Nokia does a lot of interesting reports, and their 2025 traffic report and forecast is surely no exception. It documents the way that network traffic, and thus perhaps even network access bandwidth, has shifted from business-dominated to consumer content delivery. It has similar insights about future traffic, of course, and so we’ll look at the…
We’re hearing a bit more about a new AI concept, no surprise given the nature of tech hype, which always tries to trump itself to avoid being stale and losing people’s interest. This one might actually be important, though, and it’s also a flavor of a concept that’s been important all along, and that I’ve…
We’ve heard, often, that AI is a bubble. We’ve heard that it’s not like the dot-com bubble, and we’ve also heard that quantum computing will burst it. What, if any, of this is accurate? Let’s try to find out, taking these points in order. First, of course AI is in a bubble. In an ad-sponsored…
Have you ever heard of a “static bubble?” It’s not an easy concept to accept, even to grasp, but it may well be what we have to think about with AI. Is the level of AI investment made by the hyperscaler giants ever going to pay off? Maybe, even probably, eventually. Will these players stop…
Is sovereign AI dead? If so, is it a non-issue, or is it because accomplishing that goal has proven beyond the proponents’ ability? An EU initiative to build a sovereign cloud seems to have collapsed, but there’s still a lot of discussion on whether the EU needs one, and perhaps needs to take steps to…
Some religious historians will likely recognize the title “Contra Apionem”. My high-school Latin teacher would surely be amazed (were he still alive) by the fact that I sprinkle Latin into many conversations and writings. Well, in his honor, let’s introduce another similar-sounding phrase; contra aperturam, which translates as “against openness”. I am not against openness,…
Cisco reported good numbers on their earnings call for the quarter, attributing that to AI-driven network traffic and updates. What do enterprises say? It’s hardly news that many companies engage in “AI-washing” these days, but it’s also true that there are situations where enterprises find AI can generate considerable additional traffic. Which is it here?…
When you announce plans to lay off 15,000 workers, about 15% of your workforce, it’s not generally a good sign, and that’s what Verizon’s new CEO has said. But, of course, what’s behind the decision at Verizon is shared with most of the telco world. What’s behind the decision is pretty obvious, I think. Telcos…
Suppose that deals like the Nvidia/Nokia one aren’t what some on Wall Street think they are, cynical mechanisms to boost the companies in the near term. What could they do to actually build real AI benefits? Is there a real, tangible, industry-altering value that could be achieved here, or should we just go back to…
As I noted yesterday, telcos have a historical aversion to “disintermediation”, which is what they call situations when other companies build valuable services on top of telecom services, and those services earn their creators a major profit, where telcos don’t gain anything but low-revenue traffic. There are only two possible solutions to this—either you have…