 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Community Matters and we're talking about PTC, which is the Pacific Telecommunications Council doing its annual Pacific Telecommunications Conference, which has been doing in Hawaii. It's a Hawaii organization, a high tech organization, a high tech communications organization, doing its thing for more than 40 years here largely in the Hilton Hawaiian Village and attracting business and academics involving telecommunications from all over the world. They come, they want to meet, they want to learn, they want to be part of this community that Hawaii has established. So PTC is an admirable organization. It has great legs and legacy and it's got to deal with COVID. That's why Gary Kim is here with us. He's a member of the Board of Governors. He's been a presenter. He's part of the industry. He's been involved in several organizations over the years and he's here to tell us about PTC 2021. Hi Gary, thanks for coming around. Hi Jay, how are you? I'm good, but I'm suffering over the news, you know, every day the news. And PS, the news is delivered really by telecommunications. Our world is driven by telecommunications. It would not be the same if one day we didn't have this. It would be the ghost of Christmas future and we'd be really sad, all of us. So you guys are very important in our lives. So I guess the first question I want to ask, and we should go into PTC in general, but the first question I want to ask is, you know, what is the status of technology these days as far as PTC is concerned? How far advanced are we? How global are we? What kind of technology are we relying on to provide broadband to the world? Well, as you probably are hearing everywhere, people are talking about 5G, the new mobile network, primarily because it offers sort of 10 times to 100 times faster speeds than we're used to. It'll allow us to actually substitute wireless networks in some cases for fiber optic connections, which is a real big change. Obviously, cloud computing continues to be the backbone of the industry. Now we're hearing about edge computing, which is ways to decentralize computing literally within kilometers or a few miles of any user's location, which again is going to allow us to do things with 5G lower latency that we actually can't do now when we have to ship bits across the world, across the continent or between the US and Europe. Well, you know, my recollection, my understanding is imperfect, of course, but my recollection is that at the outset, PTC was interested in telecommunications and it was a limited kind of look at things. It was about cables, undersea cables, hither and yon, and the technology of the PTC really hadn't even caught up yet. And now we have a different affair. You guys are bonded, married, if you will, to all the technology that's coming down the pike on software, hardware. You are part and parcel of what I consider a revolution of technology. It can't exist without you and you can't exist without them. When you go to PTC, you'll learn that in the first five minutes to see the people there. Am I right about that? No, absolutely. It's everything's about computing these days, the networks, the devices, the applications, the use cases. In fact, I can't remember what year it was, but I do remember sitting around in a small room planning the agenda and the content for the next PTC and we actually asked ourselves whether we wanted to talk about voice anymore and the conclusion was no, we didn't want to talk about it. Our customers don't want to talk about it. The carriers don't want to talk about it. It's just not the future, so everything that we do now is basically data and applications. Yeah, and if there is voice, it's voice over IP. Sure, it's just another application and as long as you get there, you can do the voice. Yeah, and for a time, in my observation, there was a kind of debate going on between undersea cable and satellites and satellites were all the rage or a lot of experts in satellites and that would be the way that you would convey signal to various remote areas in the world. And to the extent that the technology reached the satellite devices, you could get pretty good at a pretty reasonable rate. You could get satellite connection in the middle of the Sahara. However, it seems to me that PTC and the industry around PTC has returned to a focus more purely involved in undersea cable. Am I right about that? Well, it's a complicated answer because we have a tendency as technology types to think, look, there's one answer which solves all problems and works for all use cases in telecom. Usually, that is always wrong. I mean, fiber and undersea cables are the predominant way that we move bits around the globe. No question. It's going to continue to be that way. No question. They're just the biggest fattest pipes that we've got. On the other hand, satellite still has many advantages because there are things like moving vehicles, ships on the ocean, cargo ships, which can't be reached using fiber optic cables. So satellite does have a role. The satellite guys are actually also thinking they're going to have a role in Internet of Things, for example, because there will be lots of applications where things are moving around in very rural areas where you just, number one, aren't connected. And secondly, the ground infrastructure may not support it. So satellite's still important. It'll still be there though you're absolutely right. Most of the bits around the world now depend on those undersea cables and the fiber optics. You know, I'm thinking of something that I became aware of maybe 10 or 15 years ago was, namely, it was putting a device in a container on a container ship. And this device would be important for security. And I want to ask you about that. But it would also be important for inventory. And so the shipping company or the shippers would be able to tell where that container was anywhere in the world because it was communicating with a satellite, as you say, that's the only way. And as a result, the security of what was in the container would be enhanced. And likewise, the risk of loss of the container would be improved. So that there's an application, seems to me, that should have been global. And I suppose you're going to tell me it is global, is it? It's there. And it's getting bigger every day. I mean, the growth rates for people putting sensors on devices are just astounding. I mean, it's double digit growth, no matter where you look. So it's definitely coming. Now, the other thing that's interesting is you mentioned shipping containers. One of the things we are now using shipping containers for is a drop on the edge of the network data centers, full blown data centers with racks of computers in a self contained powered by solar, you know, cool, they're on the spot. And if you can get connected to a five block big cable, that's great. But there may be places where you will military applications, for example, you may drop one of these containers onto a battlefield, communicate by satellite. And so the shipping containers now become mobile data centers. It's very interesting the things we can now do in terms of putting servers and computing capacity exactly where we need them and the amounts that we need them in nontraditional ways. It's pretty interesting stuff. Yeah, and you only hope the content that flows over that is responsible content. I'm not sure about that. But let's talk about security. Of course, we're concerned with security of the information that's being sent and received. We're concerned about security of the equipment itself. And I wonder what the and I assume that is in the marriage, because if you have software and hardware and telecom, you know, capability, you've got to have security. So what's what's the status of security on telecom in the world today? Never as good as we want it. The reason for that is there there are attacks on the network, which you can actually do without actually doing much to an undersea cable at the bottom of the ocean. You can literally put a device in the sensor on the outside of the cable and actually intercept some of the bits flowing. Now, if they're encrypted, all you know is you've got bits flowing. You don't know what the stuff is. Then of course, at the application layer, there are all kinds of threats to applications. And that means the in house ones that telecom operators use to run their networks, as well as all the other applications that flow over the top. So it's cat and mouse game. The hackers do one thing, then we respond, they do something else, then we respond. I mean, just daily, it's never ending. It can't stop because there'll be new threats every day. Yeah, I was seeing that from Russia especially. So let me let me ask what is, you know, you've been in a number of companies. And I suppose that drove you originally to PTC. Can you talk about your own career and tell us your specialty or specialties more likely the case? Well, I started out more than 30 years ago as a telecom journalist. And I specifically wanted to cover the business of telecom. It just called me crazy. It's what I like. So I've been doing that. And then along the way, you discover that you like being a writer more than a business manager. And I've been both, I've been a salesperson and all that. Those things just don't float my boat. So one day I decided, well, I'm going to have to do content creation because that's what I really got into the business to do. And one of the reasons that I switched from actually being a journalist to an analyst is it's one of the few ways you can continue to use your brain and write and interact with the industry and still make a living. So basically, I became a researcher and an analyst more than a journalist. And you learn a lot that way. You learn a lot of technology for sure. Absolutely. So what kinds of companies have you been associated with over the years? Well, the weird thing about being a consultant, almost every large telecom in the world and now it seems most small ones make you sign a nondisclosure agreement that says, amongst other things, you can never tell anyone you work for us. So and I've done so many of these. I don't remember which ones I've signed and copies of them. I just assume I can't tell you that because I don't know whether I'm under NDA or not. What a wonderful answer to my question. Well, it's just one of the realities to do in business. I mean, people just, they don't even want you to tell anybody that you've done work for them. So as a rule, I have worked with competitive carriers, upstarts, startups, cable companies, attacking telcos, more than tier one telcos defending themselves from attack. I mean, that I can say. Well, let's let's turn to PTC because you've been involved on the board of governors for some time and you've had, you know, participation in development of policy and of course the annual conference in Hawaii. And I want to know what it's like to be on the board of governors. I want to know what it's like to look at the mission, you know, and to evolve, you know, the activities of PTC. Yeah, so actually I'm on the chairperson of the advisory council rather than being a member of the board of governors. And as you can imagine, the difference is advisory council, we do lots of things in terms of program development and providing advice. The board of governors, as its name suggests, really has financial and fiduciary control over everything that PTC does. Where we spend money, how we raise money, who gets hired at a high level, who doesn't, programs that we want to stop doing, programs we want to launch, that sort of thing. And it's been really challenging this past year. A sort of liking PTC to a small restaurant independently owned. And the government says you have to stop serving food in your restaurant. And oh, by the way, you guys can't even do takeout. We'll let you put your food into a push cart and sell it on the street corner somewhere. I mean, that's the sort of financial impact that the pandemic has had and that the board of governors has had to deal with. So their problems are magnified by the fact that the conference itself is our single largest revenue driver. Everything else that we do in terms of revenue does not match the conference. If we lose the conference, basically we lose the entire organization. So it's been a really, really hairy and challenging year. Yeah, your answer does point out that telecom is subject to regulation everywhere, perhaps as much or more than other areas of tech. And you've got to deal with regulation in everything you do. And gee whiz, that's a burden to start with because you have different regulations emanating from different governments and government organizations and so forth. But going to the conference itself, I've been there a number of times. I've videoed a number of your conferences. I've enjoyed dealing with Jason O'Rourke, who put me in touch with you. Shout out to Jason O'Rourke, of course. And I'm interested in kind of, it's not only that it's your biggest revenue source, but the quality, the experience of being there. I'd like to discuss that with you. There are virtually hundreds or thousands of exhibitors and they all pay for a booth, I suppose. And they bring their wares. A lot of them are selling high-tech and telecommunications. There are people who come from all over the world to rub shoulders and schmooze and exchange business cards. It is a marketplace of people, ideas, and high-tech. What is it to you? Well, it's interesting you bring that up. I just wanted to make a couple of observations for those of your viewers who are literally in the islands as residents. Because this conference, which is about three and a half to four days per year, has really extraordinary economic impact on the local economy. I'll give you a couple of examples and these are not official PTC comments. They're mine personally because I play with Excel spreadsheets. But normally in a given year, over a three and a half day period, the Hilton itself, just the Hilton, is going to book three and a half million dollars from the conference. If you use a 1.5 multiplier, which is what the Bank of Hawaii uses for the impact of tourism in the local economy, that runs the actual economic value of those four days up to 8.75 million dollars. Now, that only covers the people who are physically staying on the Hilton property. That's 1200 people. There are 7,600 human beings who are also at the conference. And if you assume that each of those people spending 1500 bucks, which actually is pretty low for a business-to-business conference, they're going to be spending an additional 11.4 million dollars, which at a 1.5 multiplier is an astounding 28 million dollars. So that some total over four days the economic contribution locally is more than 37 million dollars. And that's using a consumer multiplier. I can run those numbers using the business-to-business conference multiplier, which is 2.6, and it'll blow your mind. Absolutely blow your mind. And again, not official PTC numbers. I understand that we're doing a formal economic study of this. In fact, I think tourism department's doing that. But it's a huge, huge local driver of revenue for locals. It really is. That is very impressive. I'm so glad you mentioned that because I wanted to know about that. And the other thing is if you walk the floors at PTC, you can see a lot of local Hawaii companies, startup companies, companies in tech of all kinds of tech and telecom. They're there. They have a place too. So you have a certain, what do you call it, a commercial exchange, an economic exchange with the local economy. And of course, we have wanted to build that sector in the local economy since the days of John Burns. And you help us realize that. So that's a tremendous contribution to hopefully the diversification of Hawaii's economy, just to have a platform for those companies. One of the things we started doing just last year, and of course, this year with the all-virtual format we've got, it won't have the same meaning. But my expectation is that going forward, we have a part of the conference physical location called the hub. And it's where exhibitors are. And we have sessions that are running. What we decided to do last year is open those up to the general public so that you don't have to register for PTC. You can come right into that main hub area. You can see all the exhibits and you can hear content most hours of the working day. And that's all free for the general public. And again, the idea is to try to open up what we're doing to locals to share that the knowledge we've got with them without having them have to pay a registration fee for something that may be a tertiary interest, at least immediately. Yeah, that's a great idea. Because over the years, PTC has been like a best kept secret. And we have to make sure the public knows about it. Not only on the technical and content side, but on the economic side and the contributions of the economy. So to let people in will show them, does show them a lot. So now here we are, and it's February, actually January 10th, January 10th, 2010. And all of a sudden, there's COVID. And there are rumors that COVID is coming to Hawaii. You had a bit of a scare, as I recall, at the conference last year by some fellow who did have COVID came was coming from China. But he never, he never actually got here, as I recall. So it was only a scare. That would have been a bad thing if that happened at the January 10th conference. But since then, of course, we've seen, you know, grow to a pandemic. And it certainly has affected everything since January 10. And I wonder if you could describe, you know, your analysis and the evolution of your of our conference over the last several months and, and how that affects you, you know, between conferences and how certainly how that affects you in the conference now coming. Yeah, so one of the things about PTC that most people generally do not understand is if you look at the registrants, the people who are going to the sessions and so forth, that number might be 2000 people or so. There are actually 8000 people physically doing something at the conference. So what we do is actually sort of the tip of the iceberg is the sessions for fifths of the actual activities, people that are in Hawaii to make deals, the barter bandwidth, to create deals that they want to finalize and sign contracts on in June. And January and Hawaii happens to be a great place as people love coming. They can basically outline what their objectives are for the year, where they need bandwidth, where they don't data center connections that they may need new routes, new partners, that sort of thing, start the discussions in January and then sign the contracts in June. So it's actually a really important conference for the industry. Yeah, and I've just a footnote to that. My experience going to various PTC conferences has been that you find people there from every country, every kind of company, every language, and they are friendly and warm, looking for connection. It is just to walk the halls is a joy because you see this positive camaraderie in the industry and in science and technology is all there. You know, for my money, it is the best of all the conferences that come here, even conferences that are arguably bigger. This is the one that has roots everywhere and has relevance everywhere. So anyway, there you have that experience. And presumably some of those deals that were made last January have ripened over the summer, even in the face of COVID. But it gets pretty threatening when you have another one scheduled for this January for essentially right now a year later. And I'm sure there was a meeting of the Board of Governors and the Advisory Council where somebody said, wait a minute, what are we going to do? What happened? Well, basically we decided for the first time in our history, in more than 40 years, to do a virtual conference so that there literally won't be human beings coming to Honolulu to meet. We'll be doing that using Zoom and other video conferencing services. And that's okay for the conference part of it. But as I mentioned earlier, the people who are registered to actually attend sessions might be less than 2,000 people out of the 8,800 or so that are actually going to be there. Most of the people that are coming are actually not wanting people to necessarily know they're there all the time. They're buying and they're selling and they're doing things in Sweets in the Hilton and other hotels all over the city. And that's really the economic impact of it. It's not just the people who are registered to be in the session rooms, whereas all the other financial activities happening outside those meeting rooms. So what happens to the presenters this year? What happens to the people who participate? What happens to the general public who shared, you shared the content with last year? I mean, how is this going to work? Give me a praise C on what the experiences will be by the various participants. Well, basically we are not going to have the ability to host a physical meeting for safety reasons and health reasons as everyone could guess. So we'll be doing both taped and live Zoom presentations during the conference. The rates for the conference have been dramatically reduced all across the board because obviously it's a product which is quite different than what we're used to. A lot of the sort of trading activities that normally go on will have to move somewhere else because that just can't happen in this sort of restrictive venue. So we'll survive it but it is not ideal. Everyone's looking forward to us getting our vaccines and our health certificates and opening back up because it's just not any way this crowd likes to do business. It's very, very face-to-face. It's human relationships. It's not just that aloha thing. It's people need to meet face-to-face when they're 80 different countries represented, hundreds of companies, and it's a chance for people to really get to know each other face-to-face which is you just got to do that. Yeah, but on the other hand, a footnote to that is your developing systems. You and I suppose a number of Zoom and video contractors developing systems that will be useful later on even after the vaccine takes hold, even after the world arguably soon returns to normal. And that means that some of these systems will continue, I guess, in the way PTC does business going forward. I mean, for example, for people who can't make it. For example, for speakers who for some reason are not available here in Honolulu, gee whiz, you could have them appear from anywhere, anytime and that would be glorious because it would expand your ability to get content. Yeah, absolutely. And we're expecting greater use of Zoom and other forms of, you know, virtual interactions going forward. But I actually would probably emphasize that the people meeting people face-to-face is really the guts of what makes this conference so special. People are just, they look forward to it every year. They get to meet people that they've done business with virtually. And you just have to have the person-to-person relationships. It's a starter point thing. Yeah. Maybe a repeat starter point thing where they, you know, in order to make a deal involving a lot of money, at some point you have to look deeply into his or her eyes and have a human trust relationship to make that agreement. Yeah, exactly. And you really need that. Although later on you can follow up by remote. Later on when the deal signed, everything gets to Zoom. So if I'm, say, an exhibitor or a member of the public or a speaker and I want to ask you about the speaker experience, what happens? I go on the website ptc.org and I participate. What is that experience like? What do I have to do, you know, for my part in putting this together? A lot of it in terms of the user experience comes from the energy that you're willing to put into it. We have special interest groups that are meeting all over the place all four days that are communications attorneys, women in communications. We've got Pacific Islanders who meet separately because they have concerns that are very, very specific to them. And we try as much as possible to accommodate all sorts of special interests out there. The submarine cable guys are a big part of the community and they have real interest in terms of the number of new cables that are going up, the bandwidth that's going to be available, when the cables are going to be active and when can we sign up and who else wants to join with us. And oh, by the way, if we do that, then there's this new group that we've never been able to get access to that we think we can get to now. So there's a lot of that going on as well. It strikes me also that, you know, business is diplomacy. Business is business diplomacy or maybe better style citizen diplomacy. So when you have these people from these 80 countries coming around, some of those countries may have issues on a diplomatic level, but on a business level, it's different. And on a social level, it's different. And they are, you know, contributing a connection, if you will, between various countries and making life better in terms of diplomatic relations around the world. Yeah, all these guys are business people and they just want to do business. And politics are there. No question about it. I mean, telecom is a political business and it probably worse today than it was 15 years ago. But that's just a barrier you have to surmount. And the people though are great. Yeah, I agree. I've met and talked with a lot of them and I agree with that completely. They're a joy. So I guess I'm interested in what you're doing. I'm sure there's going to be meetings at least Zoom meetings of the management, so to speak. But there'll also be opportunities for you to speak. And you've spoken at various PTC conferences in the past. What's your role this time? Actually, this year, what I'll be doing is moderating, which is something that actually I find harder than speaking. Because you don't have any way of preparing in advance. You don't know what your panelists are going to be saying other than where's the general topic we're going to cover. And you have to listen very carefully and then formulate questions very quickly. And then once they start talking with each other, you just go with the flow of what's happening. I mean, you just can't plan that stuff. So you need to be flexible. And that's what we do. Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with that experience. The other thing is, okay, so now there are going to be people who still want to make deals, even though they're not going to be pressing the flesh or having a cocktail or a meal together, they're not going to be able to do that. But they still want to make deals. Business requires deals. And that's no place other than communications. Is that so very clear? And so how are they going to be able to do that? And so you have speeches, you have panel programs, you have various kinds of you know, group presentations, one kind or another. And you probably have vendors who are trying to sell their wares, because that's always the case. So I assume the PTC virtual would have that too. But what about making deals? Are they going to have little rooms? I mean, virtual rooms, where people can get together, you know, and make offers and acceptances? How are you going to handle that? We will, as I understand it, have the capability for people to go into the private chat rooms and talk about things. Probably what will happen is what's been happening for the last 12 months or nearly 12 months now. And that is just a lot more human effort. Instead of going to one place where you can start meetings at 7am and work to 7pm, literally one after the other in a meeting room, you've got the schedule Zoom conference. And sometimes with people you've never met before, so you have to do all of that long distance flirtation. So everything is just taking longer. I mean, guys that normally don't spend all day on Zoom, they're spending all day on Zoom. Because it's just harder to create those personal relationships that are so much part of the capacity agreements that people are trying to get. And you have to make a platform for them. You have to facilitate all of that, which is more than just saying go have a meeting on Zoom. You've got to do the data around it and introduce them and tell them where and when. This is a lot of logistics, Zoom type of logistics. So if I want to be involved, I guess it's too late to set up myself as a speaker. But if I want to be involved, I want to come around and at least view some of these panels and symposia or these large, I remember you talking about the public forum that you had last year, there were thousands of people in there. It was very valuable. It was as big as any kind of tech conference I've ever seen. And so the question is, how do I get in to see that? I assume I go to ptc.org. That'd be a good start. But what happens? And how do I do that? And was it cost me? We've never seen prices this low. And the reason for that, of course, is the experience has got to be scaled back. It's going to be online only. So that human touch part, which is really such a big part of the conference, we simply can't replicate that online. The session content will be there. As you mentioned, go to the website and you can sign up. Prices will probably never be this low again. For many reasons, we hope so. And finally, when is it exactly? What days? When should I plan to make a trip to ptc.org? Well, I recommend that you sign up now and we'll be holding the conference as the website. We'll tell you middle of January as we always do. And frankly, for us, it's a test. We actually don't know how much of what we're doing now will continue on in the future. Everything that we learn will be evaluated as we go forward. Hopefully by next January, we won't have to deal with this as our only platform. You'll probably see us move towards some sort of hybrid platform, totally online for people who really can't physically make the trip. But most of the, you know, I mentioned there were like almost 9000 people who came last year. I would say at least 7000 of those people, there are business reasons for them to be face to face. And Zoom just isn't going to cut it for the kinds of deals that they want to do. So that'll probably be there in person. And we'll do as much of the enriched online experiences we can. And we just don't know the answers yet, how the mix is going to change. Yeah, you don't mind if I make a prediction, do you? I'd like to make a prediction. Go ahead, sure. Okay, my prediction is you're going to learn a lot about this, how to do Zoom for a large conference like this. And you're going to make it as palatable, as facilitated as possible for everybody involved. And when the smoke clears on COVID, yes, you will have a, you know, person to person conference again, because that's your bread and butter obviously. But you'll also have a lot of people who will connect with Zoom. So whatever you had in the past, Gary, you're going to have more in the future. That's my prediction. Reasonable enough. I think we'd agree with you about that. Thank you so much, Gary Kim of Pacific Health Communications Conference and Council. It's been great to have you on the show. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Shari. Aloha.