March 7, 2025 • 47 mins
Welcome to the neXt Curve reThink series that focuses on the present and the future of mobile wireless technologies and industry - The Radio to the RIC.
In this installment of the Radio to the RIC series, Leonard and Earl and special guest, Marc Pous, the IoT Giant, provide their full recap of their puts and takes from Mobile World Congress 2025 held in Barcelona. The trio just finished grueling week of analyst briefings, interviews, dinners, and receptions settling at Fonda Peppa, a wonderful restaurant by a Michelin-star chef to enjoy good food and drink while synthesizing thoughts on the key takes and insights from #mwc2025
The trio talk about:
* (3:11) Initial impressions
* (8:02) What is the state of AI-RAN? Is it Open RAN Season 2?
* (12:51) Has GenAI hype been hiding good stuff happening in AI for telco?
* (15:54) The year of some strange geopolitics that trouble the industry
* (19:02) 10 years of IoT Stars! Congrats!
* (23:18) A MWC 2024 retrospective. How did we do?
* (30:29) The GSMA seems to have learned its lesson - Connectivity First!
* (37:11) Where will we land at MWC 2026?
* (44:56) Delusions of grandeur
Feel free to comment and share your disagreement and argumentation. We are happy to learn from you.
Remember to like, subscribe to the neXt Curve reThink YouTube channel. Also, follow neXt Curve by subscribing at www.next-curve.com.
Check out EJL Wireless Research at www.ejlwireless.com and contact Earl Lum for his new Radio report.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Hey everybody, how's it going?
This is Leonard Lee, ExecutiveAnalyst at NextCurve.
And, uh, we are here at arestaurant called Fonda Jeppa,
which is muy delicioso.
Delicioso.
Right?
Right?
This is a very, very specialepisode of the NextCurve Rethink
(00:33):
Podcast.
And, um, this is going to becomea Annual tradition, every single
time we come to MWC, we're gonnahave a nice dinner, right?
And we're gonna have some nicewine.
See, this is beautiful wine, bythe way.
(00:53):
Not AI wine, eh?
As they say in Spain.
Yeah, he just took the trashout, so don't mind him.
It happens.
It happens.
Okay.
We're trying to keep this allnatural organic because we're
going to have a natural andorganic conversation about.
(01:15):
The world Congress.
Marvel or Congress, right?
And so we're.
Errol and I have been here sinceSaturday, and, um, it's been a
crazy week.
It's always a crazy week, right?
I don't even think we need tosay this next year, because you
can all assume it was just acrazy week.
So, anyways, I'm here with my cohost for this annual MWC recap.
(01:43):
2025.
Barcelona, right?
Not Barcelona, Barcelona.
And we have Mark Post, and Ipronounced it correctly this
time.
Last time, I didn't.
I discovered how to pronouncehis name, and he was very happy,
(02:06):
and I'm very happy that hedidn't crush me because, you
know, he is very big.
And then I'm here also Burl Lumof EJL Wireless.
He is the master of the antenna,the radio, and the DU, right?
(02:28):
And so, any of you folks outthere that want to know When are
the radios going to come back,right?
Earl Lum (02:37):
When are the antennas going to
come back?
When are the antennas going tocome back?
You're going to call him.
And if you want to learn why theantenna matters, you're going to
call him.
So, let's get started,gentlemen.
Marc Pous (02:53):
So No, I'm worried.
The antennas are going to comeback.
Why?
Sure,
Earl Lum (02:58):
they never run away.
So, so,
Marc Pous (02:59):
so, so we didn't, no, no
Earl Lum (03:02):
kidding.
You will be wearing a colanderon your head to protect you from
the electromagnetic waves.
Yeah,
so, um, hey, what did you thinkabout this year's event?
I think
there was some surprising, uh, observations
regarding booth sizes.
(03:22):
Regarding some major countries,I mean companies, that had
downsized their booths.
And I think there was obviouslythis whole, uh, the two letters
of AAN I plastered in every hallfrom number 1 all the way to
number 8.
1.
And at the end of the day, Ithink a lot of the companies
(03:45):
that were there, at least theones that I saw, Uh, feel pretty
good about where they're goingto be, uh, in 2025 and beyond
because they make hardware.
I don't know about the othercompanies that are not making
hardware, but at least the onesthat I talk to, and where
they're focused on right now,uh, things are starting to look
(04:06):
good and better from where theywere maybe a year ago or two.
Oh,
okay.
Well, they're kind of looking Itwas kind of looking kind of Rim,
right?
It was.
Okay.
So I think things have bottledout
and now we're at a point where, as we look at this
next phase, before we get to 5Gadvance, before we get to
(04:30):
whatever 6G will be, how do wecontinue to upgrade the network,
add more capacity, etc.
Awesome.
So what about you Mark?
Yeah, AI was everywhere.
It was too much for me.
Kind of disgusting, it'sdisgusting the word that you
would use to describe it.
Marc Pous (04:50):
And then we were, you know, we were mentioning, you
know, the mix of smart and AI inthe same sentence.
I mean, it's too much.
Smarter AI.
No, no, but I
thought we made this clear,Mark.
There is incredibly dumb AI,okay?
You do AI wrong, it's incrediblystupid.
Yeah.
And it causes a lot of problems,right?
(05:10):
The, the, the thing is, is itstill an ai, right?
So, yeah, no, or not, maybe not,but, well, from a marketing
perspective, I think it was a,
but now I have very clear, so we have been now
through these hype from iot totoday, so I have very clear that
AI will be the same.
And in the future, in noquestion, five, 10 years, AI
(05:31):
will disappear from thevocabulary.
Yes, IMT disappear, right?
Um, it's not disappearing, notdisappearing, but Tesla doesn't
say that it's an
IOT car, right?
Well, yeah, because what, whathave, what have we been saying?
What have I been saying forseven years?
Stop talking about IOT.
It's all about value.
(05:51):
It's about the application.
Understand that it's an aspectof a business solution, right?
And you know, the irony is thatI say that all the time.
I know it's like frigging hard,right?
It's not an easy thing to do.
That's why, you know, on IOTcoffee talk, IOT stars, you
know, it's something that wealways talk about because that's
something that we try to promotewithin the IOT community, but we
(06:15):
also know that how difficult itis for companies that are simply
doing hardware or they're justfocused on the connectivity and,
you know, um, but.
I think, you know, quitehonestly, I'll tell you
something.
I think there's going to be abit of a resurgence of IoT in
the coming future because Ithink You know, one of the
(06:38):
things that you really good atget a good impression of is the
fact that, um, like AI and tovery, to be very specific, not
generative
AI,
the ML stuff, you know, themore, um, uh, what do you call
it?
Classical type machine learning,the things that people have been
(07:01):
working on forever in theembedded world, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That, that's going to become,um, that's going to become more
powerful, number one, closer tothe edge, closer to the sensor.
And I think that's going tocreate some new opportunities.
And you know, it's all aboutperception.
(07:21):
You know, who is it that saidRemember, Oh, no, it was
somebody on stage that says, um,what's that?
Yeah.
He said, IOT is about collectingdata.
Yes.
Sensors and collecting data.
It's as easy as that.
Right.
And, you know, of course we haveto give a lot of credit to the
(07:42):
godfather of IOT, Rob Tiffany.
Where are you?
Where are you?
How can you know what I can'tunderstand is how IDC can hold
that guy back from being here.
It's ridiculous.
IDC, you must unleash theTiffany every MWC.
(08:05):
But, um, anyways.
Okay.
So what did you think about?
AI.
AI RAN.
Let's talk about AI RAN becausethat's about as relevant as AI
is to Earl Lum of EJL Wireless.
Earl Lum (08:17):
The AI IN RAN or the AI 4 RAN, and certainly the AI 4
RAN, not the number 4, but F OR.
Yeah.
I think a more realistic approach to look at
what could be done with the RANinstead of having a three letter
(08:39):
acronym beginning with theletter G and ending in U, that
is going to be an edge macrosite and that is going to
consume kilowatts of power thatthe site does not have.
So, the potential incrementalbenefits.
of saving money, not makingmoney for AI in RAN, uh, has to
(09:06):
be really considered.
I think everyone under, everyoneunderstands how AI saves money,
improves efficiency, uh, and allof that.
But making money is a completelydifferent story that I, I think
there is no tangible.
Evidence of how that could bedone at this point.
And I think that's like aconsistent message that we heard
(09:27):
across the board.
And it's one of the questions Iwas asking.
Or, you know, it's not even aquestion I was asking.
I was You know, well, no, it wasa question, sorry.
I have to ask a question to getan answer, right?
Well, consistently
Unless you ask yourself.
Yeah, yeah.
(09:48):
It's late.
Like I said last year, we workedhard for you to bring these
insights, you know, and how manysteps did you put in?
One day I put in 13, 000 and 55, which is about 3.
37 miles.
And that was the day Iunfortunately had to go near
Hall 8, which I regretted.
(10:10):
Yeah.
Well, you know, as they say inAmerican, holy moly.
That's like, that's a bad man.
Yeah.
Holy moly.
A robin.
Yeah.
I mean, they, they speakAmerican.
So, um.
They speak English.
No, they speak American.
Yeah.
Um, so yeah, the, themonetization piece is this thing
(10:34):
that everyone claims is revenue.
Nobody knows.
No one.
Right, but if it knows about saving money,
you can do it.
Saving money, right.
But one of the things that'squite evident, and it's the,
it's the design decision thatRAN engineers have to make is
(10:54):
figuring out, as they look atAI, how do you balance the
benefits with the cost ofintelligence?
Like what you're saying, right?
And does it need to be Analyze in real time, or Once
every hour, once a day, what isit that you're trying to look at
(11:17):
that is causing a problem inyour network?
Yeah.
It could be a cluster of cells, it could be a few
issues with the actual PCI codesand the other things that are in
the network.
Maybe a bunch of things.
So the question is, is what doyou want this thing to be
looking for in this pool of datathat's been collected across the
network to find and improvespecific tangible functions?
(11:42):
You know what?
I discovered just now that Ispeak a hell of a lot better
after a couple of glasses ofwine.
Isn't that strange?
Marc Pous (11:51):
It is for you.
Yeah, but you drank more than acouple, so what happened after
that?
It
was
the mix of the white and
the red.
Oh,
maybe.
You know that Don't out
me like that ever again,
okay?
But, you know, in computerscience there is as well a
theory that if you There is aspecific moment of drinking
alcohol that you program Youwrite code better.
Earl Lum (12:15):
You're in the zone.
Marc Pous (12:16):
Exactly, but you don't need to drink more.
Because then
Earl Lum (12:20):
you're out of the
Marc Pous (12:20):
zone.
Earl Lum (12:21):
Exactly.
Marc Pous (12:21):
Really?
I don't remember the name ofthat theory, but yeah, maybe you
are
in
the
zone.
It's called the scaling law oflogarithmic exponential coding
efficiency, right?
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't either.
Well, I'm
Earl Lum (12:40):
a hardware
guy.
Anyway.
Uh, so yeah, that, that, that,that, that's one of the big
realities.
I don't think, um, the hype hasfactored that in and, you know,
like my, my, you know,Impression of this year's event
was this, just like at AWS reinvent there's this huge layer
(13:02):
of marketing nonsense AI stuff,generative AI, okay, that is
super unsubstantial.
That hides a lot of really goodstuff.
Like, well, I went to the AWSbooth this year, and when I was
at reInvent, it was so hard toobserve their, their solutions
(13:29):
that they, you know, thepractical stuff.
Because they had to overlay somuch, like, generative AI junk,
narrative junk on top of it.
This, you know, here, At MWC,they took some of that stuff off
and you can actually see whatthey were talking about.
You know, like the stuff that'sreally gonna benefit the
operator.
(13:50):
So like, one of the things thatthey, they were getting really
excited about was were, um,these knowledge graphs that you
created, network, and you know,they call it digital twin.
I don't really call it digitaltwins, more like, um.
It's more like a model, right?
Yeah.
So, you know that you can userun simulations on Yes.
It's hydrated by digital twin.
Like we always talk about ouriot coffee talk, but um, it can
(14:14):
give you a sense of the state,of the, the network and then you
can do an analytics andsimulation on top of it.
And, um, yeah, you could see itAnd you, and you know, the funny
thing is, is that degenerativeAI piece was just a thin veneer
of, uh, interface.
(14:35):
And quite honestly, I don'tthink that's a friggin big deal.
It's insignificant.
And I think that's what vendorshave to realize.
You know, you have to veryquickly understand the value of
a technology and how it'sapplied in a fit for purpose
way.
And the hype right now ofgenerative AI is so detached
(14:55):
from Where these things arelanding in a practical sense,
even with agentic AI, agentic AIis becoming super narrow task
level, not process level tasklevel.
And you literally have to makeit so specific that it loses the
general, this promise orexpectation that it's going to
(15:18):
be a general AI for agentic.
And so, you know what we're backto.
It's like friggin basic RPA,like what we were talking about
on IOT comedy, what I've beentalking about for two years,
it's like friggin ridiculous.
What do you think?
Am I talking too much?
No.
You're talking about stuff thatI don't care about that it has
(15:41):
that, let's just be up front.
No,
Marc Pous (15:44):
let me point something that, uh, I seen that
I had never seen before inMobile World Congress.
A lot of people talking aboutgeopolitical decisions that they
will need to take in the nearfuture.
Earl Lum (15:59):
Right.
Where is your factory located?
Where do you potentially have tomove it?
What region does it have to havean assembled in or made in
sticker with a certain countryattached to it on the carton or
on the actual label of the unititself?
All these things are becomingextremely important.
(16:19):
So is the supply chain risk forevery company now?
Is I think starting to rise tothe
Marc Pous (16:27):
top.
So that's something that I neverseen before But I mean, yeah,
maybe German companies notpreferred specific countries to
buy instead of others But I sawthat more general this year.
I don't know.
Well, yeah, I mean, you know, umWe had incidents before the week
(16:48):
started.
Yeah.
And, you know, um, you candefinitely tell that there was a
disruption in the quote unquotetrust fabric, the geopolitical
trust fabric.
And I think, um, the reaction,uh, from a lot of Europeans that
we spoke to was, um, um, prettysevere.
(17:10):
Right.
And so we'll see how that worksout.
But, yeah, definitely, um, It'sgoing to be a bit disruptive,
yeah?
Yeah, it's disruptive.
I think the response is still,the reaction is still in
process.
Earl Lum (17:28):
But it's not going to be over quickly.
It's going to have a long tail.
Yeah.
Marc Pous (17:32):
Yeah, I know.
It's a good point.
We don't know.
Yeah.
We don't know, but it's there.
It's an elephant in the room,right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But before we go any further, Iwant to thank all the engineers
and the product teams that spokewith us.
(17:53):
Um, no special appreciateappreciation for these folks
because, you know, um, you know,I'll say it again.
I CEOs and C level folks.
No offense to any of those thatI spoke to.
It's just, we get it.
(18:15):
You got to say what you got tosay, but it's, it's people who
are in the trenches, the folkswho are working the technical
details and doing the hardcoreengineering who actually know
the nuances.
They can tell you.
Yeah.
Super appreciate you guys not
Earl Lum (18:31):
having any filtering at all and seeing everything
that's on your mind.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And hold on.
We gotta do, we gotta do this.
Come on guys.
I'm really bad at this and I'm,I'm really bad at this and I'm
Korean.
I wanted
Marc Pous (18:53):
to, yeah, no, you wanted to do these.
I know.
I already did it.
So in other words, we love youguys.
All right.
Um, so what, uh, so IOT, did wecover IOT?
No, IOT stars.
Yeah.
We had 10th anniversary folks.
Yeah.
10th anniversary.
And it was, uh, an event thatstraight down with the speaker's
dinner.
I think we had like decentamount of people.
(19:16):
We had fun.
I think the content was good.
It was great.
We had like two profitable IOTcompanies on stage talking.
Well, probably more than two,right?
Probably.
Yeah.
Nordic and Mongoro and, uh,zero, I dunno, a satellite
communication company if it'sprofitable yet or not, but, but,
uh, yeah, it's something that itdidn't happen before, right?
(19:37):
Yeah.
It, it's hard to see aprofitable company, you know, in
the ID space It's, I thinkthat's, uh, that's, uh, an
interesting Yeah.
Landmark.
Well, yeah.
That there's hope.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah.
I think that the companies who,who were able to reach this
point.
It can have like a brightfeature.
(19:58):
Absolutely.
Um, I'm really happy that, yeah.
I, I'm sad that I couldn't makeit happen with my company, but
yeah, it's, it's cool that theiot, it's getting in.
No, it's, it's, it's just afeature on, on a lot of products
now.
Okay.
Yeah.
And, and you know, like whatyou're saying, I mean, it's, you
know, these hype cycles.
(20:19):
More than scaling laws of, youknow, generative AI ridiculous
computing, uh, is much more alaw.
Then any of these likehypothetical, you know, uh,
convenience based, uh, scalinglaws.
Right.
And we're seeing them likedecompose very quickly.
And um, and, and, you know,honestly, this is why we're
(20:41):
analysts.
This is why Mark is whatever thehell you are.
What are you?
You're not an analyst.
I'm the developer.
Yeah.
He's the IOT giant.
The reason why we do this isbecause, you know, when you, you
go up this proverbial hump ofnonsense, yeah, sure, you're
excited, right?
(21:01):
Of course.
And you think that, yeah, right,bright and shiny, all this,
you're in love, right?
You're in love.
And everyone has their littleAmoy, Kumbaya, you know, uh,
until you discover the crazy.
And then reality hits you veryquickly.
(21:24):
And then.
Yeah, I mean, it, it becomes adire situation pretty quickly,
right?
Should happen soon.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's why it's so much,it's important to be grounded
constantly.
And you know, the, it'sinteresting in my observation,
(21:46):
the people who are grounded arevery much the minority.
Yeah.
Here's
what we were telling, uh, we were talking before about
four years from now.
No.
Yes.
Did you see all of this startedwhen I was saying me as a
startup, I prefer to be sellingright instead of talking with
and pitching in front of
Earl Lum (22:05):
and spending money to have a kiosk or a pod or
whatever, all eight and 8.
1.
Marc Pous (22:14):
Yeah.
No, 8.
0, which is even worse.
Did you go to 8.
0?
It was, uh, you had to godownstairs.
I don't go to 8.
8.
Earl Lum (22:24):
X I don't go to, unless I'm leaving the FIRA.
Marc Pous (22:28):
No, I was surprised at that 8.
0.
So you had to go downstairs.
Uh, it was, there were a lot ofpeople.
So they put their healthcompanies and I don't know what
else.
Oh, the wearables and
Earl Lum (22:39):
everything?
Marc Pous (22:39):
Or.
Uh, it was the startups, but atleast I met a friend who has a
health startup and she wasthere.
Uh, I don't know what else,something else was there, but
it's, it's interesting that theydid the categorization as well.
So people could focus on, itwas, there were a lot of people
on Wednesday.
So I was surprised because eightzero, it's like, you never go,
(23:02):
you never go to eight zero.
No, there were a lot of peoplethere.
There were a lot of people eventoday.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so Yeah, you know what?
Uh, let's let's talk about whatwe talked about last year that I
mean, I think we were likepretty on hip From our chat last
year, talking to the Mirror, ifyou recall, and, uh, and, uh, di
(23:28):
Yeah.
Or that's not how it's spelled,but I guess that's how you, the
gar of Yeah, the dus.
Yeah.
Wine.
Wine.
Yeah.
So what we, we, we, we talkedabout the, the open ran squid
game.
Right?
How'd that go, by the way?
Earl Lum (23:42):
Um, well, for those people that are still alive and
in the game, I think they are.
Uh, they're waiting to find outif they're going to sink to the
bottom of the Marianas Trench.
Yeah.
Or, uh, are they going tosurvive?
And if they do survive, are theygoing to find land, but it'll be
(24:04):
a deserted island?
Or they find land in thiscivilization again?
Yeah, so I think there's a lotof radio companies, there's a
lot of small cell companies,there's a lot of companies that
are trying to still do private5G in whatever way, shape or
form.
And then we have the, uh, thehopes and dreams that Vodafone
(24:26):
will save them or, uh, someother major operator here in
Europe that will believe thatthere is a time and a place for
Open RAN to be employed acrosstheir networks.
Okay, cool.
Uh, yes, um, OpenSquid GameSeason 1 is over.
(24:48):
And we're looking forward toSeason 2.
And it should be just asdramatic if not.
Season 2 could have some characters that die.
Oh my
gosh.
That didn't die during theseason 1.
Pearl is Mean.
Marc Pous (25:09):
Anyway.
This is what we talk about, IOTcompanies, right?
Yeah, and it's, this is what'sgoing to happen in the three
seasons of with AI companies,
right?
Yeah.
So that's why you have to watchIOT coffee talk.
We get ridiculous and silly, butthere is, there is sarcasm is a
(25:31):
distilling force, you know, andan outcome of sarcasm is a bit
of truth.
Yeah.
So, oh, the other thing.
Last year, MWC was about futurefirsts.
Remember what we said aboutfuture firsts?
You know, before you worry aboutthe future, aspire to the
(25:52):
future, frigging deal with thepresent and all the challenges
that we have in the present.
And, you know, like one of thethings I want to tell our
audiences, this is that thereason why you look to the
future is because you eitherdon't know how to deal with the
present.
Or you don't know, um, you, youdon't want to deal with the
(26:13):
president or you don't know howto deal with the president or
both.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
That's the only reason problemsolvers, innovators know how to
figure out how to get from pointa, which is the present to the
next step innovation.
It doesn't get you to X unlessyou have a series of innovations
(26:35):
to get to that, you know,horizon.
And that is the big problem withthis industry, right?
Is we have a bunch of peoplegoing around floating metaverse,
blockchain, gen AI, agentic,blah, blah, blah.
Without focusing on what reallyneeds, what's essential for the
industry today.
(26:56):
And I think one of the positivethings that we saw, at least on
the stage, is they put AI as asub bullet on the presentation.
And they talked about moregrounded things, like more, like
reasonable priorities about howto move the ball, get European
operators in the European telcoindustry, um, you know, better
(27:21):
poised to move forward,especially with 5G.
So, you know, the priority is 5GSA.
Once you do that, you canunleash a lot of capabilities
that are pent up right now.
And that's been my big message,um, this year.
And, um, that, and so it doesfrustrate me that we still have
(27:44):
these folks going out, literallyundermining, undermining the
industry by constantly feeding.
The industry with distractinghype, and we see the
consequences of it constantlyand, you know, Hopefully the
audience and you guys that arelistening to this Reject that
(28:04):
stuff or at the least if you'rein it start asking tough
questions because some of thesepeople who are pumping the hype
They are not doing the industrya favor and there's tons of
evidence for it And if you wantevidence just watch our show
Because we call it, we call itevery year.
It's like, and this is notrocket science, it's just a
(28:27):
matter of asking the question,essential questions.
You should, you should beasking,
this is one of the best advices I heard this year.
So I think, yeah, if you arewatching this, yeah.
Oh yeah.
If you are watching this andyeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Don't get into this rabbit holeof trusting people selling you
the hype.
Yeah.
Cause the only reason why theydo that is because they're not,
(28:50):
they're not innovators.
They're not problem solvers.
They pretend to, or they, they are not.
Yeah.
I tell people all the time, Ican imagine the craziest stuff.
I can come up with the mostoutrageous, semi technology
based, you know, fantasies.
It's easy.
What's, what's the name of this tale?
(29:10):
Like the king is naked, no, orno, that, uh, that some people,
yeah, try to sell like a dress.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah.
This is the translation that wehave here.
That's
close enough.
King of snakes.
Yes.
Okay.
So yeah, yeah, yeah.
AI is hard.
It's not easy.
It's not magic.
(29:31):
You know, people who have beenworking with it, they know this
already, you know, and so thesefolks that go around making
technology like an easy thing,you know, they're distracting
the industry from funding thingsthat are important that get you
to the next step.
And I, so hopefully this year,um, the industry, especially
(29:55):
Europe.
It's starting to look at what dowe need to really practically do
to get to the next step.
And, you know, I noticed this,it was only the Chinese that
came in into the keynotesessions with like outrageous
AI, you know, stories and hype.
Messages.
And, uh,
what was the motto this year of Mobile World
(30:16):
Congress?
You know?
Oh, it's, uh, something likefeel the power of connectivity
or something?
Yes.
Connectivity.
Experience the power of connectivity.
That sounds to 2010, right?
That's
good.
Yeah, maybe.
No, it is good.
They want like a stable, uh,technology that, that it's a
reality today, right?
(30:37):
Exactly.
Today.
Yeah, that's the future ofconnecting what you were telling
and
GSMA you, uh, you, you probablysaw our video.
No doubt.
You guys saw our video last yearand they said, Hmm, these guys
might be onto something, but.
Look so we're not haters, right?
No, we love the fact that youguys brought connectivity back
(31:01):
to the center of theConversation because that's the
important thing.
We are missing the exactly whatwe said last for the two years
We've been saying that right asyou know Metaverse the metaverse
nonsense was playing out andthen now it got hijacked by
generative AI You know, and allyou're doing with those
investments is discovering thatthese pipes are not what they're
(31:24):
cracked up to be.
And what a waste of time, right?
And so congratulations forgetting back to connectivity.
Earl Lum (31:30):
A waste of a lot of money, not just the time.
It's the money, and it's notyour money that you wasted.
You wasted an investor's money,and they're not going to be
happy.
And they're not going to giveyou more money.
So, I think that's just like,maybe, maybe, but unlikely.
(31:53):
I guess the thing is, from myperspective, what I saw.
I want people out there toremember this phrase that the
antenna is the most importantelement of a mobile network.
Without
it, you don't have a network.
You don't have anycommunication.
You don't have any connectivity.
(32:14):
So respect the antenna.
Respect
Marc Pous (32:18):
the antenna.
And I always have thisdiscussion with engineering
firms that when they design ahardware, like an IT device.
Antenna is the last thing to putinto the schematics.
Right.
Earl Lum (32:29):
It's not that little upside down triangle with a
little line that goes to thereceiver.
Marc Pous (32:34):
UFL connector.
Earl Lum (32:35):
Yeah.
Right.
Marc Pous (32:37):
Come on guys.
Yeah, so let's give a littleshout out to our friends at
Ignion, right?
Yeah.
Yop and his crew over there.
Yeah.
Doing some cool.
Yeah.
They focus on the
antenna, right?
Indeed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, super interesting softwareas well to help companies to, to
design the right antennas fortheir hardware.
Uh, on the other hand, it's,it's good to have seen them
(33:00):
growing in the IOT stars becausethis year they didn't, they
didn't talk, but we were innegotiations about them on IOT
stars because in, afterpandemics, they presented like
the idea of.
Uh, of these antenna that canwork in multiple technologies,
uh, then, uh, two years afterthey presented, uh, like
(33:21):
probably there will be a massiveproject with massive amount of
devices with our antennas.
And this year they arepresenting, you know, their,
their project with like, uh, Ithink last December they, they
saw like 8 million of antennasjust for one project.
That's awesome.
So it's congratulations guys succeeding.
(33:44):
Yeah,
yeah.
Yeah.
So I think it's time for us toconsider wrapping up because our
audience is getting bored andthey have a what?
15 second attention span.
So if you've made it this far,you are part of a statistically
insignificant of course, you arethe most significant group of
(34:13):
people, but statistically.
You are the most unlikely tohave made it this far, but yeah,
let's your what do you think isgoing to happen next through the
course of this year that's goingto shape where MWC 2025 should
be because we don't know whatGSMA is thinking, who knows,
(34:34):
there may be quantum nonsensethat starts, which is already
brewing up.
So people early warning, ignorethat crap.
Okay.
Okay.
Don't even waste your time.
Focus on connectivity and GSMA,don't play that game.
What do you think?
Earl Lum (34:51):
I think that uh, if we look at All throughout this
year, there's going to be a lotof speculation on timing, the
money that's going to beinvolved in 5G advance, how long
do I need to wait before I wantto do something.
But I agree with you, what yousaid earlier, you can't make
money until you get the SA.
(35:12):
So for those operators that havenot had a chance to really look
at the strategy and how they'regoing to do it.
Maybe you don't do the entirenetwork.
Maybe you do it in pockets whereyou have money or, you know,
you're going to make money.
And that's certainly an areawhere private 5g wireless is low
hanging fruit because it's onprem.
You don't have to go to thecloud.
(35:33):
You put the core there, youcould have a completely essay,
and now you have an ability toadd and 5g had promised our many
years ago.
Marc Pous (35:44):
Um, it's a really hard question.
I think we are going to see.
I don't know, more, maybeinnovations, more tangible
innovations on thin cards,right?
All the, uh, I see in whatever,I think that's going to be
relevant next year.
I think this multipleconnectivity is at the same time
(36:05):
available on IoT devices ormaybe on mobile phones.
Like it's working on, um.
On, on 4g, 5g, whatever.
But if it is, there is no goingto be, it worked with satellite
communication for specificthings.
I hope that this is going tohappen and hopefully we are
going to see like successful usecases or success stories or
(36:26):
profitable business cases forAI, uh, in telecommunications,
uh, ecosystem hopefully.
And I hope that all of these,uh, I don't know, I have mixed
feelings about all of thegeopolitical thing.
So I hope that, yeah, I don'tknow, something crazy happens
that makes the world run again.
(36:49):
Hopefully peacefully.
Yeah, in that regard, maybe, youknow, the theme for next year,
because we might be looking at amobile industry that's
bifurcated or even becomingincreasingly fragmented.
Um, a good thing might be, andthis might be aspirational at
(37:10):
that point, global first.
Because mobile is supposed tobe, all the energy that's been
put into the mobile industry.
And the standards, 3GPP, andeverything that we've been
trying to do is to have a globalstandard, right?
A global industry.
And now that's become, comeunder
Earl Lum (37:29):
threat.
And so I think that, that notionof global is, how do you define
global?
Is it global without China?
Or is it global with China?
No,
we're, we're talking aboutglobal with China, right?
Wow.
Well, we, well, you know, come on.
Talk about, yeah.
Realism is that, well, that's aglobal without China.
(37:54):
From a manufacturing and supplychain and everything else, uh,
there's going to be two numbersthat everyone looks at from a
market perspective.
One where you actually get tosell and participate in China,
and one where you don't.
That is the reality today, andit's been that way for a while.
Okay.
Yeah.
And, um, you know, you mentionedeSIM and a lot of these, um,
(38:18):
cross network technologies,network APIs.
That was a big thing for me thisyear.
And a shout out to Ericsson forinviting me out to speak.
Eric, hopefully you recoveredfrom your experience having a
one on one conversation with me.
I'm
talking to Leonard.
Yeah.
Unscripted.
(38:38):
Unscripted.
You know how I am.
I'm unscripted.
We're, this is all unscripted.
We have, we had no idea whatwe're going to talk about.
But of course, all of this islike golden stuff, right?
Yeah, it's stuff that only thestuff that matters folks.
But, um, I think that's aninteresting domain to look at.
And, you know, that coulddovetail really well into this
(39:01):
idea of global first.
And like you said, is it a, isit a Um, global with China or
without China or without theUnited States now, or with the
United States, because, youknow, I think there's going to
be sort of the semi neutral zoneand then you're going to have
(39:22):
the United States and China andhow you transfer transfer, you
know, verse these geopoliticaldomains could be really
important.
And I think network API's,especially with, uh, You know,
these exchanges are, I think,are going to become trust
brokers because communication,that's how we, it's essential
(39:43):
for society, economy, andsomething else that doesn't come
to mind at the moment.
Can you help me out here?
No, no.
Okay.
Marc Pous (39:52):
But maybe that makes sense, right?
You have two profiles on yoursystem of communication, no?
Yeah.
U.
S.
and the rest of the world, orChina and the rest of the world,
right?
Right, right.
Three,
Earl Lum (40:03):
China, by itself, U.
S., and then the rest of theworld.
Marc Pous (40:07):
Oh, yeah?
You predict that?
Earl Lum (40:09):
I don't know, but I know that, uh, if you haven't If
you have accepted the realitythat there is this split market
there, then you're probably aChinese supplier supplying into
China because the rest of us whoaren't supplying into China have
already accepted that.
Marc Pous (40:31):
I mean, for people who have never been in China, so
I mean, going to nowadays, not2025, if you go to China to big
city, even a city that you neverlisten about it.
And then you go to the U.
S.
I think China, it's maybe 50years advance, right to the U.
S.
Can you, can you, could youplease confirm that?
Don't don't tell that to anAmerican.
(40:51):
No, no, no, no, no.
I accept the innovation and thetechnology that they have.
It's maybe because they.
They jumped, so they didn't gothrough all the steps, exactly.
They leapfrogged.
So that's easy.
I mean, that's easy,
Earl Lum (41:04):
but the leapfrogging also is dependent on the
foundation that the governmentis supporting all of the
innovation and backingeverything and actually enabling
it all to be deployed.
And it's not just a completelyprivate capital.
Marc Pous (41:20):
No, no, I'm not a pro China or against the U.
S.
or whatever.
But I
Earl Lum (41:25):
think you will see, you will always see things in
the Chinese market that will notport and export out to other
regions and other countriesbecause of the fact that It's
his own market.
And the clearest example of thatis the look at how the emerging
airspace industry in terms ofunder 1000 feet or under several
(41:47):
thousand feet, where you havedrones that are doing delivery
services and all these otherthings, uh, where it's being
managed by the mobile operators.
And now we have to look at howdo we air traffic control all of
these drone technologies thatare out there to actually
enable, uh, a financial revenuestream to be emerging that will
(42:12):
be unlikely seen in otherregions around the world.
Absolutely.
And, you know, I think speakingof leapfrog, that's why the
European Union in particularreally needs to consider the
future of its competitiveness.
Marc Pous (42:27):
Huh?
More bureaucracy?
No.
Oh, okay.
No, no.
More
leadership.
More leadership, decisiveness,commitment, because, you know,
what China has done is whatSouth Korea did, what Japan did
in.
Basically taking thatopportunity to, um, advance in
(42:48):
leading edge technologies,committing to that, deploying
it, and then leapfrogging ahead.
And China is doing that now, andthat It presents a significant
competitive threat
in Europe.
In Europe, we have been so naivewith China.
(43:09):
We thought that China were onlymanufacturing cheaper clothes or
cheaper shoes, but then theydiscover now how to make
technology and how to now how tomake software, how to make
expensive cars.
Then all in record time.
Yeah.
And all this technology thatEurope, we thought that we were
the best doing.
(43:29):
Yeah, we discovered that wecannot, Mercedes cannot sell
expensive cars to China anymorebecause they want their
expensive electric cars insteadof the German cars.
So yeah, we are just waking uprealizing that yeah, we need to,
that we are in front of a hugechallenge.
Yeah.
Um,
(43:49):
and yeah.
Let's see.
Yeah, and, and, you know, fixthat, the worst response is to
hate
Yeah.
Hate on somebody because they,they played you better.
They played the game better thanyou did.
We've ne I I, I've never seenanybody win and the blame the
other guy.
Game.
It's all about focusing on youand what your priorities are.
(44:12):
And that's, you know, I don'tthink there are any excuses.
And so all of you who thinkthat, you know, China have never
been, you don't know China,right?
And you never been.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh no, no.
I hear some of the mostantiquated notions about China.
(44:33):
They don't innovate.
They only steal.
They only, it's like, look guys,they used to maybe, well, you
know, arguably they might stilldo some of that, of course, but
the fact of the matter is, isthey've gone beyond the Western
state of art and that's notstealing.
That's called innovating and thedelusion.
(44:56):
It can be your enemy and beingable to really motivate your,
your economy, your society andcompeting and, and like we
always say, you know, hype isdelusion.
Yeah, this is a similar type ofthing.
It's you know, um, just holdingon to certain types of
(45:17):
antiquated stereotypes This isalso another form of delusion,
right?
Yeah, don't be Cleopatra thequeen of denial Okay on that
note Hey everyone.
Thanks for tuning in again.
If you've made it this far Youare like the zero 0.
(45:38):
001 percent of like, you're inthe 15th
Sigma category.
I
mean,
write Cleopatra in the comments, please.
Earl Lum (45:48):
Hashtag Cleopatra.
Yeah.
If you've made it this far, thenwe'll know.
Then we'll know you hit.
The magic word
we're going to do a session on Baker is
we'll give you a free one hourconsultation.
Uh, free.
Yeah, absolutely.
Free.
So, you know what?
Uh, thanks, uh, for watching.
(46:08):
Remember to like, share.
Share your comments, subscribe,but most importantly, share your
perspective.
We really appreciate it.
And remember to subscribe to theNextCurve Rethink podcast at
www.
next curve.
com.
We're on YouTube and Buzzsprout.
(46:28):
Also, make sure that you followthe IoT giant over here, Mark
Post.
Just bug him on LinkedIn.
And then of course, uh, theillustrious and quite gritty
and, you know, friggingsarcastic as hell.
Yeah.
(46:49):
Uh, Earl Lum at EJL wireless atEJL wireless.
com.
He made it really easy and we'llsee you next year.
Okay.
Remember, we are only about thestuff that matters.
Take care.
Bye.
And I'll see you next time.
Hey everybody, how's it going?
This is Leonard Lee, ExecutiveAnalyst at NextCurve.
And, uh, we are here at arestaurant called Fonda Jeppa,
which is muy delicioso.
Delicioso.
Right?
Right?
This is a very, very specialepisode of the NextCurve Rethink
(00:33):
Podcast.
And, um, this is going to becomea Annual tradition, every single
time we come to MWC, we're gonnahave a nice dinner, right?
And we're gonna have some nicewine.
See, this is beautiful wine, bythe way.
(00:53):
Not AI wine, eh?
As they say in Spain.
Yeah, he just took the trashout, so don't mind him.
It happens.
It happens.
Okay.
We're trying to keep this allnatural organic because we're
going to have a natural andorganic conversation about.
(01:15):
The world Congress.
Marvel or Congress, right?
And so we're.
Errol and I have been here sinceSaturday, and, um, it's been a
crazy week.
It's always a crazy week, right?
I don't even think we need tosay this next year, because you
can all assume it was just acrazy week.
So, anyways, I'm here with my cohost for this annual MWC recap.
(01:43):
2025.
Barcelona, right?
Not Barcelona, Barcelona.
And we have Mark Post, and Ipronounced it correctly this
time.
Last time, I didn't.
I discovered how to pronouncehis name, and he was very happy,
(02:06):
and I'm very happy that hedidn't crush me because, you
know, he is very big.
And then I'm here also Burl Lumof EJL Wireless.
He is the master of the antenna,the radio, and the DU, right?
(02:28):
And so, any of you folks outthere that want to know When are
the radios going to come back,right?
Earl Lum (02:37):
When are the antennas going to
come back?
When are the antennas going tocome back?
You're going to call him.
And if you want to learn why theantenna matters, you're going to
call him.
So, let's get started,gentlemen.
Marc Pous (02:53):
So No, I'm worried.
The antennas are going to comeback.
Why?
Sure,
Earl Lum (02:58):
they never run away.
So, so,
Marc Pous (02:59):
so, so we didn't, no, no
Earl Lum (03:02):
kidding.
You will be wearing a colanderon your head to protect you from
the electromagnetic waves.
Yeah,
so, um, hey, what did you thinkabout this year's event?
I think
there was some surprising, uh, observations
regarding booth sizes.
(03:22):
Regarding some major countries,I mean companies, that had
downsized their booths.
And I think there was obviouslythis whole, uh, the two letters
of AAN I plastered in every hallfrom number 1 all the way to
number 8.
1.
And at the end of the day, Ithink a lot of the companies
(03:45):
that were there, at least theones that I saw, Uh, feel pretty
good about where they're goingto be, uh, in 2025 and beyond
because they make hardware.
I don't know about the othercompanies that are not making
hardware, but at least the onesthat I talk to, and where
they're focused on right now,uh, things are starting to look
(04:06):
good and better from where theywere maybe a year ago or two.
Oh,
okay.
Well, they're kind of looking Itwas kind of looking kind of Rim,
right?
It was.
Okay.
So I think things have bottledout
and now we're at a point where, as we look at this
next phase, before we get to 5Gadvance, before we get to
(04:30):
whatever 6G will be, how do wecontinue to upgrade the network,
add more capacity, etc.
Awesome.
So what about you Mark?
Yeah, AI was everywhere.
It was too much for me.
Kind of disgusting, it'sdisgusting the word that you
would use to describe it.
Marc Pous (04:50):
And then we were, you know, we were mentioning, you
know, the mix of smart and AI inthe same sentence.
I mean, it's too much.
Smarter AI.
No, no, but I
thought we made this clear,Mark.
There is incredibly dumb AI,okay?
You do AI wrong, it's incrediblystupid.
Yeah.
And it causes a lot of problems,right?
(05:10):
The, the, the thing is, is itstill an ai, right?
So, yeah, no, or not, maybe not,but, well, from a marketing
perspective, I think it was a,
but now I have very clear, so we have been now
through these hype from iot totoday, so I have very clear that
AI will be the same.
And in the future, in noquestion, five, 10 years, AI
(05:31):
will disappear from thevocabulary.
Yes, IMT disappear, right?
Um, it's not disappearing, notdisappearing, but Tesla doesn't
say that it's an
IOT car, right?
Well, yeah, because what, whathave, what have we been saying?
What have I been saying forseven years?
Stop talking about IOT.
It's all about value.
(05:51):
It's about the application.
Understand that it's an aspectof a business solution, right?
And you know, the irony is thatI say that all the time.
I know it's like frigging hard,right?
It's not an easy thing to do.
That's why, you know, on IOTcoffee talk, IOT stars, you
know, it's something that wealways talk about because that's
something that we try to promotewithin the IOT community, but we
(06:15):
also know that how difficult itis for companies that are simply
doing hardware or they're justfocused on the connectivity and,
you know, um, but.
I think, you know, quitehonestly, I'll tell you
something.
I think there's going to be abit of a resurgence of IoT in
the coming future because Ithink You know, one of the
(06:38):
things that you really good atget a good impression of is the
fact that, um, like AI and tovery, to be very specific, not
generative
AI,
the ML stuff, you know, themore, um, uh, what do you call
it?
Classical type machine learning,the things that people have been
(07:01):
working on forever in theembedded world, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That, that's going to become,um, that's going to become more
powerful, number one, closer tothe edge, closer to the sensor.
And I think that's going tocreate some new opportunities.
And you know, it's all aboutperception.
(07:21):
You know, who is it that saidRemember, Oh, no, it was
somebody on stage that says, um,what's that?
Yeah.
He said, IOT is about collectingdata.
Yes.
Sensors and collecting data.
It's as easy as that.
Right.
And, you know, of course we haveto give a lot of credit to the
(07:42):
godfather of IOT, Rob Tiffany.
Where are you?
Where are you?
How can you know what I can'tunderstand is how IDC can hold
that guy back from being here.
It's ridiculous.
IDC, you must unleash theTiffany every MWC.
(08:05):
But, um, anyways.
Okay.
So what did you think about?
AI.
AI RAN.
Let's talk about AI RAN becausethat's about as relevant as AI
is to Earl Lum of EJL Wireless.
Earl Lum (08:17):
The AI IN RAN or the AI 4 RAN, and certainly the AI 4
RAN, not the number 4, but F OR.
Yeah.
I think a more realistic approach to look at
what could be done with the RANinstead of having a three letter
(08:39):
acronym beginning with theletter G and ending in U, that
is going to be an edge macrosite and that is going to
consume kilowatts of power thatthe site does not have.
So, the potential incrementalbenefits.
of saving money, not makingmoney for AI in RAN, uh, has to
(09:06):
be really considered.
I think everyone under, everyoneunderstands how AI saves money,
improves efficiency, uh, and allof that.
But making money is a completelydifferent story that I, I think
there is no tangible.
Evidence of how that could bedone at this point.
And I think that's like aconsistent message that we heard
(09:27):
across the board.
And it's one of the questions Iwas asking.
Or, you know, it's not even aquestion I was asking.
I was You know, well, no, it wasa question, sorry.
I have to ask a question to getan answer, right?
Well, consistently
Unless you ask yourself.
Yeah, yeah.
(09:48):
It's late.
Like I said last year, we workedhard for you to bring these
insights, you know, and how manysteps did you put in?
One day I put in 13, 000 and 55, which is about 3.
37 miles.
And that was the day Iunfortunately had to go near
Hall 8, which I regretted.
(10:10):
Yeah.
Well, you know, as they say inAmerican, holy moly.
That's like, that's a bad man.
Yeah.
Holy moly.
A robin.
Yeah.
I mean, they, they speakAmerican.
So, um.
They speak English.
No, they speak American.
Yeah.
Um, so yeah, the, themonetization piece is this thing
(10:34):
that everyone claims is revenue.
Nobody knows.
No one.
Right, but if it knows about saving money,
you can do it.
Saving money, right.
But one of the things that'squite evident, and it's the,
it's the design decision thatRAN engineers have to make is
(10:54):
figuring out, as they look atAI, how do you balance the
benefits with the cost ofintelligence?
Like what you're saying, right?
And does it need to be Analyze in real time, or Once
every hour, once a day, what isit that you're trying to look at
(11:17):
that is causing a problem inyour network?
Yeah.
It could be a cluster of cells, it could be a few
issues with the actual PCI codesand the other things that are in
the network.
Maybe a bunch of things.
So the question is, is what doyou want this thing to be
looking for in this pool of datathat's been collected across the
network to find and improvespecific tangible functions?
(11:42):
You know what?
I discovered just now that Ispeak a hell of a lot better
after a couple of glasses ofwine.
Isn't that strange?
Marc Pous (11:51):
It is for you.
Yeah, but you drank more than acouple, so what happened after
that?
It
was
the mix of the white and
the red.
Oh,
maybe.
You know that Don't out
me like that ever again,
okay?
But, you know, in computerscience there is as well a
theory that if you There is aspecific moment of drinking
alcohol that you program Youwrite code better.
Earl Lum (12:15):
You're in the zone.
Marc Pous (12:16):
Exactly, but you don't need to drink more.
Because then
Earl Lum (12:20):
you're out of the
Marc Pous (12:20):
zone.
Earl Lum (12:21):
Exactly.
Marc Pous (12:21):
Really?
I don't remember the name ofthat theory, but yeah, maybe you
are
in
the
zone.
It's called the scaling law oflogarithmic exponential coding
efficiency, right?
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't either.
Well, I'm
Earl Lum (12:40):
a hardware
guy.
Anyway.
Uh, so yeah, that, that, that,that, that's one of the big
realities.
I don't think, um, the hype hasfactored that in and, you know,
like my, my, you know,Impression of this year's event
was this, just like at AWS reinvent there's this huge layer
(13:02):
of marketing nonsense AI stuff,generative AI, okay, that is
super unsubstantial.
That hides a lot of really goodstuff.
Like, well, I went to the AWSbooth this year, and when I was
at reInvent, it was so hard toobserve their, their solutions
(13:29):
that they, you know, thepractical stuff.
Because they had to overlay somuch, like, generative AI junk,
narrative junk on top of it.
This, you know, here, At MWC,they took some of that stuff off
and you can actually see whatthey were talking about.
You know, like the stuff that'sreally gonna benefit the
operator.
(13:50):
So like, one of the things thatthey, they were getting really
excited about was were, um,these knowledge graphs that you
created, network, and you know,they call it digital twin.
I don't really call it digitaltwins, more like, um.
It's more like a model, right?
Yeah.
So, you know that you can userun simulations on Yes.
It's hydrated by digital twin.
Like we always talk about ouriot coffee talk, but um, it can
(14:14):
give you a sense of the state,of the, the network and then you
can do an analytics andsimulation on top of it.
And, um, yeah, you could see itAnd you, and you know, the funny
thing is, is that degenerativeAI piece was just a thin veneer
of, uh, interface.
(14:35):
And quite honestly, I don'tthink that's a friggin big deal.
It's insignificant.
And I think that's what vendorshave to realize.
You know, you have to veryquickly understand the value of
a technology and how it'sapplied in a fit for purpose
way.
And the hype right now ofgenerative AI is so detached
(14:55):
from Where these things arelanding in a practical sense,
even with agentic AI, agentic AIis becoming super narrow task
level, not process level tasklevel.
And you literally have to makeit so specific that it loses the
general, this promise orexpectation that it's going to
(15:18):
be a general AI for agentic.
And so, you know what we're backto.
It's like friggin basic RPA,like what we were talking about
on IOT comedy, what I've beentalking about for two years,
it's like friggin ridiculous.
What do you think?
Am I talking too much?
No.
You're talking about stuff thatI don't care about that it has
(15:41):
that, let's just be up front.
No,
Marc Pous (15:44):
let me point something that, uh, I seen that
I had never seen before inMobile World Congress.
A lot of people talking aboutgeopolitical decisions that they
will need to take in the nearfuture.
Earl Lum (15:59):
Right.
Where is your factory located?
Where do you potentially have tomove it?
What region does it have to havean assembled in or made in
sticker with a certain countryattached to it on the carton or
on the actual label of the unititself?
All these things are becomingextremely important.
(16:19):
So is the supply chain risk forevery company now?
Is I think starting to rise tothe
Marc Pous (16:27):
top.
So that's something that I neverseen before But I mean, yeah,
maybe German companies notpreferred specific countries to
buy instead of others But I sawthat more general this year.
I don't know.
Well, yeah, I mean, you know, umWe had incidents before the week
(16:48):
started.
Yeah.
And, you know, um, you candefinitely tell that there was a
disruption in the quote unquotetrust fabric, the geopolitical
trust fabric.
And I think, um, the reaction,uh, from a lot of Europeans that
we spoke to was, um, um, prettysevere.
(17:10):
Right.
And so we'll see how that worksout.
But, yeah, definitely, um, It'sgoing to be a bit disruptive,
yeah?
Yeah, it's disruptive.
I think the response is still,the reaction is still in
process.
Earl Lum (17:28):
But it's not going to be over quickly.
It's going to have a long tail.
Yeah.
Marc Pous (17:32):
Yeah, I know.
It's a good point.
We don't know.
Yeah.
We don't know, but it's there.
It's an elephant in the room,right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But before we go any further, Iwant to thank all the engineers
and the product teams that spokewith us.
(17:53):
Um, no special appreciateappreciation for these folks
because, you know, um, you know,I'll say it again.
I CEOs and C level folks.
No offense to any of those thatI spoke to.
It's just, we get it.
(18:15):
You got to say what you got tosay, but it's, it's people who
are in the trenches, the folkswho are working the technical
details and doing the hardcoreengineering who actually know
the nuances.
They can tell you.
Yeah.
Super appreciate you guys not
Earl Lum (18:31):
having any filtering at all and seeing everything
that's on your mind.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And hold on.
We gotta do, we gotta do this.
Come on guys.
I'm really bad at this and I'm,I'm really bad at this and I'm
Korean.
I wanted
Marc Pous (18:53):
to, yeah, no, you wanted to do these.
I know.
I already did it.
So in other words, we love youguys.
All right.
Um, so what, uh, so IOT, did wecover IOT?
No, IOT stars.
Yeah.
We had 10th anniversary folks.
Yeah.
10th anniversary.
And it was, uh, an event thatstraight down with the speaker's
dinner.
I think we had like decentamount of people.
(19:16):
We had fun.
I think the content was good.
It was great.
We had like two profitable IOTcompanies on stage talking.
Well, probably more than two,right?
Probably.
Yeah.
Nordic and Mongoro and, uh,zero, I dunno, a satellite
communication company if it'sprofitable yet or not, but, but,
uh, yeah, it's something that itdidn't happen before, right?
(19:37):
Yeah.
It, it's hard to see aprofitable company, you know, in
the ID space It's, I thinkthat's, uh, that's, uh, an
interesting Yeah.
Landmark.
Well, yeah.
That there's hope.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah.
I think that the companies who,who were able to reach this
point.
It can have like a brightfeature.
(19:58):
Absolutely.
Um, I'm really happy that, yeah.
I, I'm sad that I couldn't makeit happen with my company, but
yeah, it's, it's cool that theiot, it's getting in.
No, it's, it's, it's just afeature on, on a lot of products
now.
Okay.
Yeah.
And, and you know, like whatyou're saying, I mean, it's, you
know, these hype cycles.
(20:19):
More than scaling laws of, youknow, generative AI ridiculous
computing, uh, is much more alaw.
Then any of these likehypothetical, you know, uh,
convenience based, uh, scalinglaws.
Right.
And we're seeing them likedecompose very quickly.
And um, and, and, you know,honestly, this is why we're
(20:41):
analysts.
This is why Mark is whatever thehell you are.
What are you?
You're not an analyst.
I'm the developer.
Yeah.
He's the IOT giant.
The reason why we do this isbecause, you know, when you, you
go up this proverbial hump ofnonsense, yeah, sure, you're
excited, right?
(21:01):
Of course.
And you think that, yeah, right,bright and shiny, all this,
you're in love, right?
You're in love.
And everyone has their littleAmoy, Kumbaya, you know, uh,
until you discover the crazy.
And then reality hits you veryquickly.
(21:24):
And then.
Yeah, I mean, it, it becomes adire situation pretty quickly,
right?
Should happen soon.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's why it's so much,it's important to be grounded
constantly.
And you know, the, it'sinteresting in my observation,
(21:46):
the people who are grounded arevery much the minority.
Yeah.
Here's
what we were telling, uh, we were talking before about
four years from now.
No.
Yes.
Did you see all of this startedwhen I was saying me as a
startup, I prefer to be sellingright instead of talking with
and pitching in front of
Earl Lum (22:05):
and spending money to have a kiosk or a pod or
whatever, all eight and 8.
1.
Marc Pous (22:14):
Yeah.
No, 8.
0, which is even worse.
Did you go to 8.
0?
It was, uh, you had to godownstairs.
I don't go to 8.
8.
Earl Lum (22:24):
X I don't go to, unless I'm leaving the FIRA.
Marc Pous (22:28):
No, I was surprised at that 8.
0.
So you had to go downstairs.
Uh, it was, there were a lot ofpeople.
So they put their healthcompanies and I don't know what
else.
Oh, the wearables and
Earl Lum (22:39):
everything?
Marc Pous (22:39):
Or.
Uh, it was the startups, but atleast I met a friend who has a
health startup and she wasthere.
Uh, I don't know what else,something else was there, but
it's, it's interesting that theydid the categorization as well.
So people could focus on, itwas, there were a lot of people
on Wednesday.
So I was surprised because eightzero, it's like, you never go,
(23:02):
you never go to eight zero.
No, there were a lot of peoplethere.
There were a lot of people eventoday.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so Yeah, you know what?
Uh, let's let's talk about whatwe talked about last year that I
mean, I think we were likepretty on hip From our chat last
year, talking to the Mirror, ifyou recall, and, uh, and, uh, di
(23:28):
Yeah.
Or that's not how it's spelled,but I guess that's how you, the
gar of Yeah, the dus.
Yeah.
Wine.
Wine.
Yeah.
So what we, we, we, we talkedabout the, the open ran squid
game.
Right?
How'd that go, by the way?
Earl Lum (23:42):
Um, well, for those people that are still alive and
in the game, I think they are.
Uh, they're waiting to find outif they're going to sink to the
bottom of the Marianas Trench.
Yeah.
Or, uh, are they going tosurvive?
And if they do survive, are theygoing to find land, but it'll be
(24:04):
a deserted island?
Or they find land in thiscivilization again?
Yeah, so I think there's a lotof radio companies, there's a
lot of small cell companies,there's a lot of companies that
are trying to still do private5G in whatever way, shape or
form.
And then we have the, uh, thehopes and dreams that Vodafone
(24:26):
will save them or, uh, someother major operator here in
Europe that will believe thatthere is a time and a place for
Open RAN to be employed acrosstheir networks.
Okay, cool.
Uh, yes, um, OpenSquid GameSeason 1 is over.
(24:48):
And we're looking forward toSeason 2.
And it should be just asdramatic if not.
Season 2 could have some characters that die.
Oh my
gosh.
That didn't die during theseason 1.
Pearl is Mean.
Marc Pous (25:09):
Anyway.
This is what we talk about, IOTcompanies, right?
Yeah, and it's, this is what'sgoing to happen in the three
seasons of with AI companies,
right?
Yeah.
So that's why you have to watchIOT coffee talk.
We get ridiculous and silly, butthere is, there is sarcasm is a
(25:31):
distilling force, you know, andan outcome of sarcasm is a bit
of truth.
Yeah.
So, oh, the other thing.
Last year, MWC was about futurefirsts.
Remember what we said aboutfuture firsts?
You know, before you worry aboutthe future, aspire to the
(25:52):
future, frigging deal with thepresent and all the challenges
that we have in the present.
And, you know, like one of thethings I want to tell our
audiences, this is that thereason why you look to the
future is because you eitherdon't know how to deal with the
present.
Or you don't know, um, you, youdon't want to deal with the
(26:13):
president or you don't know howto deal with the president or
both.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
That's the only reason problemsolvers, innovators know how to
figure out how to get from pointa, which is the present to the
next step innovation.
It doesn't get you to X unlessyou have a series of innovations
(26:35):
to get to that, you know,horizon.
And that is the big problem withthis industry, right?
Is we have a bunch of peoplegoing around floating metaverse,
blockchain, gen AI, agentic,blah, blah, blah.
Without focusing on what reallyneeds, what's essential for the
industry today.
(26:56):
And I think one of the positivethings that we saw, at least on
the stage, is they put AI as asub bullet on the presentation.
And they talked about moregrounded things, like more, like
reasonable priorities about howto move the ball, get European
operators in the European telcoindustry, um, you know, better
(27:21):
poised to move forward,especially with 5G.
So, you know, the priority is 5GSA.
Once you do that, you canunleash a lot of capabilities
that are pent up right now.
And that's been my big message,um, this year.
And, um, that, and so it doesfrustrate me that we still have
(27:44):
these folks going out, literallyundermining, undermining the
industry by constantly feeding.
The industry with distractinghype, and we see the
consequences of it constantlyand, you know, Hopefully the
audience and you guys that arelistening to this Reject that
(28:04):
stuff or at the least if you'rein it start asking tough
questions because some of thesepeople who are pumping the hype
They are not doing the industrya favor and there's tons of
evidence for it And if you wantevidence just watch our show
Because we call it, we call itevery year.
It's like, and this is notrocket science, it's just a
(28:27):
matter of asking the question,essential questions.
You should, you should beasking,
this is one of the best advices I heard this year.
So I think, yeah, if you arewatching this, yeah.
Oh yeah.
If you are watching this andyeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Don't get into this rabbit holeof trusting people selling you
the hype.
Yeah.
Cause the only reason why theydo that is because they're not,
(28:50):
they're not innovators.
They're not problem solvers.
They pretend to, or they, they are not.
Yeah.
I tell people all the time, Ican imagine the craziest stuff.
I can come up with the mostoutrageous, semi technology
based, you know, fantasies.
It's easy.
What's, what's the name of this tale?
(29:10):
Like the king is naked, no, orno, that, uh, that some people,
yeah, try to sell like a dress.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah.
This is the translation that wehave here.
That's
close enough.
King of snakes.
Yes.
Okay.
So yeah, yeah, yeah.
AI is hard.
It's not easy.
It's not magic.
(29:31):
You know, people who have beenworking with it, they know this
already, you know, and so thesefolks that go around making
technology like an easy thing,you know, they're distracting
the industry from funding thingsthat are important that get you
to the next step.
And I, so hopefully this year,um, the industry, especially
(29:55):
Europe.
It's starting to look at what dowe need to really practically do
to get to the next step.
And, you know, I noticed this,it was only the Chinese that
came in into the keynotesessions with like outrageous
AI, you know, stories and hype.
Messages.
And, uh,
what was the motto this year of Mobile World
(30:16):
Congress?
You know?
Oh, it's, uh, something likefeel the power of connectivity
or something?
Yes.
Connectivity.
Experience the power of connectivity.
That sounds to 2010, right?
That's
good.
Yeah, maybe.
No, it is good.
They want like a stable, uh,technology that, that it's a
reality today, right?
(30:37):
Exactly.
Today.
Yeah, that's the future ofconnecting what you were telling
and
GSMA you, uh, you, you probablysaw our video.
No doubt.
You guys saw our video last yearand they said, Hmm, these guys
might be onto something, but.
Look so we're not haters, right?
No, we love the fact that youguys brought connectivity back
(31:01):
to the center of theConversation because that's the
important thing.
We are missing the exactly whatwe said last for the two years
We've been saying that right asyou know Metaverse the metaverse
nonsense was playing out andthen now it got hijacked by
generative AI You know, and allyou're doing with those
investments is discovering thatthese pipes are not what they're
(31:24):
cracked up to be.
And what a waste of time, right?
And so congratulations forgetting back to connectivity.
Earl Lum (31:30):
A waste of a lot of money, not just the time.
It's the money, and it's notyour money that you wasted.
You wasted an investor's money,and they're not going to be
happy.
And they're not going to giveyou more money.
So, I think that's just like,maybe, maybe, but unlikely.
(31:53):
I guess the thing is, from myperspective, what I saw.
I want people out there toremember this phrase that the
antenna is the most importantelement of a mobile network.
Without
it, you don't have a network.
You don't have anycommunication.
You don't have any connectivity.
(32:14):
So respect the antenna.
Respect
Marc Pous (32:18):
the antenna.
And I always have thisdiscussion with engineering
firms that when they design ahardware, like an IT device.
Antenna is the last thing to putinto the schematics.
Right.
Earl Lum (32:29):
It's not that little upside down triangle with a
little line that goes to thereceiver.
Marc Pous (32:34):
UFL connector.
Earl Lum (32:35):
Yeah.
Right.
Marc Pous (32:37):
Come on guys.
Yeah, so let's give a littleshout out to our friends at
Ignion, right?
Yeah.
Yop and his crew over there.
Yeah.
Doing some cool.
Yeah.
They focus on the
antenna, right?
Indeed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, super interesting softwareas well to help companies to, to
design the right antennas fortheir hardware.
Uh, on the other hand, it's,it's good to have seen them
(33:00):
growing in the IOT stars becausethis year they didn't, they
didn't talk, but we were innegotiations about them on IOT
stars because in, afterpandemics, they presented like
the idea of.
Uh, of these antenna that canwork in multiple technologies,
uh, then, uh, two years afterthey presented, uh, like
(33:21):
probably there will be a massiveproject with massive amount of
devices with our antennas.
And this year they arepresenting, you know, their,
their project with like, uh, Ithink last December they, they
saw like 8 million of antennasjust for one project.
That's awesome.
So it's congratulations guys succeeding.
(33:44):
Yeah,
yeah.
Yeah.
So I think it's time for us toconsider wrapping up because our
audience is getting bored andthey have a what?
15 second attention span.
So if you've made it this far,you are part of a statistically
insignificant of course, you arethe most significant group of
(34:13):
people, but statistically.
You are the most unlikely tohave made it this far, but yeah,
let's your what do you think isgoing to happen next through the
course of this year that's goingto shape where MWC 2025 should
be because we don't know whatGSMA is thinking, who knows,
(34:34):
there may be quantum nonsensethat starts, which is already
brewing up.
So people early warning, ignorethat crap.
Okay.
Okay.
Don't even waste your time.
Focus on connectivity and GSMA,don't play that game.
What do you think?
Earl Lum (34:51):
I think that uh, if we look at All throughout this
year, there's going to be a lotof speculation on timing, the
money that's going to beinvolved in 5G advance, how long
do I need to wait before I wantto do something.
But I agree with you, what yousaid earlier, you can't make
money until you get the SA.
(35:12):
So for those operators that havenot had a chance to really look
at the strategy and how they'regoing to do it.
Maybe you don't do the entirenetwork.
Maybe you do it in pockets whereyou have money or, you know,
you're going to make money.
And that's certainly an areawhere private 5g wireless is low
hanging fruit because it's onprem.
You don't have to go to thecloud.
(35:33):
You put the core there, youcould have a completely essay,
and now you have an ability toadd and 5g had promised our many
years ago.
Marc Pous (35:44):
Um, it's a really hard question.
I think we are going to see.
I don't know, more, maybeinnovations, more tangible
innovations on thin cards,right?
All the, uh, I see in whatever,I think that's going to be
relevant next year.
I think this multipleconnectivity is at the same time
(36:05):
available on IoT devices ormaybe on mobile phones.
Like it's working on, um.
On, on 4g, 5g, whatever.
But if it is, there is no goingto be, it worked with satellite
communication for specificthings.
I hope that this is going tohappen and hopefully we are
going to see like successful usecases or success stories or
(36:26):
profitable business cases forAI, uh, in telecommunications,
uh, ecosystem hopefully.
And I hope that all of these,uh, I don't know, I have mixed
feelings about all of thegeopolitical thing.
So I hope that, yeah, I don'tknow, something crazy happens
that makes the world run again.
(36:49):
Hopefully peacefully.
Yeah, in that regard, maybe, youknow, the theme for next year,
because we might be looking at amobile industry that's
bifurcated or even becomingincreasingly fragmented.
Um, a good thing might be, andthis might be aspirational at
(37:10):
that point, global first.
Because mobile is supposed tobe, all the energy that's been
put into the mobile industry.
And the standards, 3GPP, andeverything that we've been
trying to do is to have a globalstandard, right?
A global industry.
And now that's become, comeunder
Earl Lum (37:29):
threat.
And so I think that, that notionof global is, how do you define
global?
Is it global without China?
Or is it global with China?
No,
we're, we're talking aboutglobal with China, right?
Wow.
Well, we, well, you know, come on.
Talk about, yeah.
Realism is that, well, that's aglobal without China.
(37:54):
From a manufacturing and supplychain and everything else, uh,
there's going to be two numbersthat everyone looks at from a
market perspective.
One where you actually get tosell and participate in China,
and one where you don't.
That is the reality today, andit's been that way for a while.
Okay.
Yeah.
And, um, you know, you mentionedeSIM and a lot of these, um,
(38:18):
cross network technologies,network APIs.
That was a big thing for me thisyear.
And a shout out to Ericsson forinviting me out to speak.
Eric, hopefully you recoveredfrom your experience having a
one on one conversation with me.
I'm
talking to Leonard.
Yeah.
Unscripted.
(38:38):
Unscripted.
You know how I am.
I'm unscripted.
We're, this is all unscripted.
We have, we had no idea whatwe're going to talk about.
But of course, all of this islike golden stuff, right?
Yeah, it's stuff that only thestuff that matters folks.
But, um, I think that's aninteresting domain to look at.
And, you know, that coulddovetail really well into this
(39:01):
idea of global first.
And like you said, is it a, isit a Um, global with China or
without China or without theUnited States now, or with the
United States, because, youknow, I think there's going to
be sort of the semi neutral zoneand then you're going to have
(39:22):
the United States and China andhow you transfer transfer, you
know, verse these geopoliticaldomains could be really
important.
And I think network API's,especially with, uh, You know,
these exchanges are, I think,are going to become trust
brokers because communication,that's how we, it's essential
(39:43):
for society, economy, andsomething else that doesn't come
to mind at the moment.
Can you help me out here?
No, no.
Okay.
Marc Pous (39:52):
But maybe that makes sense, right?
You have two profiles on yoursystem of communication, no?
Yeah.
U.
S.
and the rest of the world, orChina and the rest of the world,
right?
Right, right.
Three,
Earl Lum (40:03):
China, by itself, U.
S., and then the rest of theworld.
Marc Pous (40:07):
Oh, yeah?
You predict that?
Earl Lum (40:09):
I don't know, but I know that, uh, if you haven't If
you have accepted the realitythat there is this split market
there, then you're probably aChinese supplier supplying into
China because the rest of us whoaren't supplying into China have
already accepted that.
Marc Pous (40:31):
I mean, for people who have never been in China, so
I mean, going to nowadays, not2025, if you go to China to big
city, even a city that you neverlisten about it.
And then you go to the U.
S.
I think China, it's maybe 50years advance, right to the U.
S.
Can you, can you, could youplease confirm that?
Don't don't tell that to anAmerican.
(40:51):
No, no, no, no, no.
I accept the innovation and thetechnology that they have.
It's maybe because they.
They jumped, so they didn't gothrough all the steps, exactly.
They leapfrogged.
So that's easy.
I mean, that's easy,
Earl Lum (41:04):
but the leapfrogging also is dependent on the
foundation that the governmentis supporting all of the
innovation and backingeverything and actually enabling
it all to be deployed.
And it's not just a completelyprivate capital.
Marc Pous (41:20):
No, no, I'm not a pro China or against the U.
S.
or whatever.
But I
Earl Lum (41:25):
think you will see, you will always see things in
the Chinese market that will notport and export out to other
regions and other countriesbecause of the fact that It's
his own market.
And the clearest example of thatis the look at how the emerging
airspace industry in terms ofunder 1000 feet or under several
(41:47):
thousand feet, where you havedrones that are doing delivery
services and all these otherthings, uh, where it's being
managed by the mobile operators.
And now we have to look at howdo we air traffic control all of
these drone technologies thatare out there to actually
enable, uh, a financial revenuestream to be emerging that will
(42:12):
be unlikely seen in otherregions around the world.
Absolutely.
And, you know, I think speakingof leapfrog, that's why the
European Union in particularreally needs to consider the
future of its competitiveness.
Marc Pous (42:27):
Huh?
More bureaucracy?
No.
Oh, okay.
No, no.
More
leadership.
More leadership, decisiveness,commitment, because, you know,
what China has done is whatSouth Korea did, what Japan did
in.
Basically taking thatopportunity to, um, advance in
(42:48):
leading edge technologies,committing to that, deploying
it, and then leapfrogging ahead.
And China is doing that now, andthat It presents a significant
competitive threat
in Europe.
In Europe, we have been so naivewith China.
(43:09):
We thought that China were onlymanufacturing cheaper clothes or
cheaper shoes, but then theydiscover now how to make
technology and how to now how tomake software, how to make
expensive cars.
Then all in record time.
Yeah.
And all this technology thatEurope, we thought that we were
the best doing.
(43:29):
Yeah, we discovered that wecannot, Mercedes cannot sell
expensive cars to China anymorebecause they want their
expensive electric cars insteadof the German cars.
So yeah, we are just waking uprealizing that yeah, we need to,
that we are in front of a hugechallenge.
Yeah.
Um,
(43:49):
and yeah.
Let's see.
Yeah, and, and, you know, fixthat, the worst response is to
hate
Yeah.
Hate on somebody because they,they played you better.
They played the game better thanyou did.
We've ne I I, I've never seenanybody win and the blame the
other guy.
Game.
It's all about focusing on youand what your priorities are.
(44:12):
And that's, you know, I don'tthink there are any excuses.
And so all of you who thinkthat, you know, China have never
been, you don't know China,right?
And you never been.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh no, no.
I hear some of the mostantiquated notions about China.
(44:33):
They don't innovate.
They only steal.
They only, it's like, look guys,they used to maybe, well, you
know, arguably they might stilldo some of that, of course, but
the fact of the matter is, isthey've gone beyond the Western
state of art and that's notstealing.
That's called innovating and thedelusion.
(44:56):
It can be your enemy and beingable to really motivate your,
your economy, your society andcompeting and, and like we
always say, you know, hype isdelusion.
Yeah, this is a similar type ofthing.
It's you know, um, just holdingon to certain types of
(45:17):
antiquated stereotypes This isalso another form of delusion,
right?
Yeah, don't be Cleopatra thequeen of denial Okay on that
note Hey everyone.
Thanks for tuning in again.
If you've made it this far Youare like the zero 0.
(45:38):
001 percent of like, you're inthe 15th
Sigma category.
I
mean,
write Cleopatra in the comments, please.
Earl Lum (45:48):
Hashtag Cleopatra.
Yeah.
If you've made it this far, thenwe'll know.
Then we'll know you hit.
The magic word
we're going to do a session on Baker is
we'll give you a free one hourconsultation.
Uh, free.
Yeah, absolutely.
Free.
So, you know what?
Uh, thanks, uh, for watching.
(46:08):
Remember to like, share.
Share your comments, subscribe,but most importantly, share your
perspective.
We really appreciate it.
And remember to subscribe to theNextCurve Rethink podcast at
www.
next curve.
com.
We're on YouTube and Buzzsprout.
(46:28):
Also, make sure that you followthe IoT giant over here, Mark
Post.
Just bug him on LinkedIn.
And then of course, uh, theillustrious and quite gritty
and, you know, friggingsarcastic as hell.
Yeah.
(46:49):
Uh, Earl Lum at EJL wireless atEJL wireless.
com.
He made it really easy and we'llsee you next year.
Okay.
Remember, we are only about thestuff that matters.
Take care.
Bye.
And I'll see you next time.
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