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 talked to 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 but also intellectually fascinating area that has become even more urgent due to increased 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 in 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 optimize the RAN to a native AI RAN with L4 automation? Nirlay Kundu, Head of Technology Standards, IMDEA Networks, 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 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 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 support technological development 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.