Joe Kochan, a telecom veteran and former CEO of US Ignite, talks to Light Reading about his new role as the executive director at the National Spectrum Consortium (NSC), where he aims to promote stronger tech partnerships between government, academia and industry.

In this podcast, new IQ Fiber CTO Aamer Abbasi digs into the greenfield opportunities the startup is pursuing in northeast Florida, thoughts about future multi-gig services and how government stimulus funding might fit into IQ Fiber's future game plan.

Meanwhile, the supplier is seeing 'high-split' trials and deployments perk up as cable operators seek ways to expand upstream capacity on DOCSIS 3.1 networks.

Jon Kirchner believes there's room for another player in the crowded connected TV OS market, as Xperi – which merged with TiVo last year – looks to enter the fray in late 2023/early 2024.

Tarana Wireless CEO Basil Alwan shares how his company, now worth more than $1 billion, has moved beyond small cell backhaul to helping service providers provide real broadband, all over the globe.

Juniper's M&A strategy is helping it build a managed services arsenal that adds more value to service provider connectivity in the enterprise market.

Robert Blumofe, EVP and CTO at Akamai, discusses his company's recent acquisition of Linode and how his company stays flexible enough to deal with the changes in enterprise computing.

Hot off a deal with WideOpenWest, Reach Mobile CEO Harjot Saluja says his company's platform enables partners to offer a range of flexible offerings, including family plans, underpinned by the networks of top US carriers.

Speeds and feeds are heading the hype in US broadband's multi-gig era, but Starry CEO Chet Kanojia believes a focus on 'consistent' latency and speeds more tailored to how specific customers use the Internet will help the company differentiate.

Bruno Fromont, CTO of Intelsat, is helping one of the world's storied satellite providers evolve to be more interoperable with carrier 5G networks and more software-defined as a technology company

'Most of the applications on devices really can be served by 30, 50, 60 Mbit/s, no problem,' UScellular's Mike Irizarry said, noting that those are the speeds supported today by UScellular's 4G LTE network.

Preciseley Microtechnology Corporation (PMC) President and CEO David Somo took a moment to talk about his company's optical components and which end markets are hot right now.

Charles Miller, co-founder and CEO of Lynk, discusses his company's technology and its ambition to help existing mobile network operators connect rural, remote and underserved communities all over the world.

Marc Allera, CEO of BT's Consumer Division, said there's a lot yet to prove with 5G but the early experiments and network performance has been really encouraging. 5G standalone is the next big incremental step forward in the network's evolution.

Edward Parkinson is celebrating a full decade of work on what is today FirstNet. Now he's leading the agency into the final year of the first phase of its agreement with AT&T.

The amount of data and applications consumed by 'power users' and tech company giants is skyrocketing, according to a Sandvine report on Internet data usage.

Phil McKinney, president and CEO of CableLabs, joins the Light Reading podcast to discuss where the cable industry is on the path to 10G and how CableLabs is stoking interest and innovation with its 10G Challenge.

CEO Jim Long says the startup is using digital 'beachheads' to gain initial footholds in various US markets, with plans to follow with deployments of antenna sites that can stream out larger channel lineups.

Kevin Hart, Cox's former CTO, said fiber-focused Segra will pursue growth by expanding into adjacent areas, broadening its product slate and seeking opportunities in unserved and underserved markets.

Christman, who joined The Cable Center in 2006, said her top priority in the new role is spearheading the next phase of the organization's five-year strategic transformation plan.

Noopur Davis on Comcast's journey into the Secure Development Lifecycle, ensuring security is prioritized at an early stage rather than tacked on at the end.

With $9 million in seed funding in hand, Adam Fish's startup uses peer-to-peer and advanced, distributed database systems to connect and sync mobile and IoT devices with limited or no Internet connectivity.

Light Reading recently caught up with Jeff Gray, CEO of Gluware, to discuss updates to the company's automation platform for enterprise customers and to hear more about how Gluware plans to put its new funding to use.

Robert Cruickshank claims his Optimum Load Shaping system can help cable operators cut power costs and put power utilities into position to modernize the grid and speed a transition to renewable energy.

Tareq Amin, CEO of Rakuten Symphony and CTO of Rakuten Mobile, talks about his company's success in open RAN and how it plans to change the economics of building 5G networks for other operators.

Starting in Europe with a partnership with Vestel, Vewd intends to take its 'Operator TV' program to other regions around the globe, CEO Aneesh Rajaram says.

Howard Watson explains how BT plans to phase out Huawei equipment, and why it's banking on the benefits of a 5G converged core.

Customers are looking to combine telco and tech elements into solutions, coupled AI, edge computing and IoT, Shuter said.

Armed with a $300 million from an 'F' round led by Japan's SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Plume intends to target companies that can broaden the smart home software specialist's cloud, data and AI capabilities, Plume CEO Fahri Diner says.

Last week's IPO paired with recent combination with Cerberus Telecom Acquisition Corp. puts Kore Wireless in position to accelerate organic and inorganic growth, says Romil Bahl, Kore's president and CEO.

BT's Chet Patel explains how telcos and hyperscalers can collaborate to provide a better cloud experience for enterprise customers.

Extreme's CTO Nabil Bukhari discusses the company's decision to acquire Ipanema and its plans for entering the SD-WAN market.

Ted Schremp, an exec late of Charter and TiVo, now heads up IQ Fiber, a service provider that has secured funding for a phase I buildout of an XGS-PON network that will serve 60,000 homes in the Florida city.

Concerns around cost and ease of use stalled SD-WAN deployments for remote workers, but the tide is turning as remote access tools improve and enterprises budget for a long-term distributed workforce.

Marc Price, CTO of Matrixx, talks about the possibilities that exist for network operators when they can more creatively charge for services and what new infrastructure unlocks those opportunities.

Eric Stonestrom has been the CEO of Airspan since 1998 and in just a few days he hopes to take the company public on the back of opportunities around open RAN and 5G.

This week: Prashanth Vijay, CEO of Flume, discusses leveraging dark fiber in partnership with cities, and Flume's commitment to deliver broadband to New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) buildings.

Ziply Fiber has identified the 14 markets next in line for 1-Gig upgrades, the latest step in a broader plan to upgrade up to 85% of its footprint to FTTP over the next three years, CEO Harold Zeitz says.

Clearfield CEO Cheri Beranek joins the podcast to talk about how she's helped build a company that keeps growing as more and more community broadband providers deploy fiber.

Components makers are in the design phase, but ATX plans to reveal its 1.8GHz product roadmap this fall with a mix of line extenders, multi-port amplifiers and, possibly, a booster-type amp, CTO Jay Lee says.

Following its merger with Zoom Telephonics, a rebranding and an uplisting to the Nasdaq, Minim has set its sights on adding customers worldwide and pursuing new markets, President and CMO Nicole Zheng says.

Hot off its deal for three WOW markets, Astound is on the cusp of closing a deal with Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners that will provide the 'dry powder' needed to pursue even more strategic moves, CEO Jim Holanda says.

McLaughlin, an exec late of CommScope and Arris, is sizing up a plan for USTC to be a one-stop shop for telecom distribution and supply chain, replicating what USTC's parent, ETC Group, has already set up in Europe.

This week: Roger Timmerman, CEO, UTOPIA Fiber, on running an open access, municipal fiber network in Utah, why the model works and what other communities should know as they embark on building broadband.

There are potential cost savings to service providers by improving 5G network capacity, but the revenue from supporting enterprise applications could be operators' real golden ticket.

Rami Rahim, CEO of Juniper Networks, explains why future 5G services will be virtualized, and how the company plans to further automate data center operations.

Telia Carrier CEO Staffan Gojeryd said his company is poised to keep growing and will likely become more focused and more competitive now that it is standing on its own. Meanwhile, the need to balance technology investments and market expansion looms larger than ever.

This week: Ben Edmond, founder and CEO of Connected2Fiber, and Mel Wagner, CEO of INDATEL, on the economic challenges of rural broadband and how Connected2Fiber is helping operators plan and monetize their networks.

Lou Borrelli's industry travels trace back to Marcus Cable, a cable operator, now part of Charter, that covered small US markets. NCTC, an org that works with hundreds of tier 2/3 operators, presents some clear similarities.

This week: Cheri Beranek, president and CEO of Clearfield, on addressing fiber deployment challenges in rural areas and how to prepare for an influx of demand for fiber broadband builds amidst supply shortages.

Partnership with Plume gives Evolution Digital a managed Wi-Fi play for independent operators while also bringing more stability to a video business that's now largely focused on operator-managed Android TV boxes.

This week: Shrihari Pandit, president and CEO, Stealth Communications, on what it takes to get fiber to businesses in underserved areas and why traditional funding methods for ending the digital divide aren't working.

Tareq Amin, group chief technology officer at Rakuten Mobile, discusses his company's open RAN deployments and the evolution of a new kind of mobile network.

This week, Scott Willis, CEO of DartPoints; and Bruce Garrison, chief revenue officer of Bluebird Network, on their connectivity work in rural Iowa and the collaboration required to tackle the digital divide.

Startup plans to pair the new ATSC 3.0 signaling standard with spectrum from hundreds of low-power TV station partners to underpin a national IP multicast network and edge caching system.

This week, Gary Bolton, CEO, Fiber Broadband Association, joins the show to discuss why the US needs to put fiber first, why satellite broadband could be a 'disaster' for communities and more.

MetTel CTO Ed Fox discusses how the service providers' customers are balancing the use of collaboration applications, SD-WAN, VPNs and SASE to support their employees working on-premises and remotely.

Bruce McClelland, CEO of Ribbon Communications, joins the show to discuss the challenging economics around building out broadband in hard-to-reach areas, and takeaways from his recent conversations with lawmakers on rural broadband policy.

Company's AI-aided cybersecurity system is now equipped to extend protection to devices when they are on the home network or connecting to LTE and Wi-Fi networks around the world, CTO Santeri Kangas says.

This week, Kostas Kastanis, deputy CEO of Upstream, joins the show to discuss the digital divide in Africa and Upstream's ad-supported service Zero-D which enables free Internet access for millions of mobile users in emerging markets.

Ligado's Doug Smith addresses questions on how the company's L-band spectrum might aid C-band auction winners, and whether he has fielded any purchase inquiries.

Vidgo, a virtual MVPD focused on the prepaid model, has seen a growth spurt following a recent investment and the elimination of free trials, president and co-founder Shane Cannon says.

Wielding its own free, ad-supported streaming TV service and a platform to help partners build and monetize their own streaming channels, Navdeep Saini is trying to make a mark in a crowded market.

Developed by former Disney and Discovery execs, Struum is set to launch a credit-based offering that will aggregate and promote dozens of smaller, more niche-focused streaming services.

eero's CEO discusses Wi-Fi 6, pandemic connectivity and how the company is courting service provider broadband partners.

CSG is the top 'challenger brand' in wireless revenue management and will back that up with big deals and potential M&A opportunities aimed at bulking up the company's product portfolio, CEO Brian Shepherd says.

John Chapman's focus has extended to PON, 5G and fixed wireless, but he'll 'always be a cable guy at heart.'

Looking ahead to 2021, Ciena's CEO talks about its 800G systems, network automation and webscale supplier status as the company looks beyond the pandemic.

CEO Gray Chynoweth talks product and service provider strategy after closing the acquisition of Zoom Telephonics and rebranding the company under the Minim moniker.

Jill Szuchmacher, an exec late of Google Fiber, is Ting Internet's new chief strategy officer. One of her key aims is to accelerate the company's ability to deploy FTTP networks.

Cogent, one of the world's largest ISPs, offers customers and competitors the ability to create their own global network, across its entire footprint, while paying on a per-usage basis.

The fiber network construction specialist, which counts Level 3 exec Kevin O'Hara as a founder, has been on a buying spree to help meet rising buildout demands among large, midsized and rural players.

CEO Brett Lindsey joins the podcast to discuss the company's strategy around building fiber networks in the Midwest.

128 Technology's President Sue Graham Johnston joins the podcast to explain the company's approach to improving user experience of the network with session-aware routers, and how enterprises can develop security strategies to protect their assets.

Dan Whalen joins cable network-focused supplier as operators begin to beef up the upstream and embark on significant HFC network upgrades.

The non-profit broadcast TV streaming service has reached 1.7 million users nationwide, with enough donors on board to pay the bills, pay down debt and to help fund expansion, David Goodfriend says.

Ike Elliott, the new CEO of Kyrio, says the CableLabs subsidiary is taking a network-agnostic approach to device testing and expanding into software services that benefit cable operators and their suppliers.

Omar Jaffrey is focusing Melody Investment Advisors squarely at the digital communications infrastructure market. Here's what he has to say about trends like 5G and edge computing.

Juniper CTO Raj Yavatkar joins the Light Reading podcast to discuss Juniper's strategy to help build AI-driven enterprises.

Futuristic demonstration at virtual Cable-Tec Expo will represent 'a next generation of science' and provide a 'real statement for the industry,' says Mark Dzuban.

John Batter, a former exec of Gracenote and Dreamworks Animation, dives into the drivers behind MarketCast's acquisition of big data specialist Deductive.

Bruce McClelland joined Ribbon weeks before the pandemic struck. His remit at the company? Do what he did for 20 years at Arris - grow it.

Jack Perry bills VUit, a free, ad-supported streaming service featuring more than 200 local channels and a mix of VoD fare, as 'The Netflix of Live, Local and Free.'

Zodiac Systems, recently acquired by Orion Innovation, is ready to scale up and help service providers around the world make the leap to next-gen IP video platforms, CEO Derek Harrar says.

As the new CEO of Dasan Zhone, Vogt returns to his telecom roots as the supplier seeks to expand in North America.

That future will be complemented by orchestration and new cloud capabilities that bring cohesiveness to multi-orbit satellite constellations that can also coexist with terrestrial networks, Steve Collar says.

NTT Americas CEO Simon Walsh tells Light Reading's Kelsey Ziser and Phil Harvey about his company's challenge to help enterprise customers 'painlessly' connect to multiple clouds, multiple network operators and data sets in a secure, distributed workplace.

New AI-assisted tool is helping cable operators identify and pinpoint the source of upstream network noise during a pandemic that has caused peak usage to surge, CEO says.

Light Reading spoke with Marc Rouanne, who was hired late last year to construct Dish's 5G network, about the company's vendor choices so far, and how Dish is designing its planned network.

Usage of the hyper-local streaming news service was climbing before the pandemic, but the recent surge of big news events has 'propelled us forward,' CEO Daniel Barreto says.

After 18 months as its chief commercial officer, Keri Gilder has taken the top job at Colt Technology Services and, in this podcast, she speaks with Light Reading's Phil Harvey about how Colt's network is different and how she'll tackle leading a carrier during a pandemic.

Along with a focus on near-term network and service needs, the pandemic is 'making every cable operator relook at their network,' says Technetix exec Sandy Howe.

OBS CEO Helmut Reisinger and SVP of Customer Services and Operations Aliette Mousnier Lompre discuss keeping customers connected and adapting quickly during the pandemic.

After acquiring the QuickPlay assets from AT&T and shifting to a cloud-native architecture, the video streaming specialist will now rekindle its biz-to-biz ambitions and chase deals with pay-TV providers and pure-play OTTs.

Edgewater makes its own silicon and access points, but the company is also looking to license its technology to suppliers seeking to differentiate their Wi-Fi products, says president and CEO Andrew Skafel.

Kazu Gomi discusses why NTT Research was formed, what it's working on and the ambitious goals of its IOWN initiative with Intel and Sony.

But startup's broader play is to stitch together a global content delivery network footprint and a growing edge cloud that can run a wide range of bandwidth- and latency-sensitive services.

CEO Danielle Royston has an aggressive new plan for the cloud-based BSS vendor and growing customer support, but it involves extra investment and ongoing losses that might not suit all of the company's investors.

Altran's key relationships in 5G software and edge initiatives have helped make it a $4.1 billion takeover target for Capgemini.

Global operator adopts 'suck it and see' approach to open line system efficiencies.