Smart Port Visit to Tianjin, China - Redux, Now the Video

This is the third and final post about Smart Port visit to Tianjin, China back in September. Since then, I’ve posted here on my blog and wrote a guest article about it for Silverlinings.

During the visit, I took some video (one clip was shared on my blog post), but I was also interviewed by Silverlinings as part of a video segment they produced to document the story. That finally got published, and if you want to see what state of the art looks like when combining 5G, AI and IoT at scale, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better example anywhere.

The segment runs about five minutes, and is really well-produced - I encourage you to check it out. Here’s the link for the post, which includes both the video segment (posted on YouTube), and a full transcript of the narrative. If you just want to watch the video, it’s here below.

August Writing Roundup

Did more video and speaking than writing in August, so this is a short digest. Just two public writeups to share, so hopefully you can read ‘em both if you haven’t already!

MWC Shanghai - Three Key Perspectives, RCR Wireless, Aug. 1

North Carolina Electric Cooperatives Conference - Quick Take and Pix, my blog, Aug. 15

New Video Interview - 5G Trends from MWC Shanghai

Back in June, I was part of a media contingent for Mobile World Congress Shanghai, and since then, I’ve written and spoken about it in a few places, with more to come. This is the latest follow-on from that trip - a video interview with me during the event, by Nicolas Charbonnier. He’s a well-known video blogger - and posts prolifically about tech, especially endpoints, on the ARMdevices.net website.

Nicolas just published the interview yesterday, and if you want my in-the-moment take on MWC and the 5G space, you can view it via his blog post here, or directly on his YouTube channel. The blog post has a rambling preamble about the interview, and if it sounds like it was generated by AI, you’d be correct - and is cited as such. It’s a bit overdone and isn’t my doing, and yeah, is a pretty good example for why some folks push back on the likes of ChatGPT (that’s a whole other discussion). I’d rather you just watch the interview, and if you do, would love to hear your thoughts!

MWC Shanghai - Quick Take and Photos

Had my first trip to Asia recently, and I was part of a media delegation from the West to attend MWC Shanghai (and pretty sure I was the only attendee from Canada or the US). The delegation was sponsored by Huawei, so we also had some tours of their various campuses, all of which was very impressive.

Time was limited at the conference itself, and the stars have finally lined up to share a quick take here. MWC ran during late June, but with limited access to Internet platforms - not to mention the 12 hour time difference - I didn’t do any real-time posting while there. I have a few articles in the works about my trip - and tons more pictures - but for now, I’m going to share some of my photos and high-level takeaways.

I don’t think a lot of Westerners were at MWC Shanghai, as many of the sessions were in Chinese, but audio translating devices were available to follow along in English. Couldn’t get the full gist of what was being said, but the overall themes were clear. 5G is definitely happening, and looks to be at a much faster pace in Asia.

Many of the talks were about industrial and IoT applications, and the benefits are easy to see. From what I can tell, though, these innovations are happening mainly in Asia - and a bit in the Middle East. As such, I took this a preview of things to come in the West, so there’s a lot to pay attention to here.

Was great to see so many use-case driven examples - mining, exploration, energy, manufacturing, agriculture, logistics to name a few - these vendors and carriers are not just throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. Much of what I saw was B2B, but there were a few B2C citings, so the 5G story here isn’t really about getting consumers to post more videos on social media.

I’ll explore some of those use cases in upcoming posts, and for now, will leave you with some photos for a flavor of being there. Disclaimer - speaker attributions may not be 100% accurate. Wasn’t easy to track all the details while there, and corrections are welcome.

Below - weather was very hot and humid, so much more comfortable once inside. Not quite the crowds for a Beatles concert, but it kinda looked that way with the early morning rush to get in. Third photo - one of many reminders why it’s different in China. Checkpoints everywhere - this one segregates attendees from mainland China and everywhere else.

Everyone and everything is on mobile here, but had limited access to my go-to apps/platforms. Eventually, I got on WeChat - it’s great - but not til after MWC. All those folks with sign cards - I guess they’re guides to get people around - 5 exhibit halls, so it’s a lot of ground to cover. Last shot - the palace guards keeping watch over the food - soooo cute!

From the show floor - pavilions for Huawei and China Unicom. Middle - one of many demos from Huawei - Naked 3D. Very cool - one of the few consumer-type offerings there - the baseball seems to be jumping off the screen, coming right at you - 3D effect without the glasses - really need to see it.

Many recurring themes across the talks I saw, but reinforces how far along these companies and carriers are with 5G. Sabrina Meng from Huawei, Xu Ziyang from ZTE, Jemin Chung from KT.

Dingjin Liu from SINOPEC (great review of using 5G for exploration), Henry Ge from GTVerse (using 5G to bridge the worlds of gaming, live sports and AR/VR - very cool), Chaobin Yang from Huawei.

Telecom Reseller Podcast - My Enreach White Paper on Mobile UCaaS

Still catching up from being offline last week, and here’s another ICYMI shout-out.

I recently did a white paper for Enreach about the growing role of mobility for collaboration, and soon after its release, Doug Green interviewed me about it for his widely-followed Telecom Reseller podcast. We get along quite well, and if this topic is of interest, I think you’ll enjoy our conversation. I sure did!

New White Paper on Enterprise Mobility - for Enreach

I’ve got another white paper update to share - this one was done for Enreach, a leading EU mobility and platform provider.

Mobility has long been a challenge in the collaboration space, but more importantly, Enreach feels what’s really needed is an integrated approach to manage all forms of enterprise communications. That’s their strong suit, and my white paper examines the trends that drive the need for this approach. Mobility is a big part of the story, but it’s not the whole story.

The white paper was published yesterday, and I hope you give it a read. Here’s the press release they issued with the backstory, along with a link to download the paper. Would love to hear your thoughts, and am sure Enreach will too!

Next Stop - Dallas and Mavenir

Got one more stop on my run of travel to industry events - to Dallas, for Mavenir’s analyst event. Since early October, pretty much every week up til now, I’ve been going somewhere to one, sometimes two events. Every one has been worthwhile, so while it feels like a grind, that’s how the business goes, and if anything, I’m well-informed about the state of things in my world.

While Mavenir isn’t core to my everyday coverage, their focus is very relevant in terms of how wireless connectivity is becoming a factor for enterprises, and how it creates new opportunities for carriers to offer cloud services like UCaaS and CCaaS. This is the reason why Ericsson bought Vonage, and Mavenir has already been on this path for a while, so I’m keen to get the updates, and will share what I can while there.

New E-Book with Cisco - Webex Go: Mobile Collaboration for Hybrid Work

I’ve been busy on many fronts for months now, doing all kinds of project work for clients. Many of my short-form writing pieces are shared here and elsewhere on a steady basis. I also do long-form thought leadership, such as white papers and e-books, and these projects take much longer, so you don’t hear about them as often.

A couple of these projects have recently finished up, so it’s time to share them as well. This post is about two writeups I just finished for Cisco for a new offering that got a lot of attention at Enterprise Connect. Both are about Webex Go - their new mobile complement to Webex for UCaaS - one is a white paper and one is an e-book. The white paper isn’t out yet, and its distribution will be more limited, but the e-book is out now, and is publicly available.

The e-book can be found on their new Webex Go website - here. In the upper right of the page there’s a big green square showing the e-book title and a “Read Now” prompt - just click there, and the e-book will be accessible - no download required. Cisco has the right idea with Webex Go, and if you give it a read, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Copper Sunset - Was Guest on Channel Futures Podcast - Coffee with Craig and James

One more item to share before Thanksgiving. I was a guest on this long-running Channel Futures podcast - Coffee with Craig and James - Craig Galbraith and James Anderson. The topic was a current one for me - Copper Sunset - talking about the implications for when copper telephony networks are finally decommissioned.

I was interviewed by Edward Gately, and our conversation begins at the 8 minute mark. I hope you enjoy it, and for more on this topic, you can check out the current episode of my Watch This Space podcast.

Hosting a LinkedIn Live Event with Andy Purdy of Huawei USA - Tomorrow at 2ET

There’s a first time for everything, and in this case, it’s hosting a LinkedIn Live event. I’ll be in conversation with Andy Purdy, CSO for Huawei USA, covering 5G ground related to cybersecurity, data privacy and open source.

We’ll have a lot to talk about, where the focus will be on the technology issues, challenges and opportunities - and I hope you join us. We go live tomorrow - Wednesday, Aug. 18 - at 2pm ET, and all the details are here on my LinkedIn event page, and to watch the replay, sign into LinkedIn and then use this link..

My Next Webinar with Huawei - 5G for Enterprise Digital Transformation

It’s a busy month for webinars, and here’s the next one - Wednesday, March 10 at 2pm ET.

Am back for another webinar hosted by Huawei, and it’s about the promise of 5G for carriers to help enterprises with digital transformation. This is a pretty broad topic, and I’ll be joined by two other panelists - Will Townsend of Moor Insights and Strategy, and Tony Rutkowski of Netmagic Associates - along with Sean Kinney of RCR Wireless News as moderator.

Should be interesting, and I hope you can join us - details are here to register.

Adtran Connect - Quick Take and Photos

Another week, another industry event. This time it’s for Adtran Connect, a company I have some good history with. Not my core focus, but enough pieces that touch on things I follow, so it’s definitely time well-spent. I’ll have more to say soon, and for now, here’s my usual quick-take post with photos before I move on to the next thing.

Day 1 keynotes from Curtis Knittle of CableLabs, and Matthew Hare of UK-based Zzoomm. Adtran’s Gary Bolton keeping things moving along.

Fireside chat just with analysts and press with CEO/Chairman Tom Stanton. Here’s an updated photo that I’ve posted in recent years - their wall of patents - pretty impressive. After the sessions, you do what one does in Alabama - blues and bbq. My kinda town.

Day 2 keynote - my highlight - Dr. Deborah Barnhart of the US Space and Rocket Center. What a great time to be in Huntsville, on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, and of course how the space program came to Huntsville. She told the story well, and had some pretty strong messages about how space exploration can help us save the planet - more on that later.

Next Stop - Huntsville, AL and Adtran

Got home from Twilio’s event late Thursday, and didn’t even bother to unpack. Barely home two days, and back out again, this time to Huntsville, AL and Adtran’s Connect event. Haven’t been to an Adtran event for a few years, and am glad to be back in the loop with them. Basic details are here on my Event Calendar page, but I’ll have more to share here and on social media over the next few days.

My Q&A with Mavenir - Wireless Challenges for Security and Fraud

I contribute occasionally to UK-based Enterprise Management 360, and am on their roster of analysts. My latest piece was a Q&A I did with Mavenir, with a focus on security and fraud for wireless operators. This is problematic on many fronts, and having seen them talk about this at their recent analyst event, it turns out Mavenir is quite strong in this area.

To address these challenges, my interview was done with two experts at Mavenir - Marie Casey and Ilia Abramov - and it’s running now on EM360’s site. If the topic is of interest, I think you’ll find this a good read, and if you like it, by all means share it with others.

Next Stop - London and Mavenir

My busy June continues with a short trip to London, for Mavenir’s analyst event. I’ve been to two events this week - one day for each, and Mavenir will be a day and a half. It’s a long way to go, but am sure it will be time well-spent, just like it was for the last Mavenir event I attended last fall.

Mavenir Analyst Day - Quick Take and Pix

It’s been quite a week - or two, actually. Last week, I drove to - and back - from Florida for a much-needed family visit. A day after that, I was off to Dallas for Mavenir’s analyst day, then to San Francisco for Twilio’s SIGNAL conference. Both events were first-timers for me, and Mavenir was of particular interest since I’m not that strong on wireless, so this was a good way to get caught up.

That said, the event was pretty much under NDA, so I don’t have a narrative to share. There certainly is a good story here, especially to give carriers an alternative to the Tier 1 mobile vendors, and Mavenir is one of those “best kept secrets” kind of players. Over time, my learnings will come out in other ways, so for now, I just have some photos to share.

First, some pix from the event, both during the sessions and the demos. And then, there’s this fantastical “George” poster. Take a close look - “master of magic” - and deep in the heart of Texas - kinda has that travelling medicine show look, and it’s not a stretch to say that sometimes applies to tech companies selling complicated solutions that buyers don’t really understand. But no, not here at Mavenir, right? :-)

The event was held at the hotel - Zaza - and it’s one of the most eclectic hotels I’ve been to. Definitely gotta come back here for fun. All kinds of quirky sculptures, paintings, photos and knick knacks. Check out their shuttle vehicle - soooo Texas. And then, my friendly man at the front desk. This hotel has a cool, retro vibe - really - really slow elevators, and on the desks in our rooms - pencils (not pens), paper clips and staplers - when was the last time you saw or used those? And for the topper, he’s showing off their manual credit card imprinter, which they actually use. Millennials have probably never seen one of these analog relics, but hey, they still work - even if the broadband is slow!

Next Stop - Dallas for Mavenir

This is “next stop” post #1 for the week. Am at the airport now, flying shortly to Dallas for Mavenir’s Analyst Day event. I’ve had this on the calendar for a while, and it’s my first time attending one of their events. Mobility comes and goes in my coverage, but this will be a good opportunity for a deep dive on the state of 5G and how carriers are embracing the cloud. Even more interesting is how they’re bringing AI to market, and leveraging the cloud for future-forward revenue streams built around RCS and messaging.

More details are here on my Events Calendar, where you’ll also see info about “next stop” #2 right after Mavenir. Watch for another post about that next day or so.