (08:11)What service providers believe is the advantage of 5G for the manufacturing industry (10:44)Near term opportunities for service providers in the manufacturing sector (14:24)Impetus behind Ahrens and Tomasi deciding to team up on their joint report (17:19)How telcos can better develop 5G services that enterprises need (19:16) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Light Reading editors Kelsey Ziser, Nicole Ferraro and Jedi Padawan Mike Dano join sentient vanilla latte Phil Harvey for an informal recap of what's happened during the work week ended September 16, 2022.The show notes and video for this episode are available right here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.