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PODCAST

Senza Fili Sparring Partners

Opinionated conversations in telecoms with Monica Paolini, Senza Fili, and her guests. Networks should be open, and so should our discussions on them.

technology

All Episodes

40:09

How well does FWA work for subscribers? With Mike...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/11/22

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

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47:50

What’s special about Argentina? With Ignacio Perrone,...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/11/14

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

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45:26

From dumb pipe to dumb space. With Rafael Junquera at...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/11/07

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

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44:53

Fiber sensing to protect telecom assets and generate...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/10/31

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,

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40:06

6G standards: A balancing act in innovation, market...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/10/25

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

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26:42

Bonus episode: Drones and low-altitude networks: the...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/10/25

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

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35:12

The insider view on wireless security. With Silke...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/10/19

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

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39:52

How is AI changing transport? With Kristian Toivo at TIP

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/10/10

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

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47:59

How transformative is AI RAN? With Nirlay Kundu,...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/10/03

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

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39:05

What’s up with CBRS? With Dave Wright, Salt Point...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/09/28

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

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31:23

Non-linear career paths in telecoms. With Linda...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/09/20

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 Lindia 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

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38:49

Is Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz band at risk? With Kevin...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/09/14

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

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34:14

Is AI taking over telecoms? Or is it just a tool?...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/09/05

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

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37:29

Why does sovereign AI matter in telecoms? With Chris...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/08/28

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

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35:40

Why not have 5G on laptops? With Giovanni Severini at...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/08/22

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

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37:26

Wi-Fi in the enterprise. With Bart Giordano, Ruckus...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/08/15

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

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35:04

Are global standards under threat from geopolitical...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/08/08

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,

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37:48

Blockchain and DePIN for building and sharing...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/08/01

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

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34:40

Home Wi-Fi gets better and more secure. With Tiago...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/07/25

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

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48:50

Taking new technology to the market. With Alex...

Senza Fili Sparring Partners ·

2025/07/18

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

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78 results

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