Light Reading Podcasts

Virginia Lam Abrams, co-founder and SVP of government affairs and strategic advancement at Starry, returns to the podcast with an update on the fixed wireless provider's Starry Connect program – which provides low-cost broadband to affordable and public housing developments – and how federal subsidies are helping some Starry customers get broadband at no cost.Sign up today for the Light Reading newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alan Breznick, cable/video practice leader for Light Reading, joins the podcast to discuss the upcoming Cable Next-Gen Technologies & Strategies conference, a free digital event on Tuesday, March 15 and Wednesday, March 16.This is the event's 15th consecutive year, and its third year in an all-digital format. Cable Next-Gen will focus on a range of cable tech topics, including 10G, DOCSIS 4.0, XGS-PON, Distributed Access Architecture, 5G, network virtualization, Wi-Fi 6, smart homes, edge computing and related technologies, platforms and services, as well as COVID-19's impact on the broadband landscape. A variety of top tech execs will speak at the event, including executives from Comcast, Charter, CableLabs, Cox Communications, Consumer Technology Association, Cogeco, Midco, Schurz Communications and SCTE.More details on how to register for this free digital conference can be found here.Sign up today for the Light Reading newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ankit Agarwal, managing director at STL (aka, Sterlite Technologies Limited), joins the podcast to discuss STL's perspective on the digital divide based on its work delivering network solutions in over 100 countries. We get into the central connectivity challenges in communities worldwide and where government efforts are making a difference. We also discuss the role of fiber in bridging the divide in India, and how the supply chain is impacting STL's work to accelerate digital network delivery.Sign up today for the Light Reading newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Parm Sandhu, VP of enterprise 5G products and services for NTT; and Warren Small, global head of security and innovation for NTT, join the Light Reading podcast to discuss NTT's approach to delivering private 5G networks to enterprise customers.Sandhu shares insights from a recent study by NTT and Economist Impact, Private 5G Here and Now, which revealed that 90% of executives expect that private 5G will become the standard network choice."Nearly a quarter of the companies that we interviewed are already piloting private 5G networks. About one-third of those have already deployed at least the network as operational, meaning it's really moving data as part of their operations mission," explains Sandhu.Here are just a few things covered in this podcast episode:What's driving interest in private 5G networks from enterprise customers (01:52)How private 5G networks address security concerns (03:40)Challenges enterprises face that private 5G can address (06:20)NTT's use cases in working with customers on private 5G networks (13:00)More on security aspects of private 5G; NTT partnership with ServiceNow (16:30)Related stories and links:Omdia's Private Networks Intelligence ServicePrivate 5G Here and NowNTT VP Parm Sandhu on the data and security draw of private 5G networksPodcast: Digital twinning the Tour de FranceSign up today for the Light Reading newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cory Davis, director of public safety operations for Verizon, returns to the podcast while on site at Verizon's network-monitoring command center in SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles, California. Davis and the Verizon Frontline team are gearing up for Super Bowl LVI; the service provider has been preparing for two years for this Super Bowl, investing $119 million in and around SoFi Stadium."We look at the [command center] like a football team, we have an offense, defense and special teams," says Davis. "The goal is to keep our network at 100% to the best of our ability and respond very quickly to anything that happens."Verizon has an on-call team on site working with federal, state and local agencies to boost network capacity if needed.Davis also provides a tour of Verizon's Tactical Humanitarian Operations Response (THOR) unit, which is a 5G disaster response prototype vehicle. For more on THOR, check out this previous podcast with Davis.Here are just a few things covered in this podcast episode:Overview of Verizon's network-monitoring command center (00:39)Tour of the command center (02:25)Monitoring network performance (03:00)Verizon's preparations for the Super Bowl (04:27)Connectivity challenges at SoFi Stadium (05:36)Interactive fan experience and data usage (08:14)THOR vehicle tour (09:53)Recent THOR deployments (11:55)Sign up today for the Light Reading newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Vetter, president of Bell Labs Core Research for Nokia Bell Labs, joins the podcast to discuss the industry's preparations for 6G and how it will differ from previous cellular generations. Vetter has been with Nokia for over 20 years and has a background in optical communications, FTTH, radio access and network infrastructure research."What 5G has done is connect humans and machines. In 6G, we expect a much richer connectivity of machines and the physical world, the human world, with the digital world – so, the fusion of the digital worlds with physical worlds," explains Vetter. "And that's enabled by massive scale deployment of sensors that in real time capture the state of the physical world."Commercial deployments of 6G will begin in 2030 but will take ten years to prepare, he adds.Here are just a few things covered in this podcast episode:How 6G will differ from previous generations and when it will emerge (02:51)Digital twinning and simulating the physical environment in a digital space (04:37)Use cases for digital twinning such as traffic, retail and healthcare management (08:17)"AI comes to the rescue" for network automation (09:18)Paving the way for 6G (09:48)6G radios learning from each other (11:40)6G for emergency response, energy management and public safety (12:53)Ensuring security is built-in for 6G (15:10)Critical network infrastructure for 6G (16:38)One global 6G standard but national and regional requirements (18:36)When 6G applications and specifications will emerge (20:25)6G will "unleash human possibilities … putting humans back at the center," says Vetter. (23:18)Sign up today for the Light Reading newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aparna Khurjekar, SVP and president for Verizon Business Markets, joins the podcast to explain how the service provider works with small and midsized businesses (SMBs) to assess and address their security needs. Khurjekar works with businesses with ten to 1,000 full-time employees on delivering communications, security and "other above the network services."In addition, she shares insights from Verizon's Small Business Recovery Survey covering 600 business owners. "About 50% of small/medium businesses that we talked to said they have upgraded or they're planning to upgrade within the next six months a lot of their software solutions for security," she said.Here are just a few things covered in this podcast episode:Security concerns revealed in Verizon's Small Business Recovery Survey (02:25)Different approaches to security among small/midsized businesses (04:09)Security priorities according to verticals (07:28)Unique security challenges for small businesses (09:35)Applying security learnings from enterprises to smaller businesses (12:49)Hackers shifting to organized crime (15:31)Advice for smaller businesses on their overall security strategy (17:02)Sign up today for the Light Reading newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Philpott, research director at Omdia, joins the podcast to discuss Omdia's 2021 Global Fiber Development Index, including where fiber is being deployed the fastest and why speed inequalities are growing as countries work toward closing their connectivity divides.Sign up today for the Light Reading newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chris McReynolds, VP of product management, cloud and data services at Lumen Technologies, joins the podcast to discuss Lumen's approach to edge computing and what's driving edge use cases among enterprise customers."We have a lot of distributed physical locations where we can deploy edge computing nodes, we have a lot of fiber connectivity to manufacturing locations, logistics and sorting centers – the types of locations where these edge and IoT use cases make a lot of sense and add a lot of business value," said McReynolds.In addition to building out edge computing locations to "cover 95% of enterprises in North America," Lumen has invested in its network and compute layers and "automated a lot of the network over the past three or four years for an SDN-enabled network," said McReynolds. He emphasized Lumen's efforts to focus both on the physical and virtual infrastructure to support edge computing use cases.Here are just a few things covered in this podcast episode:Lumen's strategy and approach to edge computing (01:36)Deploying edge computing sites to improve latency (04:58)Enterprise use cases for edge computing (07:37)Partnerships with T-Mobile and other service providers and vendors (10:24)Lumen's Edge Private Cloud, Edge Gateway and Edge Bare Metal (12:46)Related stories and links:Mapping out edge computing: How dense is it?Lumen's Mike Benjamin: An old RAT with new tricksLumen pairs edge computing with private cloudLight Reading Podcast news, analysis and opinionSign up today for the Light Reading newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we're talking with Mike Dano about T-Mobile's efforts to purchase 2.5GHz spectrum licenses, why it's trying to purchase those licenses now, who the competition is and what it means for the industry at large.Sign up today for the Light Reading newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.