Light Reading Podcasts

Following his  keynote address  at last week's Cable Next-Gen Technologies and Strategies event in Denver, Elad Nafshi, Comcast's EVP and chief network officer, stayed for a fireside chat to dig a bit deeper into the company's plan to evolve and upgrade its widely deployed hybrid-fiber coax (HFC) network. The unedited audio transcript is available in the media player of this episode page...

Jeff Baumgartner joins the podcast to discuss Frontier Communications' YouTube TV bundle and billing integration and what the competitive implications are of that decision. The unedited audio transcript is available in the media player of this episode page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brian Hurley, chief regulatory counsel for ACA Connects, joins the podcast to discuss the trade group's  BEAD funding framework : a report offering a national analysis of how far funding from the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program will go, and a state-by-state breakdown of how that money can be used to deploy fiber broadband. We discuss takeaways from that re...

Ciena CTO Steve Alexander recently joined the podcast to discuss the company's announcement of WaveLogic 6, a 1.6 Tbit/s coherent optical technology that will power long-haul, metro and data center connections starting around the middle of next year. The unedited audio transcript is available in the media player of this episode page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At OFC earlier this month, Mike Bell, Corning's SVP and GM for optical communications, joined the podcast to discuss the company's newest data center solution that shortens installation times for cables and connectors. The unedited audio transcript is available in the media player of this episode page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeff Baumgartner, Mike Dano, Nicole Ferraro and Phil Harvey discuss cable versus fiber, consumer broadband labels and potential roadblocks to BEAD program rollouts. The editors also discuss why T-Mobile will need to re-think its 5G advertising strategy and whether TikTok is now cooler than ever in The Notebook Dump for the week ending March 24. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more infor...

SES ' chief strategy officer spoke with Light Reading at Satellite 2023 about D2D, how SES is helping bridge the digital divide using MEO and GEO, how modern satellite capabilities compare to fiber and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Janka, chief officer of global government affairs and regulatory at  Viasat , spoke with Light Reading at Satellite 2023 last week about the changing communications landscape and how satellite players and policies must evolve. We also discussed the operator's upcoming launch of its Viasat-3 satellite, which Janka said "should be four-times better performing than the best satellite in orb...

This episode features Nicole Ferrini, climate and sustainability officer for the city of El Paso, Texas, and Gary DePreta, vice president for state, local government and education at  Cisco . We discuss a partnership between Cisco and the city of El Paso to launch a portal called  El Paso Helps , which connects unhoused individuals and other at-risk community members to essential service...

At last week's Satellite 2023 show, Light Reading caught up with Paul Gaske, chief operating officer at  EchoStar , parent company to  Hughes , to get an update on the company's forthcoming launch of its new satellite Jupiter-3 and how it will improve broadband connectivity. Gaske also discussed direct-to-device communications and the implications for the future of the industry, key regu...

Jeff Baumgartner, Mike Dano, Nicole Ferraro and Kelsey Ziser discuss Amazon's plan to spend $10 billion on a satellite constellation, an update on Light Reading's Cable Next-Gen event and why Casa Systems' CEO is stepping down today. We also discuss Ciena's plan to launch 1.6 Tbit/s optical services, the possible sale of Infinera and Airspan's offloading of its fixed-wireless access (FWA) business...

DENVER – CABLE NEXT-GEN 2023 – As cable operators begin to zero in on the evolution of the access network, it's become clear that the future is not one size fits all. Some operators are enhancing their DOCSIS 3.1 networks, planting the seeds for DOCSIS 4.0, using fixed wireless access (FWA) to extend the reach of wireline networks or even overlaying their existing hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) plant wit...

Just like every other part of the communications landscape, data center networking is changing fast. Sameh Boujelbene, vice president at Dell’Oro Group, projects that we'll see most data center switch sales coming at 400 Gbit/s and higher speeds in the next few years and AI is a huge catalyst for that capacity push. In this episode, we discuss how AI workloads will influence hardware design and da...

DENVER – CABLE NEXT GEN 2023 – Light Reading caught up with Diane Christman, the president and CEO of The Cable Center, here this week to discuss the  launch of the Syndeo Institute , a new "operational brand" that's being billed as a "modern hub for discovery, education and collaboration" spanning the connectivity, media, entertainment and technology industries. The unedited audio transcript...

DENVER – CABLE NEXT GEN 2023 – GCI's Erik Kuhlmann said the company has begun upgrading its DOCSIS 3.1 cable network to a high-split architecture with equipment from vendors including ATX and CommScope. Kuhlmann, the senior director of engineering and architecture for the Alaskan telecom operator, said the move is designed to help the company provide faster speeds to stay abreast of its rivals and...

African tech startups brought in $3.3 billion in funding for the first time in 2022. Connecting Africa's Paula Gilbert joins the podcast to explain why the fintech sector is bringing in the most funding, which countries are leading the way for most funding and what these trends mean for the continent as a whole. The unedited audio transcript is available in the media player of this episode page. H...

We caught up with Julie Kunstler, chief analyst for Omdia's broadband access intelligence service, one of this week's  #CableNextGen  speakers at OFC earlier this month. During our podcast, Kunstler gave us a preview of Omdia's PON forecast and some perspective from meeting with technology vendors who are making strides in energy efficiency and bandwidth increases allow the way down to t...

This episode features Doug Maglothin, who was recently appointed CEO of  Diamond State Networks  (DSN), a group of 13 electric co-ops in Arkansas working to unite fiber networks and provide wholesale broadband statewide. We discuss Diamond State Networks in detail, including its progress in Arkansas so far, the role state and federal funding are playing in its buildout, how Diamond State...

Jeff Baumgartner, Mike Dano, Nicole Ferraro, Phil Harvey and Kelsey Ziser discuss data center and optical network updates from OFC, Gigi Sohn's withdrawal of her nomination for FCC commissioner and Nokia's plans for a 4G/LTE network on the moon. In addition, we discuss Charter and Comcast's stance on fixed wireless access, whether there are upgrades beyond DOCSIS 4.0, top executive turnover at Ver...

OFC23 – San Diego – DZS CEO Charlie Vogt said his company is one of the few that can help service providers of all sizes upgrade their fiber access networks while saving them operating costs in their middle-mile transport networks. The unedited audio transcript is available in the media player of this episode page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Entering its 16th year and having obtained its driver's license, Light Reading's  Cable Next Gen Technologies & Strategies  event will be held March 14 and 15 in downtown Denver. After going all-digital due to the pandemic, this will be the first time the event will be live and in person since 2019. A lot has happened in the cable tech world since then. Many operators back-burnered t...

MWC23 – While electric vehicles are reducing reliance on gas, EVs plus the transition to more renewable energy sources put "tremendous pressure on the grid," said TJ Fox, SVP of industrial IoT and automotive for Verizon. The unedited audio transcript is available in the media player of this episode page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

OFC23 – San Diego – As the conference kicked off we sat down with Scott Wilkinson, lead analyst for optical components at Cignal AI. Wilkinson explained why Cignal AI's forecast for 100ZR module shipments was doubled for 2025 and how pluggable optics are being used in a wider range of applications. The unedited audio transcript is available in the media player of this episode page. Hosted on Acast...

MWC23 – The medium-Earth orbit (MEO) satellite space just got a little busier with SES' launch of its O3b mPower satellites. John-Paul Hemingway, chief strategy and product officer for SES, said the initial launch of two satellites last December went as planned and the satellites are "all performing well." SES plans on two more launches in Q2 of this year for a total of six satellites in the const...

OFC23 – San Diego – As OFC kicks off this week, Omdia's research director for transport networks and components, Ian Redpath, gives us an overview of the slew of coherent pluggable optics announced in the past few weeks. The approaches vary, but vendors are stepping up with new offerings as network operators look to pluggables – once purely the domain of data center applications – for metro networ...