Senza Fili Sparring Partners

Most Sparring Partners are about using AI to improve the network infrastructure. This one is about how networks enable new AI-driven applications that need connectivity to work. I talked with Nigel Wallbridge, Director and Founder at Vivent Biosignals, on how biosensors on plants allow AI models to listen to plants to predict disease and stress, and help farmers to increase crop production and sustainability. It is a valuable application for farmers, but they need reliable connectivity to use it. This is an example of how AI is changing network requirements and may create new revenue sources for network operators. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Being Italian, I thought I should have one of the country-focused podcasts on Italy. But what is something that sets Italy apart? Having spent more time there recently, I quickly came up with the answer: SPID (Sistema Pubblico di Identità Digitale), the Digital ID platform that not only works well and supports many services, but that also most Italians use. Other European countries have digital ID systems too, but except for Estonia, they are somewhat lagging behind. The US and UK don’t have anything quite like this. I got another Italian, more knowledgeable than me on the topic and a previous guest on Sparring Partners, Dario Betti at MEF, to unpack SPID for the non-Italians out there. We talked about how SPID picked up speed, how it is evolving, what you can do with it, and compared SPID to digital ID systems in other countries. And we took the chance to boast a bit about our country, which does not happen too often. Unfortunately, we had a few recording glitches, so there are a few brief silences while Dario speaks, but they do not disrupt the flow of the conversation. Sorry!   More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Money alone does not drive innovation. You need people with passion, creativity, and talent to work together. You need collaboration. And to foster it. In this Sparring Partners, I talked with Dimitra Simeonidou, Director of the Smart Internet Lab at the University of Bristol, and Chief Scientific Advisor at the European Commission, about her work, most recently with JOINER (Joint Open Infrastructure for Network Research), a UK initiative linking universities and industry to test networks, collaborate and innovate. Dimitra is not your usual academic, narrowly focused on a narrow research domain and on writing grant requests and papers (I know to recognize them, because I was one of them). She has been working with industry and public agencies throughout her career, and has the determination to pull everybody together to encourage innovation and, more specifically, to strengthen the connection between research institutions and industry.   More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.  

My plan was to have a podcast on a 5G private network at the Rosslare Europort in Ireland. But this is not what this podcast is about. What our guest, Carl Coates, ICT Business Relationship Manager, at Irish Rail (the owner of the port), is doing at Rosslare is much broader, more ambitious and inspiring. It is more than a 5G mobile private network: it is a connectivity and sustainability project that is changing how people work, how the port collaborates with partners, and how it ensures its energy independence. We covered a lot of ground and more use cases and applications than I can list here: Network evolution from 4G to 5G, driven by low-latency, high reliability and security requirements, but also including a fiber backbone Learning lessons from the Vodafone 4G network Measurable (and measured) benefits of using applications such as mobile inventory of vehicles, ship-to-shore connectivity, emergency location services, push-to-talk, OCR, ANPR, LiDAR, aerial and underwater drones Using multimodal integration and standardized protocols and interfaces to share data and work with enterprise customers, rail, and other ports Active involvement of staff in driving the development and adoption of connectivity applications Electrification of the tug fleet and compliance with ship-to-shore power EU requirements Establishing energy sustainability and independence with an offshore wind facility   More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

We are ready to move beyond the traditional approach that treats antennas as passive, set-and-forget transducers. Until now, this lack of visibility has left operators unable to fine-tune or optimize the radiation layer, especially in real time. Digital antennas provide the visibility and control necessary to make the antenna an integral part of a closed-loop, AI-driven RAN. In this Sparring Partners, I talk with Aleksis Anterow, CMO of Huawei’s Antenna Business Unit, about the essential role of digital antennas in increasing network sustainability, efficiency, and supporting new services. Bridging the visibility gap: Establishing the ground truth needed to optimize RAN performance and user experience. Closing the loop: Moving from open-loop manual adjustments to real-time, automated antenna management. Initial lessons learned: China Mobile’s large-scale digital antenna deployments. Evolutionary adoption: How to gradually introduce digital antenna capabilities into existing mobile networks. Getting ready for 6G: Digital antennas as sensors for drone services and Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC).   More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.  

What should we keep in the cloud and in the edge? Computationally intensive functionality will remain in the cloud, but more is shifting to the edge, driven by the higher efficiency of edge solutions and the need to keep more data and processing locally. In this Sparring Partners, I talked to Manish Singh, Telecom Systems Business at Dell, about his perspective and vision for the edge, as the role and requirements of the edge evolve with AI, and on how to assess the edge/cloud tradeoffs. Edge computing is not a one-size-fits-all solution: latency, power, cost, cooling, and security tradeoffs AI is reshaping both what networks do and where they do it Making edge AI commercially viable with federated learning, lifecycle management From manufacturing floors to retail shelves: how edge compute is reshaping operational efficiency across industries Moving compute to the edge doesn't automatically mean more sustainable networks Physical AI, AR glasses drive inferencing closer to the device Learn more on Dell PowerEdge here   More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

We have done it again! At the end of MWC, Sean Kinney Editor-in-Chief at RCR Wireless and I sat down to compare notes on what we had heard and seen at MWC, skipping announcements and keynotes, and reflecting on what we had seen and heard out of the limelight. AI moving from demos into ops, the promise and pain of AI‑RAN, the evolution of open RAN, 6G, sensing, drones, and the industry's more realistic mood and expectations after the hype that dominated MWC 2025 are some of the topics we covered. And as always, it is a great pleasure to talk to Sean, and I hope you will enjoy listening to the podcast as much as I did recording it. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Thousands of protesters were killed in Iran, and the world's attention moved on within days. It is a massive ethical failure, but hardly an isolated example of how social media is driving a culture of polarization, outrage, and misinformation. AI and pervasive connectivity amplify these trends, challenging the very survival of democracy, cohesion, and tolerance. Siavash Alamouti, Cofounder at mimik and a Marconi Fellow, is back on Sparring Partners to discuss a topic that most would rather avoid, but one that we in telecom have the moral imperative to face. Most of us have worked for decades to build open networks that improve the lives of everybody. We are now finding that the technology and the networks we built are being used as weapons to destroy our culture, our values, and to cover up crimes. What should we do about it? Content moderation and censorship are often proposed as solutions, but they fail to address the underlying structural problem. The real culprit is the underlying software architecture itself, and the algorithms that leverage fear, outrage, and division to generate profits. That is what we need to change. Siavash shares his insight into how we can use our technology and networks to strengthen social cohesion and democracy, without limiting freedom of speech.   Check out Siavash article The Architecture That Amplifies Authoritarians, Extremists, and Division More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

In this second Sparring Partners with Philippe Ensarguet, VP Software Engineering and Orange Fellow at Orange, we talked about how human can remain relevant when AI is much better than us at crunching data, finding answers and running networks. Networks will change, but we have to change too. By 2030, human experts will no longer be knowledge providers and sense makers. They will have to learn to act as a wisdom compass. We will all need to shift from accumulating knowledge towards using soft-skills, intuition, and strategic insight. We need to move from treating AI models as tools to making them our teammates. We need to learn-to-learn how to operate in a fundamentally new environment if we want to still matter—and have a job. Dig deeper with Philippe’s Crafting our expertise slide deck or read his articles on LinkedIn More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

India is one of the most fascinating wireless markets and not only because of its size and enthusiastic uptake of wireless connectivity to run most daily activities. India defies most of our deepest ingrained assumptions about how wireless technology should be deployed and marketed, and how to profit from it. It turns out that despite extremely low ARPUs, initially fueled by aggressive competition, users in India have among the highest data consumption, and operators are profitable. Not only that, ARPUs are rising. Maybe there are lessons to be learned. We should abandon our preconception of India as a low-revenue, slow-to-innovate, and somewhat boring market. Necessity to adapt to a tough environmental and economic environment has spurred a highly innovative approach to wireless services, that does not require advanced 5G services, VIP access, network slicing—all things for which we now know subscribers have little appetite for even in richer countries. Our guide to the mesmerizing Indian wireless market is no other than Shiv Putcha, Director, Research and Consulting at GSMA Intelligence, who is based in India, but has spent a long time in the US (I know him since his days at Qualcomm in San Diego), so he has a broad perspective on the local market. We spent little time with the basic metrics of the Indian market and headed for the less advertised features that make India unique and an innovative model that can make us think differently about monetization. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

The latest Sparring Partners delves into the meanders of EU regulation and its ambitious goal to unify telecommunications across the 27 member states with the recent the European Commission’s Digital Networks Act (DNA). Richard Haas, Spectrum Policy Consultant at LS Telcom UK, graciously and patiently explains the complexity of the DNA so that even I could understand it. Not a small feat. Our discussion navigates the complexities of use-it-or-share-it spectrum provisions, the secondary market for spectrum, sharing arrangements, the shift toward unlimited license durations, and the peer-review process for national auctions. Will the DNA be a cure for market fragmentation and boost infrastructure investment, or add an extra layer to the already byzantine bureaucratic processes in EU countries? And how do these changes compare to spectrum allocation in countries such as the US and the UK?    More from Richard: Brussels may soon get the power to veto spectrum auctions — here’s what that means in practice More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.  

Canada faces massive geographical challenges. As the second-largest country on Earth, with 80% of the population living along the southern border, operators must navigate a unique mix of dense urban centers and vast, rugged rural areas. How can Canadian telcos provide top-tier service without breaking the bank? Ibrahim Gedeon, CTO Emeritus at TELUS and Executive Director at Guardian Safety Net takes us through a fascinating journey covering his career at the forefront of Canadian wireless evolution—from Nortel and Bell Northern Research to his long tenure leading technology at CTO at TELUS. Topics covered: The vastness challenge: How Canada built one of the world's most resilient networks despite its size. Infrastructure sharing: Why collaboration is the key to balancing cost and coverage. The future of innovation: Ibrahim's leading role in Open RAN adoption and the shift toward telco-led (rather than vendor-driven) technology. The AI frontier: How artificial intelligence is being integrated into the current wireless landscape.   More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Is Agentic AI the latest hype or a fundamental shift in how we run telco networks? Philippe Ensarguet, VP Software Engineering, Orange Fellow, Orange is a visionary believer of a rare lineage: he spent decades running large-scale mobile networks and knows what needs to be done and what can be done, but also has the technological insight into what AI and agentic AI can (and cannot) deliver. In this Sparring Parters, Philippe goes beyond the vision and explains what AI agents can do today and in the long term, how they can interface with network APIs, and what safeguards we need against hallucinations and security threats and to develop trust.   More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Backhaul and fronthaul (or xhaul) don’t get the attention they deserve. It is the RAN that gets most of the limelight, even though insufficient xhaul capacity is a deadly bottleneck. As we move to 5GSA, DU/CU splits and virtual RAN, we have more xhaul choices, but also we need to manage the xhaul more effectively to give the RAN the capacity and latency it now needs. It was a pleasure to dissect the topic and look at how xhaul is evolving with Andy Sutton, BT Fellow & Principal Network Architect at BT Group, who has an extraordinary experience across multiple Gs, and he is now leading the Advanced RAN Coordination (ARC) project at BT. Despite the “RAN” in the acronym, the coordination requires a more sophisticated way to manage the xhaul to optimize RAN performance across cell sites and that is leading towards a cell-free architecture. BT’s press release about ARC here: https://newsroom.bt.com/ee-unlocks-next-gen-5g-performance-for-millions-with-world-first-technology/ The financial model on impact of backhaul/fronthaul on the Open RAN business case is here: https://senzafili.com/publications/which-open-ran-is-best-for-you/   More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.  

The evolution of wireless networks from MIMO to M-MIMO and, finally, to GIGA MIMO is a fascinating story that tracks how a concept that initially few people believed could become a commercial reality has become a crucial technology for increasing the efficiency, performance, and availability of connectivity in cellular and Wi-Fi networks. In this Sparring Partners with Zhang Jiong, RAN Marketing Director at ZTE, we look at this amazing story, starting not with cellular connectivity, but with an earlier form of wireless communications: the African talking drums used to send messages between villages. Listen to the conversation to find out what we can learn from the talking drums and where the future of MIMO will take us — think drones, reliability and security for critical communications, dense urban capacity, rural coverage, and more. You can read the essay on African Talking Drums in Interfaces of the word by Walter Ong and Steve Pinker’s discussion of them in The language instinct.   More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.  

What do we need 6G for? In this conversation with Colby Harper, Founder and CEO at Pathfinder Wireless, we skip the argument over whether we need 6G to fix or improve on 5G, which is so boringly pervasive these days. Instead, we talk about how 6G can be a horizontal enabler for sharing connectivity across air interfaces and modalities, and for expanding connectivity options across verticals. It helps to think of 6G as a new, intelligent plumbing for telecoms to lay the foundation for a sharing-native architecture, with timing intent, sensing, interfaces, and APIs among the critical building blocks. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Technology moves fast, but marketing moves fast too, and possibly at a faster pace. AI, social media, and nonstop work demands have created an audience that is overwhelmed, distracted, and quick to tune out. How can we get our message across without compromising credibility? How do we keep our content relevant and engaging while avoiding flooding our channels with easy-to-generate content? Not easy questions, but Kris Kozamchak, Principal at Chanan Communications, took on the challenge, and brilliantly and candidly addressed them, touching on many aspects that often don’t get the attention they deserve and giving advice on how to maintain relevance in a shallow, fast-paced digital environment. If you feel you are shouting into the void, you are not alone. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.  

In the second Sparring Partners on what we can learn from a country, I spoke with Philip Marnick, General Director at the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, about Bahrain. It is a small country, but with much to learn from. It is at the forefront of innovation, but without price hikes. In Bahrain, you get top connectivity at affordable prices. What is the secret sauce to doing that? More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

We all want to make wireless networks more energy efficient and sustainable. But how do we measure the progress, and how do we know we are taking the right steps? Not so easy. Emanuel Kolta, Lead Analyst at GSMA Intelligence, has been working on the complexities of measuring and improving energy efficiency. It is a very challenging yet intellectually fascinating area that has become even more urgent due to rising energy costs and supply uncertainties. How do we reduce energy consumption as reliability and performance requirements, and traffic grow? What's the best way to increase renewable energy sources? How should we measure energy efficiency across different geographies, demography mixes, networks, and services? There is enough to cover to keep us busy for a full-day discussion, but we managed to distill all in this half-hour Sparring Partners podcast. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

FWA is one of the bright spots of 5G, especially in the US. But how well does it work for users? What are the scenarios where FWA is most beneficial to users and cost-effective for service providers? How much competition in terms of price and performance comes from satellite? And while, other things being equal, fiber is the best fixed broadband technology for residential users, do most households really need it (or do they just think they do)? Mike Dano, who recently moved to Ookla as a Lead Industry Analyst, has recently done extensive research on FWA, looking at performance, availability, usage and operator strategies, so he was able to present an excellent 360-degree view of FWA, and he also told us what he is up to at his new job. If you want to dig deeper, this is Mike’s article we talked about. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

This is the first episode of a Sparring Partners thread on what makes a country special and what we can learn from it. I will be speaking with someone who lives in that country and can share insights that go beyond the usual statistics and market forecasts, revealing things we do not know or expect. Since I got the idea for this while chatting with Ignacio Perrone at Frost & Sullivan, and a Professor, School of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires, as we were talking about Argentina and comparing it to other countries, it is only fitting that he is the first guest in the “What’s special” thread. Ignacio and I had an engaging conversation, and you will learn a lot about how people in Argentina use mobile networks, especially if, like me, you have never been to the country or have not been there recently. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

This is the title of a report from Telesemana that was the starting point of my conversation with Rafael Junquera, Editorial Director at Telesemana. We went back to what telecom was 20+ years ago and eventually arrived at the present, tracking the transition from explosive growth to a mature revenue environment and the impressive progress in technology and societal benefits that continues unabated. What does this tell us about the revenue potential of the new D2D services? Will the increasing competition among satellite operators drive down revenues, as happened in cellular networks? How could satellite operators avoid this fate? Value-added services may help, but how should they price them? Should it be based on the cost to provide a service or its perceived value? Can AI help them in charting this territory? You can get Rafa’s report here. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Wireless sensing is an emerging technology with great potential, but it is still in its early stages of development. Fiber sensing is a more mature technology that, surprisingly, has been used mostly outside of telecoms for a long time, and only recently has made its way into protecting telecom assets. Network operators may also use it to offer new revenue-generating services. I spoke with Andres Chavarria, Fiber Sensing Market Development Manager at VIAVI Solutions, about how fiber sensing works, where it has been used in the past, how network operators can benefit from it in their operations and service offerings. Fiber sensing has attracted more attention recently because it can reduce the cost and disruption caused by accidental or intentional damage to subsea cables. As we become increasingly dependent on global connectivity and geopolitical tensions rise, protecting subsea cables has become a top priority. There are many other use cases for fiber sensing, and we covered only some of them, but you will get a sense of how useful (and sadly underutilized) fiber sensing is. And we should expect its adoption in telecom to expand soon. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Adrian Scrase, independent consultant at EA Consult Services, has been deeply involved in the evolution of wireless standards throughout many Gs at ETSI and, as you may expect, is now working on the evolution to 6G. What can we learn from 3G, 4G and 5G, to avoid the mistakes of the past? How can we find a sustainable innovation trajectory that is grounded in realistic expectations for what new technology can deliver, how much operators can invest, and how much subscribers are willing to pay? Will we be able to avoid the inflated expectations that plagued 5G? More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.  

This is a podcast I recorded with Claudia Bacco Editor-in-Chief at Global Airspace Radar on what I learned about drones during a recent trip to China for the Huawei analyst event. This is the description of the podcast, “Telecommunications supporting drones, with a twist”: Monica Paolini, Principal, Senza Fili, joined our editor-in-chief Claudia Bacco to discuss telecommunications supporting drones. A twist is mentioned in the title and the twist is the view from China. Having just returned from a trip to China, Monica shares insights from visiting China Telecom including their drone program. The twist goes further in that the telecommunications company is leading the effort to test drone flights as opposed to the regional air traffic control organisation being in the lead. Certainly different than what we’re seeing in Europe and the US. We also dug deeper into the use of spectrum and the mobile infrastructure in this endeavour, what can be re-used, what needs to be changed/enhanced. Join us in the discussion which leans more toward the telecommunication part of the equation. More on Global Airspace Radar at https://globalairspaceradar.com/ More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Wireless security is becoming increasingly challenging to manage due to growing geopolitical tensions, the rise of sophisticated tools and profitable targets, and the potential for AI to make attacks easier and more effective. In this conversation with Silke Holtmanns, Telecommunication Security Expert at Blue Hour Consulting Oy, we delve beyond the stats to discuss how operators manage wireless security and how they can enhance their effectiveness in preventing or dealing with attacks. Silke has hands-on experience from her work with operators and gives us the insider perspective. We covered the fake small cells from South Korea’s KT network, the SIM farm attack in New York (possibly overhyped for political reasons by the FBI), censorship and security tradeoffs, the non-technological security risks, the impact of APIs and AI on security, spear phishing, and the role of regulation.   More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

AI will have a transformative impact across all elements in telecom networks, and that includes transport. Yet, most of the attention these days is on the RAN, the core and data center infrastructure. In this conversation with Kristian Toivo, Executive Director at TIP, we tried to remedy this and focused on how AI is changing the transport requirements and how the ecosystem and infrastructure will have to evolve to meet them. As AI gets integrated into our networks, data center distribution and data transfer requirements will have a major impact on the transport infrastructure, as well as monetization strategies of service providers. You can find out more about TIP’s activities on transport here or, even better, attend FYUZ 2025 in Dublin on November 3-5. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

AI is everywhere, RAN included. But many questions remain. What role does it take within the RAN? Where can it help and how? How do we transition from an initial, limited use of AI, to reach L4 automation with a native-AI RAN? Nirlay Kundu, Head of Technology Standards, IMDEA Networks Institute, explores all these topics and more, combining the experience from his work at Verizon in the US and the research he is currently doing at IMDEA in Spain. Plus, we discussed the implications of AI in accountability, the evolving role of humans and agents in refining the job of the underlying models. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

CBRS is gaining traction in industrial and, a bit more slowly, in enterprise networks and some of the complexity and limitations of the initial CBRS have been addressed. Yet, recently, we have seen attempts to turn CBRS into another full-power licensed band. This would give mobile operators exclusive access to the spectrum, as they do with other cellular licensed bands, and enterprises would no longer be able to use the spectrum without arrangements with mobile operators. Dave Wright has been working on CBRS from the very beginning and was at the helm of the OnGo Alliance for a long time, and he continues to work on it at Salt Point Strategies and Spectrum for the Future. He gave an in-depth overview of how we got to today’s CBRS and what to expect in the future. We also talked about dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) and how to strike a balance among licensed, license-exempt and dynamic shared spectrum. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Not everybody working in telecom is an engineer. For one, I am not (my college degree is in Philosophy, and my PhD is in Cognitive Science/Neuroscience), and I believe that this was an advantage as it allowed me initially to look at the technology from the outside. In this discussion with Linda Ligios, Principal Innovation Solutions Consultant at Digital Catapult (spoiler: she is also not an engineer), we talked about how a non-telecom background may be an asset, especially in the age of AI and especially for women (who are more likely to come from a non-engineering background). What are the challenges and benefits for those with a non-telecom background and for the organization hiring them? How should you plan for a telecom career if you don't have a technical background? Any differences between the US and Europe? (Spoiler two: You can learn about technology even without a college degree or formal education in technology) Linda works at Digital Catapult, which, as we discussed, is an organization that is powerful in nurturing the UK's telecom community. However, Digital Catapult’s primary role is to accelerate the practical application of deep tech in the UK, and its work is outstanding. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz band is rapidly expanding through increased adoption (where allowed) and availability (in countries that have now opened or are opening the band to unlicensed use). Yet, there has been speculation that the US may roll back Wi-Fi availability and allocate part of the band to cellular. Who else could be better to guide us through all this than Kevin Robinson, the CEO at the Wi-Fi Alliance? We discuss what could possibly happen and what we are fairly certain will not happen in the 6 GHz band in the US, while also providing an update on the 6 GHz progress in the rest of the world and why it is so valuable for indoor connectivity. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

AI is here to stay and will become more pervasive with time. But how will it penetrate telecom networks and organizations? Azita Arvani and I explored this question along multiple dimensions. Is it going to be centralized or at the edge? Do we need GPUs at the edge? How quick should the transition from AI as a tool to AI-native networks be? How will sovereignty shape the adoption of AI? How aggressively should we push AI adoption? Should we wait until it gets to a more mature stage? Are we over-investing in it? We don’t have final answers (and nobody does), but we shared our perspectives. Azita just finished a paper, “Beyond Connectivity: Telecom's AI-Driven Future in 5G-Advanced” in collaboration with Mick Etoh at the University of Osaka, that covers in more detail what we discussed in the Sparring Partners. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

AI carries profound implications for national, infrastructure, and personal security, with today’s geopolitical tensions adding further complexity. AI poses new challenges not only to governments and society, but also to telecom regulators, vendors, service providers, and the broader ecosystem. In this episode, I speak with Chris Jefferson from Advai, where he works to make AI safe and reliable, and to identify and mitigate potential biases and misuse. We discuss what it means to build sovereign AI and its impact on national and infrastructure security. We explore how to balance sovereignty with the need for cross-border collaboration and standardization, how to mitigate risks and threats from malicious actors without stifling innovation, and how what responsibility operators and hyperscalers have to deploy AI safely and ethically to reduce societal risks. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

All laptops have Wi-Fi, and yet not many have 5G connectivity. Why is it so? Giovanni Severini, Principal Group Program Manager at Microsoft, told us how and why this happened, and how this may be changing, especially in the enterprise space. Tethering to the phone is a common workaround, but it limits performance. This may change with the increased adoption of eSIM, which makes it easier to connect to cellular networks. But Giovanni argues that there is more to this and that the conditions are ripe for a surge in cellular connectivity in laptops. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

How many connected enterprises do not have Wi-Fi? Hardly any. Yet, there are many different ways to use Wi-Fi within the enterprise. And to decide whether Wi-Fi is sufficient or if in-building cellular networks, such as CBRS, are also needed. I talked with Bart Giordano, President at Ruckus Networks, about how the role of Wi-Fi in the enterprise keeps evolving, with the evolution of Wi-Fi technology and access to the 6GHz band. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Complain as much as you want about 3GPP or IEEE — they’ve given us global standards that have been essential to the adoption, low cost, and ease of use of cellular and Wi-Fi. I spoke with Sebastian Barros, Managing Director at Circles, about the future of global standards and shared access to new technologies. Are we on the verge of losing this? Geopolitical divisions are pushing us toward building barriers, making it harder to sustain the collaborative work that underpins global standards, openness, interoperability — and, more broadly, robust and safe technological innovation. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Wireless infrastructure can be expensive to build, and the business case is difficult to make in indoor and digital divide environments. Sharing the infrastructure is a powerful and efficient way to reduce costs and encourage deployments, but so far, it has been difficult to do because the business models and incentives were not there. I talked with Sarah Aberg, Chief Legal Officer at Helium, about how decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) use blockchain technology to enable a new way to share telecom infrastructure, where both infrastructure owners and service providers can make a large number of transactions in real time in a fast, low-cost, simple and transparent way. This platform provides incentives for enterprises, network operators, public and community entities and venue managers to deploy the infrastructure, and for service providers to use that infrastructure when they need it. Helium has been successfully using this model for some time with Wi-Fi networks. However, to scale it, Helium and others need a regulatory framework to protect all the players involved. Sarah tells us about how she is working on this with the SEC in the US to incorporate DePIN into the new crypto regulation. You can find more on this at: Decentralized Physical Infrastructure, Written Submission to SEC Crypto Task Force (June 17, 2025)  Helium Draft Legislative Amendment Proposal, Written Submission to SEC Crypto Task Force (July 21, 2025) More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

We all use Wi-Fi at home. It is so pervasive that people no longer think of having a broadband connection at home; instead, they will tell you they “have Wi-Fi.” What is talked about less is that the Wi-Fi connection is getting better and more secure. I covered this gap with Tiago Rodrigues, President and CEO at the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA). As the number of devices and the traffic loads increase, we need more capabilities and security assurance from our home Wi-Fi networks. Wi-Fi technology has evolved to meet our needs, but we need to do a better job in educating users about the new capabilities and encouraging adoption. What’s the best way to do this? More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

A recurring challenge in wireless is how to get new technology to the market and generate revenue. We are good at deploying new technologies, but struggle to monetize them sufficiently to profit from the investment made to deploy them. This has happened with 4G, is happening with 5G and is likely to happen with AI and 6G, and it is not because the technology is not good enough. What creates the disconnect? Do we need to find new ways to bring technologies to the market? Alex Lawrence, Managing Director at TelcoForge, and I ponder this topic, and explore new approaches to get new technologies to selectively deliver what we need, and avoid deploying them just because they are available. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

Why is it taking so long for telecom service providers to get enterprises into the fold and deliver the connectivity and services they need? Caroline Chan, VP and GM of Telco AI, Network, and Edge Group at Intel, has worked closely with enterprises across various verticals for a long time, and shares her insights on the challenges of reaching the enterprise and how to address them. We talked about the need for a rich and well-synched ecosystem, to understand what enterprises need, and to develop the right frameworks and services. We need more than technology to bring the enterprise to the fold. We need to listen to the enterprises, get out of the telecom-centric comfort, and develop a new communication approach. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do.

As the world moves towards hyper-connectivity, network APIs are emerging as critical enablers of innovation across industries. In this Sparring Partners, Sameh Yamani, CTO at VIAVI Solutions, will explore the driving forces behind network APIs and how they are transforming the telecommunications landscape. - The driving forces behind network APIs: core technological, software-defined networking (SDN), automation, and the emerging 5G and 6G ecosystems. - The role of digital twins in the evolution of network APIs in automation,  resource allocation, root cause analysis, predictive maintenance, optimization, verticals integration, and monetization.  - How digital twins enable faster iterations, more efficient troubleshooting, and greater operational insights. - Unlocking the potential of a new generation of apps with network APIs and digital twins. - The role of AI and GenAI in the lifecycle of network APIs. - Measuring maturity and defining the success of network APIs. Read the report "Taking telco APIs to the market. The API ecosystem connects operators, enterprises and app developers" Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/to receive invitations to the live Sparring Partners events. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com

This episode is a special one for me. David Cleevely – serial entrepreneur, investor, policy adviser, and founder of Analysys and Cambridge Wireless (just to name a couple) – was the person who hired me straight out of school, with no telecoms experience whatsoever, and gave me the opportunity to pursue my passion for the industry. It’s the kind of serendipity he explores in his new book. But this podcast isn’t about me – it’s about not just letting serendipity happen, but actively encourage it. David and I talk about how serendipity creates the right environment for innovation and growth across time and context: Renaissance, England, China (past and present), Silicon Valley, and, of course, Cambridge. If you want to explore further, read David’s just-published and inspiring book: Serendipity: It Doesn't Happen by Accident.

Network APIs are a critical cornerstone to establishing a deep connection between CSPs and enterprises that is mutually beneficial. Enterprises can make their networks and services more agile, automated and secure, and improve the customer experience. CSPs can make their networks more efficient and monetize their network assets. In this Sparring Partners with Harpreet Geekee, Co-Founder and CTO at Shabodi, we will talk about the transformative potential of network APIs, their architectural foundations, and use cases for both enterprises and CSPs.   Read the report "Taking telco APIs to the market. The API ecosystem connects operators, enterprises and app developers" Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/to receive invitations to the live Sparring Partners events. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com

A conversation with Ron Porter, Head of 5G, Network & OSS Product Marketing at Amdocs and Enri-k Salazar, API Commercialization Platform at Amdocs As networks need to establish a closer integration within a growing ecosystem of connected consumers and industries, APIs are back as a crucial tool to enable improved services and user experience to unlock new revenue opportunities. Monetizing APIs requires more than exposure of network functionality. In this conversation with Ron Porter, Head of 5G, Network & OSS Product Marketing at Amdocs and Enri-k Salazar, Product Line Management Lead API Commercialization Platform at Amdocs, we talk about how, to achieve meaningful traction in this market, operators need to productize and commercialize APIs as they would any other business line, and choose wisely their roadmap and how to reach out to their application partners. Key discussion points: Establishing a solid foundation for APIs: NaaS automation, dynamic charging, and an E2E commercial strategy The role of network orchestration in the delivery of commercially successful APIs Managing consent oversight and complexity in data governance in APIs Essential role of charging and pricing agility in optimizing API monetization Expanding customer reach by syndicating APIs to multiple commercial sales channels, such as hyperscalers, aggregators and marketplaces Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to the live Sparring Partners events. Read the report "Taking telco APIs to the market. The API ecosystem connects operators, enterprises and app developers" Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/to receive invitations to the live Sparring Partners events. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com

Digital twins give us the unprecedented opportunity to explore alternative worlds or scenarios where things are similar to the real ones, but differ from them in subtle ways, so we can see how things look like if only we make a few changes. It is a fascinating way to explore the possible but also to avoid failures, assess the impact and benefits of network changes or new technologies, and compare different decisions before implementing one. How does this work in practice, in real networks? I talked to Chris Murphy, Regional CTO for EMEA, VIAVI Solutions, who has been working on AI and telecom networks for a long time, to tell us how we can get digital twins for us. We talked about their potential, but more importantly, about how to get them to work in real networks, how to extract the most value from them, and how to avoid the challenges that they create. No slide-deck shine, I promise. If you want to go deeper on digital twins, check the conversation I had with Sameh Yamani, also at VIAVI Solutions. https://senzafili.com/network-apis-and-digital-twins-as-the-next-frontier-in-digital-innovation/ More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com

In the past, we used to test networks, not user experience. What really matters today, however, is user experience, and that requires a different approach to testing. Network tests may fail to uncover problems with user experience. I spoke with Irina Cotanis, an Independent Technical Consultant I have known for a long time, while she was at Infovista, about how user experience testing is evolving to cover both human and non-human users, as well as a wider range of applications and services that must coexist on the network and have diverse requirements. All this has to be done in networks that are more complex and dynamic. How can we meet the higher bar ahead of us with tight resources? How does AI and automation help?   More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do. If you enjoyed this podcast, subscribe to the Sparring Partners feed on the platform of your choice, including Apple and Spotify

Everybody seems to think that AI will create a massive increase in traffic. The prediction sounds eerily similar to what we heard about 5G, before it got deployed. Sean Kinney, Editor in Chief at RCR Wireless News, and I beg to differ. We agree through most of the discussion, which is great because our view is definitely not in line with the industry consensus. Listen to the podcast if you want to hear something different. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events and updates on what we do. If you enjoyed this podcast, subscribe to the Sparring Partners feed on the platform of your choice, including Apple and Spotify

We usually look at the present or the future of technologies. In this podcast with Mansoor Hanif, Independent Executive Advisor, we took a look at the past. What were the challenges for network automation six years ago? What did we expect? In one of the first Sparring Partners on automation included in this report, I talked to Mansoor while he was at BT about zero-touch automation, AI and much more. He then moved to Ofcom and Neom, continuing to follow the progress of automation. Here, we revisit the initial interview in light of the progress made and the expected outcomes. We were surprised to see that most of the challenges are still with us and that the predictions turned out to be accurate. But read the interview, listen to the podcast, and judge for yourself. You can read the interview here: https://senzafili.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SenzaFili_Automation.pdf More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to the live Sparring Partners events. Please subscribe to the podcast on the platform of your choice, including Apple and Spotify.

Training data determines how good AI models are. As with any type of learning, you need good teachers and content. In telecoms, there is more data than we need, but not all is good or relevant. One way to get AI models trained on the right data is to share data across sources—operators, vendors and others. I talked to Paul Patras, Co-founder and CEO at Net AI, and Professor of Mobile Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh, about how to share data in telecoms and how that improves the performance of AI models, for instance in increasing energy efficiency, and how ARIA is supporting innovation efforts that will facilitate removing data sharing barriers in the UK. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to Sparring Partners events.  

Our identity, who we are, is increasingly becoming defined by our online self. For many of us, our LinkedIn presence has become the main or a major channel for professional social media. What happens if that disappears overnight? Literally during the night. You no longer have access to it, and someone else with a different gender, name and nationality takes over. This is what happened to Frazer McKimm, Director at New Way Networks, who told us his story and how he managed to get himself back. I don’t want to spoil the story for you, but this is more of a thriller than other episodes. More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/ to receive invitations to the live Sparring Partners events.