Light Reading Podcasts

Dell'Oro's Jeff Heynen joins the podcast to discuss how the uncertainty swirling around BEAD cast a shadow at Fiber Connect 2025 and how vendors are gearing up for an MDU revival.

This week: Marissa Mitrovich, VP of public policy at the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA), on the growth of FTTH access across the US, the state of the BEAD program and what's on tap for the 2025 Fiber Connect conference.

In this podcast, Heavy Reading analyst Sterling Perrin sits down with Ciena’s Sr. Director of Product Line Management, Rafael Francis, and VP, Product Line Management, Tim Pearson, to review the key findings and what they mean for the future of coherent routing in telecom.\For additional information, the related Heavy Reading white paper with the full survey results can be accessed here: https://www.ciena.com/insights/white-papers/ip-over-dwdm-global-survey-analysis

Light Reading's Jeff Baumgartner joins the podcast to discuss the $34.5 billion Charter-Cox merger, what the deal means for the companies and sectors involved, and what risks and opportunities for the deal are on the horizon.

This week on Telecom East, Ross O'Brien of Delta Analysis talks about Huawei's challenge to Nvidia, Samsung's chips problems and how a small operator in the Philippines lost its spectrum. Then, Marc Einstein from Counterpoint Research joins to discuss Japan's telecom landscape.

There comes a point when the adage "there's an app for that" becomes too on-the-nose.Enterprises need to be able to manage numerous networking and security applications from multiple vendors, but balancing multiple APIs and licenses across those applications creates complexity, Nabil Bukhari, CTO of Extreme Networks, told Light Reading at the company's Extreme Connect event in Paris this week.During this podcast, Bukhari explains the challenges enterprises face in networking and security application management and how the use of AI can simplify network automation and connectivity. But, AI should be used for more than just automating tasks, it should also automate business outcomes, he adds. That could mean "automating the entire process your [networking and security] teams would do anyway" by using AI to troubleshoot problems, remediate issues and catalogue the steps AI took to solve the issue, he says.

This week: Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), on the impact of President Trump 'ending' the $2.75 billion Digital Equity Act and how advocates can fight to restore it.

Light Reading's Mike Dano joins the podcast to discuss how the 'rip-and-replace' program led to an odd network launch plan for Gogo, plus broader impacts of the federal program's delayed implementation and what to expect next.

This week: Joshua Edmonds, CEO of DigitalC, on the nonprofit ISP's history providing connectivity and digital skills training in Cleveland, and how DigitalC is working to meet its subscriber goals and commitments to the city.