Waves with Wireless Nerd
Join me for a weekly look into what's making waves in tech and the wireless industry! What's new? What's now? What's next?
Waves with Wireless Nerd
The Tech Taco: An Incoming Consolidation Wave, Serving Up AI at the Edge, and a Side of Satellite Broadband
The wireless landscape is transforming before our eyes as major players consolidate, edge computing pushes boundaries, and questions of affordability continue to challenge our assumptions about connectivity. Charter's $34.5 billion acquisition of Cox Communications is reshaping the competitive landscape, combining Charter's 10+ million mobile subscribers with Cox's commercial fiber and managed IT operations. This merger represents just one piece of the ongoing consolidation puzzle that's redefining who controls our digital infrastructure.
Meanwhile, American Tower is quietly revolutionizing edge computing by installing data centers at the base of cellular towers. This strategic placement brings processing power dramatically closer to users, reducing latency and enabling AI applications to function at the network edge rather than in distant centralized facilities. The initiative mirrors similar efforts by Comcast to push computing capabilities as close to consumers as possible without actually placing hardware in homes.
The affordability conversation has taken center stage as definitions of "affordable internet" vary dramatically across different communities. During a panel at NetworkX 2025, we explored how a $50 monthly service that might seem reasonable in some areas represents an entire food budget for families in economically challenged regions like South Texas. This reality check forces us to reconsider how we approach the digital divide, especially as BEAD funding faces reductions and programs providing mobile hotspots to students get cut.
Starlink's expansion continues with a new $10 monthly plan launching in India, potentially disrupting the market while raising questions about regulatory surcharges and sustainability. Simultaneously, the FCC investigation into EchoStar has sparked controversy about spectrum allocation politics, with implications for competition and rural connectivity.
Technology innovations continue at a rapid pace, with Google partnering with X-Real and Warby Parker for new AR glasses, while AWS surprisingly discontinues its private 5G offering announced in 2021. These developments showcase the constant evolution of wireless technology and the sometimes unpredictable paths innovation takes.
Want to discuss these developments in person? I'll be at several upcoming industry events, including Fiber Connect in Nashville, MeterUp in San Francisco, Juniper's AI Native Now during Cisco Live, and WLPC Prague. These gatherings offer perfect opportunities to explore how these industry shifts will affect our connected future. What technologies or trends are you most excited about as we navigate this evolving landscape?
Meter provides turn-key internet infrastructure for businesses.
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What's up everybody. Happy Saturday. This is Drew Lentz, the Wireless Nerd, and this is the Waves Podcast. It is May 31st 2025. It's been a heck of a two weeks. We've had a lot of fun. I've been out in the field doing some stuff. I came home with like a scratchy throat and a sinus thing going on, but whatevs, man, that's what happens, right? Yeah, it's been a busy week.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of things happening in the industry right now A lot of movement, a lot of consolidation, which is pretty crazy Stuff that's happening everywhere, and some events that are coming up. Some new events, some old events, wico man. It's rare for me to get FOMO, I feel like, but I do have FOMO from not being at any of the WICO events so far. I haven't had the opportunity to make one out yet, but Nashville looked like it was pretty awesome. Hopefully we've got one coming up soon in the Austin-San Antonio area. If you're in the Austin-San Antonio area and you'd like a WICO event, please bug Peter McKenzie and let him know, or bug me and I'll bug him for you. Either way, great to see everybody coming together. There's been some really cool images coming out of that. Everybody you know, I feel like. In fact, every time there's one of those events, my LinkedIn feed just blows up with all the people that are out there having a good time not including me, but that's okay, it happens so happy to see everybody out having a good time at those White Coat events, anyway. So let's jump into it. There's been a couple things that happened. The last podcast I cut was last week and then published again or published at the beginning of this week, so this one. Let me go back and talk about some of the things I did before. It was really really neat to be a part of that in Dallas in the Irving Convention Center, the Las Colinas Event Center there in Dallas, Got to go to a hockey game and see the Stars and the Edmonton Oilers, courtesy of Wi-Fi Stan.
Speaker 1:Wi-fi Stan went out and said hey, you know what? We're going to have some fun. And Stu from Ekahau and I went and got to go take a look at what was going on with the hockey game. It was great to see. I don't know if the series is over yet, but I think it's pretty close. Um, that was fun. It was great to run into so many people. There were faces at that event that I haven't seen in so long. Shonda miller, who's now with jma wireless. Jody nicewanger, who's over at radwin. I got to see fletch, michael fletcher. Fletch, who I was at meta with, is now back over at ruckus. Jason balkham over at Ruckus Great to see so many people just from way back in the day in the industry still doing incredible things.
Speaker 1:And I got the opportunity to speak on a panel, which was really good. You know me, I love to talk, but what was funny is it seems like the word of the day right, this was an interesting. Adlane did a write-up and he talked about WGC America's Network X, a taco filled with AI, convergence and APIs. You know, fitting for the state of Texas he put on there. It felt like a technology taco where all of these things came together, and it really was. I mean, there was a lot of talk of AI and convergence and the ability for APIs to work north and south and east and west, even if you will. And there was such a great talk that was done by one of the gentlemen from Comcast talking about the way that they're integrating AI components and compute components into the actual pedestal, how they showed off this device that goes inside the pedestal to run compute for AI and all these other incredible things there as close to the home as you can possibly get. And that was really cool to see about the advancements that they're making, not just in connectivity, not just in latency, not just in the L4S stuff, but also in speed, obviously, but with movement into the AI component and how they're adding compute to it. That was pretty neat.
Speaker 1:One of the articles that I wanted to talk to also was this one coming at you from Light Reading Lots of good, hey, lots of good reporting from Light Reading coming out in the last couple of weeks. I got to say I try and monitor all the channels but man, light Reading is just killing it right now and this was interesting to read. Along the same regard, american Tower is building edge sites in North Carolina, so they just did this ribbon cutting in Raleigh, which is one of Tech's top cities. It's been great. I've gotten to spend a couple days in Raleigh, a couple days in Charlotte just in the last few weeks and it's such a vibrant area out there, so many things happening in the Carolinas, just very, very cool.
Speaker 1:But this is one of those things, and so what they're doing in this article is an American tower, the first American tower data center. So they're looking at putting American tower who traditionally leases space or rent space on these towers that they own or that they lease throughout the world or at least in the United States. They've always just been places where people can come and set up shop and put their equipment up on the tower. They charge a monthly fee. If you don't know how that's calculated, they basically charge on the size of the antenna, the wind load and then the vertical height associated with it. So if you ever need to do a tower lease, that's more or less part of the formula that they do and then power draw and everything else.
Speaker 1:But now American Tower is moving into the small data center business it looks like by putting these small data centers at the base of their tower. So when your cell phone or your device connects up now it's able to process a lot of that stuff locally. In the same regard is what Comcast is doing trying to push it as close to the edge as possible, without actually putting it in your house, because that was a conversation that they had last year at the WBA show and at Wi-Fi. Now they talked about that, about what can they do to actually bring compute for AI into your home. Well, now they're saying, look, let's get it all the way out to the edge, because that's a place that they control. So American Tower says our edge data centers address the requirements by using existing digital network infrastructure to extend computing beyond today's centralized data center footprint to create a more distributed, consistent and interoperable edge computing experience.
Speaker 1:No pictures, but the raleigh data center is located at the base of an existing cellular tower enabling to support wireless and wireline. Oh, look, here's a full press release. It says I wonder if they've got photos. There you go. There's a little ribbon cutting action going on. Let's allow some cookies. Pretty cool, look at that. It's like copy pasta from this thing. There we go. So there you go, man, an American tower data center. How is that going to change the game? Right? How is that going to affect you and I and what we do on a daily basis, day-to-day basis, using our devices? Well, if you move it closer to the edge now, it's close to all of us, you know. Uh, decrease in in latency, ability to do things faster, get more bang for your buck out of your mobile carrier pretty, pretty cool. Um, speaking of mobile carriers, this was. This was an interesting read. Um, let me see if I can find it here. The verizon executive says for the mvs.
Speaker 1:Mvno stands for Mobile Virtual Network Operator. So what an MVNO is. An MVNO is like if I want to start a cell phone company called Drew's Cell Phone Company, the wireless nerd cell phone company, what I can do is I can reach out to existing operators like Verizon, t-mobile, at&t, some of these bigger MNOs. Mobile network operators reach out to these mobile network operators and say hey, I want to pay you a bulk rate to resell your services and I want to set up a contract so that I can offer it using your existing infrastructure, using your tower, using your radios, your antennas, everything else. I'm just a virtual network operator that runs on top of your network. That's what an MVNO is, and there's lots of MVNOs that are out there. Cricket's one of them, boost is one, but now Boost has some of their own infrastructure. Any of the cable carriers are MVNOs. So Charter Spectrum, through Charter, the Xfinity Mobile, these are MVNOs. And so Verizon is the MNO, the mobile network operator, not the mobile virtual network operator.
Speaker 1:The MNO here is saying hey, I think cable MVNOs, I think that they've peaked, he says. He says I think they've peaked. Frank Bulbin said during an investor event on Wednesday that the port ratios have steadily declined, improving against the mobile offerings for US cable operators. The port ratio is how many devices move from the mobile network operator to the mobile virtual network operator. As it explains right there, porting is when you move a number from one carrier service to another. It's called a port. Now they're probably, even if they don't disclose it, starting to incur some churn. He says so, is it starting to incur some churn? He says so, not shots fired, but I mean he's saying hey, maybe, maybe they've peaked out a little bit.
Speaker 1:And that's again back to light reading fantastic reporting this from their podcast, talking about what the implications of the Charter and Cox merger is $34.5 billion merger they have on here and what that means, not only as consumers, but what that deal actually looks like. So one of the things I was keenly interested in was what's happening with their managed service provider service. Obviously near and dear to my heart is, as you all know, or if you don't know, I spent a lot of time over at Comcast Business, spent five years over there in our managed service provider business, so I got to know that space pretty well and it looks like it's moving over One of the things. Right here it says Cox's Enterprise contributing to the residential, but where is it? The news of the 34.5 billion dollar merger will see charter acquire cox's commercial fiber and managed it and cloud business. So there you go. So charter is rolling up cox's stuff, it's coming into them. Um, that's not, don't get wrong, that's not a good thing or a bad thing, I don't. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I think it's great. Charter's got a great. They've got got great mobile managed service offering. So did Cox. So that's going to see some consolidation there. And then the fiber provider service is going to roll in. Segura is rolling in, rapidscale is rolling in Lots of things that are happening on the business side of this.
Speaker 1:Now what does that mean for us in the wireless space? It means that now, instead of being able to sell the Cox and the Charter now in the wireless space, you're going to have one mega group to go with. So from a playing field perspective, you've got Comcast business offering their MSP, you've got Charter offering their MSP. Combined with all the other MSPs that are out there, it pulls a number of MSPs, you know national MSPs, these big monster, monolithic MSPs. It brings that number down fewer. Now what does that mean overall? It means you know less people to sell more equipment to, so probably see some consolidation there happening. Obviously, from an equipment perspective. I don't know what Cox uses versus Charter uses. I don't have any insight into that. But you can imagine if one uses vendor A and one uses vendor B, now those might combine. So look for sales forecasts from those vendors to come out and see how this merger is affecting it.
Speaker 1:Now, from a business perspective and an end-user operator service perspective, I'm a Charter subscriber, I'm a Spectrum subscriber down here in South Texas. That's a carrier that we get. I don't know if there's anything bonus or added that we're going to get because of the acquisition, but it's a big deal. It changes the landscape in that space, especially if you look at what we were just talking about, those MVNOs. Now Cox, which only had I think it even calls out in here Cox only had 200 000 subscribers to their mvno. Meanwhile charter counts roughly 10.39 million. So they just increased their uh, their mobile lines a little bit, uh, kind of fascinating. So we'll see where that goes. We'll definitely see where it goes. There's, you know, the consolidation there, the consolidation with some of these fiber providers being gobbled up by t-mobile and by Verizon. There's this consolidation play that's coming out in the space as more people try and stack up more services. So pretty interesting. Let's see what else we got going on. Oh man, there's just there's a lot happening, you know, in In regard to that I guess I'll talk about this real quick is in regard to less choices for consumers, if you will, or not.
Speaker 1:Less choices, maybe the same choices because, depending on where you are, that's who your incumbent provider was. It's just switching names. It's not like Cox is going to grow their footprint because they were acquired by charter. It's still going to be the same footprint. That's there.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that came up that I had a great conversation with it was the panel that I got to sit on at NetworkX this year. Well, at WBA Global Congress and NetworkX was our panel was about community connectivity and what that looks like in 2025. What are lessons learned from the last few years? What's the kind of the state of the industry right now and where is it going to go in the next few years, if you will, and in retrospect I walked away from the panel. I was like man I probably sounded pretty sour when I was talking about that Because there's a dose of reality that you get, living in South Texas, in one of the most economically challenged areas of the United States, where you understand what affordability really is down here for the people that it States, where you understand what affordability really is down here for the people that it matters most to, because affordability in South Texas and affordability in Los Angeles and affordability in New York and affordability in Omaha, those all mean completely different things.
Speaker 1:But you can't say that you're creating a service that's affordable for Omaha and expected to work in West Laco, texas, right? You can't create an affordable program you know in Pacific Palisades and expect it to work in San Juan. You know like it just doesn't work. It's not the same. And so you got to be careful when you're talking about community plays and what works and what doesn't, because sometimes it works in one area but it might not really work in another. And how does this all affect everything? You know?
Speaker 1:One of the questions that came out was asking about satellite services, about low-earth orbiting satellite services, and does that level the playing field for individuals to be able to get high-speed internet access at a lower cost. And Al, who was sitting beside me great, great guy man, go home Like such a wealth of information to my right-hand side. It was incredible to just sit on the stage with him. You know what he was talking about. Was you know, now that there's low-earth orbiting satellite services covering the majority of North America and now covering all these different parts of the world which we'll talk about in just a second? Does that mean that there's lower cost of internet access? And in some cases it may be true, where there's incumbent carriers or incumbent providers where they can drive that cost down to be in a competitive landscape.
Speaker 1:But when you talk about areas that are truly rural and truly economically challenged, there's no competition out there. So there's no incentive for someone to come in and say you know what, we're going to do it for $5 a month or $10 a month or something that truly is affordable for the unique group of people that live in that area. So it's kind of tough. You can set up a satellite service and say, great, you guys don't have any options, so we're going to cover you. It's $50 a month. Not realizing that $50 a month is the entire household budget for food for the month. Because that's kind of what we live in in South Texas. You can't pop up and say you know what, just run fiber to everybody's house or provide connectivity in some way where people have to pay for it and expect it to work, because that's just not the reality of the community that I live in. $5 a month is sometimes still too expensive for people for connectivity when your son or daughter gets it at school already or they can go to some place that has it.
Speaker 1:So when you start to talk about community challenges, affordability to me is still the number one thing that comes out. And so, while there's a lot of movement in the space to provide more services, better services, faster services, combinations of Cox and Charter 5G trying to do its thing, low-earth orbiting satellites to do their thing, you still got to keep in mind the people that need it the most, are the people that can afford it the least, and that is a very key factor in talking about bridging the digital divide, especially in this day and age where bead funding has now been largely withdrawn. There's a lot of people trying to get in the presidency here in the United States saying, hey, man, follow through with this, please Don't just pull the funding. But that's kind of the state that we're living in and I talked about this last time when you remove the ability for kids to take home mobile hotspots from the carriers, now you're in this situation where there's really no way to get internet access into those communities, situation where there's really no way to get internet access into those communities. Now, speaking of one of the communities that's popping up, that was really cool to see and this is just. This is pretty. Let's see here. This is pretty new.
Speaker 1:This May 30th this from yesterday Starlink to launch in India with disruptive $10 per month plans. That's pretty awesome, right, you talk about a service that's needed and that's usable and this could really help out in an area that needs it for $10 a month. Now is the $10 a month going to be all in its $840 in Indian currency, but is $10 in that affordable area? I don't know. I don't live there, it's not my neighborhood, so I'm not sure. But there is one thing that's in here where it says the Telcom Regulatory Authority of India is believed to propose an additional surcharge of $5.84 per urban customer, which could raise the overall cost of satellite-based services. So maybe Starlink does it for $10, plus that $5.84 per urban customer, which could raise the overall cost of satellite-based services. So maybe Starlink does it for $10, plus that $5.84 in there. Additionally, satellite service providers like Starlink may have to shell out 4% of their adjusted gross revenue and an 8% license fee to offer commercial services a minimum annual spectrum charge of $41 per block.
Speaker 1:So part of me is like, hey, they're getting this right. You know, part of me in the US is like, hey, they're getting this right. Part of me in the US is like, hey, I don't want to pay all this extra stuff. But part of me is looking at this, going, hey, man, that's a model that's going to make sense. I feel like for India to be able to get some revenue off of what's happening in this. So I don't know if it's right or wrong, I just know that I look at that and go, well, that's cool, it's going to increase the cost of service, but it's also going to make it sustainable for the country. So we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. It's exciting to know that they're coming out of the gate with a $10 per month plan.
Speaker 1:Now, that $10 per month plan. I don't know what is included in it. Let's see if we look in here and it shows us a little bit more. We've jumped now over to the Economic Times industry newspaper. Let's go ahead and cancel that offer, and I don't see it in here. I don't see if that's what's involved in it. It doesn't say if it's one gig, 10 gig. It doesn't say what the aggregated throughput of any of that is, but I'm sure that it's something so great to see some movement that's happening there.
Speaker 1:There was another article and I I found it and I didn't read it. Let me see if I can look it up real quick. Starlink got in trouble in Australia. Let me see if I can find it. They got in trouble because they weren't reporting their drops in intermittent issues and so the government of Australia, uh, got a little upset with them for doing what they do. So that that's happening.
Speaker 1:Now this one is a little bit crazier, right, this is something that's happening that was like man, this is, this is nuts. And and I remember years ago I got to meet Charlie Ergen and he was a. He was such a nice dude. I've never met Elon Musk. I don't know if he's a nice guy or not. Never pressed the flesh and shook his hand. But I did get to meet Charlie Ergen one time at a show it was Wisp America and it was in Florida, I think it was in Orlando and he just rolled in and was super down to earth and a nice guy to talk to and whatever, and so I've always had such a cool opinion of him just because I got to meet him. I guess, I don't know, call me jaded in that respect, but he could be a total prick. I don't know, I don't know him that well, but he was nice to me. So there's something to be said for that. But in this.
Speaker 1:So this popped up which was crazy and I can't believe that things like this are actually happening. But Charlie Ergen is the guy who backs Echo Star and Dish Network and all that stuff. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. So he's doing this thing and all of a sudden the FCC chairman, brendan Carr, opened an investigation into Echo Star and according to our buddy, mike Dano, who I don't think I still have ever met, mike in person, but Mike, I do want to meet you. You do some great writing, man.
Speaker 1:According to Mike over here, the optics are not good. It's possible that Carr is simply doing the bidding of Elon Musk. Musk wants Carr to take the 2 gigahertz MSS spectrum away from Echo Star so that he can give it to Musk. Dude what? I'm not even sure. I'm not even sure. I'm not even sure. This is just what's happening. I don't want to have an opinion, left or right, or up or down, but then you read stuff like this. It's just so crazy.
Speaker 1:So, not surprisingly, echo Star, backed by Charlie Ergen, is fighting back. A bunch of Echo Star's partners and vendors are registering their support for the company and its 5g satellite ambitions. Not surprisingly, a bunch of other satellite companies are now asking for echo stars. Two gigahertz, obviously. Obviously, if the fcc goes, hey, we're going to take that away from echo star, let's give it to spacex. I'm sure there's other people going. Well, why don't you give it to me? Well, why don't you hook me up? Um in the fcc?
Speaker 1:Proceeding on the matter, echo star offered a few tidbits about its wireless business. Now this is the crazy part of this article. It's 5G network now supports 1.3 million of 7 million subs. Okay, the remainder sit on AT&T mobile. Echostar gained another 88,000 wireless subs in April on top of the company's Boost Mobile we talked about Boost MVNO, but also building out their own thing. The company's Boost Mobile offering EchoStar is uniquely an American success story. Which it is, man, because if you go back in time to MMDS and LMDS and how satellite came in and totally disrupted the wireless cable TV industry now I'm totally aging myself. This was I remember when this happened and watching Echo Star be built and watching or watching Dish be built, echo Star be built, watching DirecTV be you know be assembled. It was kind of nuts.
Speaker 1:But the problem here is that it looks blatant. You know Carr's credibility here is strained by the blatant politics surrounding FCC actions and trump's administration in general. First the fcc just approved two transactions, one by t-mobile, another by verizon, after two companies promised to end their d and I programs and car has described it we're not gonna get into that. But now they're saying, well, maybe, uh, car appears prepared to block the paramount skydance deal over complaints from the administration. And so now it's like you've got this guy literally standing right next to the president who just magically is going to get a whole bunch of spectrum handed to him by the FCC. It's just not good looking overall. So how does that affect everything? Well, I mean from a consolidation perspective.
Speaker 1:Let's go back to that conversation about rural connectivity. If I've got fewer providers in an area and fewer amounts of competition, how do we ever expect to connect people who can't afford service if there's only one provider or two providers being able to go out there and set their prices where they are? You all know me, they are. You all know me. I'm a huge proponent for broadband connectivity, whether it's through satellite or whether it's through wireless or whether it's through Wi-Fi or whether it's through fiber or whatever it is. I'm a huge proponent of it. And so to think that the administration is now getting involved.
Speaker 1:And just look at the bigger picture here, right, you've got bead funding being stalled out, you've got the ability for kids to take home hotspots, the competition in the marketplace consolidating, with a lot of these mergers that are happening, but yet there's this one person who seems to be getting extra special love and care to provide access into those communities. Now, listen, if he turns around and he goes, hey, now we're going to use the spectrum and all this stuff so that we can just provide free internet access via Starlink to the people who need it the most Dude, I will shut my mouth like, by all means elon, if you're listening which I know you are, because elon's a huge fan of the waves podcast maybe not ever, but if you're listening and you decide just to dump free wi-fi or free internet access on everyone because you're getting all these concessions from the government, good on you, bro, good on you anyway, I don't know like. This is why I stay out of politics, because I just look at it and there's some things that just don't make sense to me. Anyway, let's see what else we could talk about other than that fiber connect 2025. And now for something completely different june 1st to june 4th in nashville, which means it's starting uh, tomorrow and it runs this week is the fiber connect conference. Again, fiber connect is about connecting people to the internet via access delivered via fiber. For a lot of these FISPs, and now some of the wireless ISPs are moving over into it this is a big conference to be at. A lot of the big players are going to be there talking about ways that they can deliver connectivity. So if you have plans to be in and around Nashville this week, please check out FiberConnect. There's going to be a lot of people there 5,000 attendees. It looks like in 2024. But again, these are people that are tuned into this.
Speaker 1:Now, speaking of events, let me drop the hint on this one real quick. Meter is putting together their second Meter Up event. This is Tuesday, november 18th. It's in San Francisco. Early bird tickets right now are available via registration $349. On July 25th that's going to go up to $449. On the website here it says that Meter Up is a gathering for IT and networking experts, business executives, partners, industry analysts, blah, blah, blah all these great people.
Speaker 1:Here's what I will tell you that MeterUp is. It is a great place where a lot of really next, just have a conversation with your network in the same language that I'm talking to you in right now. They're doing some pretty incredible stuff and they're doing stuff that stands out from open ai, which, oh my god, the stuff that's coming out with with, uh, with their new acquisition not meters, but open ai's acquisition anyway. Um, if you can think about the next iteration of what your career looks like and what networking looks like, meter up is going to be one of those places that, in five years, I think, we turn around and go oh, I met that person there and that's what they were talking about, because there's a lot of really cool next generation conversation happening there. Now, of course, it is an event for a vendor, so if you're interested in their products and services and all that stuff, obviously they'll be there. Obviously, they're also sponsors of the show, but that's not why I'm talking about MeterUp. I mean it's not, but I mean they can count this towards their credits. I guess I don't know. But the reason I really liked MeterUp last year when I went is because it stoked conversation that you're not going to have anywhere else. And Cisco Live is happening and it's coming up.
Speaker 1:The level of conversation that has had at MeterUp compared to the level of conversation at Cisco Live. Cisco Live is like the every day. This is how to work with your network. This is the stuff to do. There's not a lot of these conversations that are like what's going to be happening in three years from now or five years from now? Where is this whole thing going? It's a lot of people at Cisco Live doing the same thing and figuring out better ways to do it within the confines of what the world of Cisco, the world of solutions, offers.
Speaker 1:But if you want to step out of that world. There's a couple ways you can do it. One, meterup, is a great way to get together with a bunch of people. Hopefully, as it looks right now, I'm going to be there, so I'm excited. Oh, look, no other conference gives you such a level of access and transparency. It made me believe in the product and the people behind it. That's a quote that they have on their website. Uh, drew lynn's wireless nerd. I'm glad I saw that. Um, but this is one place, is it meter up? But, juniper, as juniper does, you know what they're doing? Look, I'm just gonna type it and let's see if I can find it over here.
Speaker 1:Juniper, san diego man, you know these guys, uh, do the craziest stuff and it's always funny when they do it. I mean, I feel it's always funny when they do it. I mean, I feel like it's funny when they do it in Vegas. But now they're doing the same thing in San Diego. Like I'll never forget the first time Juniper did their AI Native Now conference at the same time as Cisco Live. Everyone's coming down these escalators at the airport in Las Vegas airport and the entire baggage claim area was sponsored by juniper at cisco live. Like dude, it's. It's just. I mean, like it's funny, it's good competition. I'm sure there's people that are upset by it, but it's, you know, it's tongue in cheek, like like it's, it's funny and it's low-key, you know, kind of cool. They're doing it again.
Speaker 1:And if you want to learn about what juniper is doing in this space, obviously they're not going to talk about the hp acquisition. They can't. I'm sure that a lot of them wish they knew what was going on. Uh, I'm sure a lot of them would love to share what's going on or what the future means, but they're going to be talking about their ai components. Um, as uh sudhir mentioned, it's the best conference happening that week in San Diego, according to Sudhir. And if you know him, if you've seen him at WLPC, if you've had the chance to meet him, you know exactly the look on his face when he said that.
Speaker 1:But this is going to be really cool because if you go to AI Native Now which I'm going to be there, of course I'm like you got to go. They have such a good time. It's during Cisco Live, so you know you got to go. They have such a good time. It's during Cisco Live, so you're already going to be in town probably, if you make your way over to the AI Native Now event, pay close attention to what they're doing. The registration is open now. It's June 10th and 11th, so it's in about 10 days. Go here and listen to their story and listen to what their view of AI is.
Speaker 1:Cisco, I'm sure, is doing some sessions on AI at Cisco Live Nothing as big and as bold and as published as what's happening at Juniper or what's happening at Meter. But if you pay attention to this session and then you show up in November to Meter Up, there's a story that's coming along about AI. That is really incredible and the way that it's going to change what we do, how we do it, when we do it, where we do it, how it gets done and what the level of interaction from us to our networks are. So I would strongly encourage you, do the AI Now thing, do the meter up thing If you're going to Cisco Live. I'm sure, if I look it up, let me see here. If I look up cisco live 2025 ai, let's see, cisco live begins in eight days. Cisco live well, that's 2024.
Speaker 1:Okay, ai powered innovation, the cisco live hub this just tells me that it's open again. See, you see what I'm saying, like there's, there's, there's the party, which the party's great, but there's nothing big and bold talking about what's happening with cisco ai, in regards to cisco live and, and I see that as kind of a miss, because not just because of the buzzword component of it, but just because, like it's got everybody's mind share right now and you scroll and you look and you know, obviously my google is probably a because of the buzzword component of it, but just because, like it's got everybody's mindshare right now, and you scroll and you look and you know, obviously my Google is probably a little bit different than your Google, but there's nothing that's really calling it out, you know. So. So I'm curious to see what those are. I'm curious if you've got a session that you're going to to learn more about the way that Cisco is implementing AI. I would love to read more about it because, as of right now, there's two big voices that are really shouting One's Meter and the other is Juniper and, depending on your circles, those are the two that are making a lot of sense. So those are a couple of events that are coming up. Obviously, high-tech is coming up also.
Speaker 1:If you're in the hospitality industry, check this one out man. It's been so long since I've been to Indianapolis and so I'm kind of looking forward to it, because it's been a really long time since I've been there. The Indiana Convention Center June 16th through 19th so, following Cisco Live, this is popping up. Produced by HFTP and all these guys. This is a really, really fun one. If you have anything to do with hospitality, or if you want to learn more about hospitality, or if you just live in Indianapolis and you want to go check out some nerd stuff, let me know if you need a pass. I don't know if I have any passes or not, but I mean, I've never had a problem getting into shows, so there's always where there's a will, there's a way. But if you're looking to go, this is a really cool event that shows you what's happening in the hospitality industry.
Speaker 1:And part of me is just a nerd that likes to go to high tech, because I like live in hotels. Basically, I'm about to hit titanium or whatever. On on Marriott, I've diamond. On Hilton, I love my Hilton diamond status. You know it's. It's great and I feel like I live in these places. So, uh, it's great to see what new, innovative things are being talked about at high tech and who's adopting them and what they're doing with it, what my experience as an end user is in these properties and how that's going to change. That's what keeps me coming back to high tech. I've had the opportunity to go a number of times and this year I don't know what the trends are yet, so looking forward to seeing what the trends are at high tech 2025. That's happening in Indianapolis and then coming up real soon.
Speaker 1:Right around the corner is WLPC Prague. So you all know, you already know wlpc prog. So you, you all know, you already know. Um, in talking about prog, I don't want to talk about one of the things that keith and I uh the plan that we hatched, and eva santos was standing right beside us when we're sitting there going, oh my god, we should totally do this. That would be awesome, uh, so we'll see, but just know that, as it looks right now, there's going to be an awesome part of wlpc prog. Uh, everything is is awesome there, but there's going to be a session there that is going to be unique and fun and and uh, it should be really, really cool, really cool based on what we were doing at uh network x. So if you go back you look what I was doing. Network x, it might tease you out a little bit and see what's going on there. But WLPC Prague is coming up soon and it's going to be a who banger, if you will. It's going to be a good old time.
Speaker 1:Um, what else is happening? All right, let's go through the tabs. Ready Google teams up with X real Warby Parker. Okay, normally I won't get excited about this, but, dude, I can't tell you how much I love my Ray-Ban Metaglasses. I love them. I love them because I take them on vacation and I take videos of my kids skiing and I was wearing them when I jumped off a boat and I had to throw them back at the boat. They're so cool, man, and I've had such a good time with them. And now this conversation is taking place, which is cool.
Speaker 1:Now, x-real has been a great exhibitor at CES For the last couple years. I've been there and theirs is a standout, keep in mind. What's different about theirs is they have a little cable that runs down and plugs into a device plugs into a phone or into a device. So they're not the same as the meta Ray-Ban glasses. They're a little bit different, but they're partnering with Warby Parker now, which is a good move, in my opinion, in the right direction, so that it's something that people are used to and comfortable with on their face, but now adding XR. So Android XR is going to be on there, which is going to allow you to do all kinds of different stuff. All kinds of different stuff, multi-modal AI. It says when this goes, I don't know, but things like the ability to translate in real time, things like the ability to see stats about sports teams and everything else as you're watching the game Hopefully someday. What I want is the ability to walk through a conference, have these glasses on and it be able to tell me when I look at someone, pop up their LinkedIn profile and show me who they are and how I know them, because I get to meet so many incredible people and the first thing I do is I go back to LinkedIn and I'm like how many connections do we have? Who am I talking to? I want to see that happen in real time in glasses. So glad to see that that's happening between these two organizations.
Speaker 1:All right, aws kills private 5G offering the computer with carriers. This was big news when it broke the original conversation about AWS saying, hey, we're going to go in and we're going to install a 5G service, private 5G service for you, and there's no upfront fee, or maybe a small upfront fee, but it's based on utilization and what you're doing with it. Now AWS has said they are no longer selling the private 5G offering that was announced in 2021. Again, mike Dano, mike, one of these days we're going to hang out man, but they're still going to continue to offer the integrated private wireless on AWS program. So we don't know. They're getting rid of this one. More information about that on Light Reading.
Speaker 1:But 5G man, is 5G really a thing? Like? Is it happening? It seems like it's still just waiting for its ultimate moment. For private 5G to just do something great Because it is great. It's like the coolest thing I'm trying to think of, like a household appliance that's like private 5G to just do something great Because it is great. It's like the coolest thing I'm trying to think of, like a household appliance that's like private 5G. It's the coolest thing for when you're going to use it. But when are you actually going to use it? I don't know. Check this out. Speaking of random things, this laser breakthrough can read text on a page from a mile away. Dude, what I don't know. I don't know where that look. This is nuts. I don't know where this comes into play, but I thought it was cool so I clicked on it.
Speaker 1:Lidar is great for cars. Oh, this is fast. I'm not going to try this, but, um, you can permanently damage your camera if you take a picture of lidar. So if you're watching that, that waymo cruise by and you snap a picture of its lidar unit, check out what's happening on your, on your sensor. Man, this is a picture that that shows all these different little color variations that pop up. Um, if you take a picture of these, uh, lidar sensors, so be warned, don't say I didn't tell you.
Speaker 1:Uh, we already talked about the taco happening at wgc america. We talked about that, the the buy local option for iphone, threatening, uh, threatening a huge tariff on on apple iphones if they're not manufactured in the united states. Dude, do you know what it takes to put those phones together? Anyway, that's what we got going on. Don't forget about meter up. Um, that's happening. What else do we have going on? I think that's it. That that's the run of show. That's everything that we got for waves on this May 31st edition Next week. Let's see home next week.
Speaker 1:And then I get to do an event. I'm going out to set up the World Surfing League at Trestles in San Clemente, california. Now, trestles is cool because that's where the Olympics when they come to LA. The Summer Olympic surfing competition is going to be held at Trestle, so I get to go out there and help set up with Iro for the WSL. So we're going to have a really good time, very similar to what I did on North Shore of Hawaii, this time in Southern California. And then, leading into that, I'm going to leave there and go down to Cisco Live. So if you're at Cisco Live, come see me. Totally going to crash Alexis's happy hour and go bug those guys and say hi. Also, there's some dance moves that I think I want to learn from her. Maybe contribute to that's coming up.
Speaker 1:What else I just did? Nascar. I got to go to a NASCAR race. I've never been to a NASCAR race. We set up Wi-Fi in the pit at NASCAR. I did a whole video on it. If you check my LinkedIn, you can see that video. It was the most insane interference area that I've ever seen. That was pretty crazy.
Speaker 1:I have another music. I've got a music festival coming up that I'll be doing in Southampton June I want to say 21st. So if you happen to be in the New York City area and you want to see a really good DJ the music that was playing at the beginning Anyway, if you want to see some cool stuff, I'm going to be out there doing that, yeah, man. But other than that, catch me on the road, catch me outside. See you all soon. Thanks for listening to the Waves Podcast. Don't forget to check out what's happening with Meter Up. We appreciate their sponsorship of the show. Make sure you look into what's happening. I'm about to do a whole episode on what's happening with Helium, one of our other kind and wonderful sponsors, to see what's going on with them. And, yeah, stay tuned and we will see you all next week. Until then, have a wonderful week, see ya.
