 What do you see as a digital hub for Europe and where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well Europe. I mean first of all, this capacity Europe in Europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions Particularly Africa and Middle East that are quite dependent on Europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included We're also you also have this you know massive connection with North America a lot of it through the United States to interconnect all the huge facilities in Europe So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year was about 35% only 35% if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41% so still at that Moore's law kind of doubling every year type of growth So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with the global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean they're doing a couple things they have some of their their biggest facilities are in Europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that, but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will go to other regions But some of those will continue to serve out of Europe. So you have all the connectivity Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those and moving to some other ones as well So lots of things going on your center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions so network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course Jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at Capacity Europe on a panel that's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier and of course you'll be enjoy You will be joined by executives from equinex uber, Deutsche telecom talk talk wholesale service Palo Alto innovation advisors. So quite the lineup of thought leaders there Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways you may think will come from this panel? Absolutely as you know that there are many in the industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in in their region were their footprint, right? But is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network and what's the benefit, you know from having Someone like uber on the panel That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right and saying hey We are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us, you know, what does it matter? Why does it matter and what is important for you to build that would attract us to come? to consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of SLA? You know a quality of service or what are the drivers the motivation for us and what are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network But lastly, you know what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone into? Hello everyone welcome back to the and JSA podcast where we're talking about the latest stories trends and innovations live here from Capacity Europe 2023 we're in beautiful London. It is actually a very beautiful day today. It's nice day. Yeah. Yeah, not bad So I came here With the beautiful sunset behind there was no rain. So you really can't complain so we as we are starting off the day here with one of the leaders in Connectivity and digital infrastructure We've got Edison Smith global VP of sales for ConnectBase with us today. Welcome Edison. Good morning. Thank you for having me Yeah, good morning. So we will go ahead and jump right in you right you all at ConnectBase Launch some really exciting news yesterday morning So if you want to just give us a quick intro into that news and people can find out more on the website But just to get them excited about it. Yeah, absolutely. So We've actually been offering this product on our platform for quite some time in the US But it hasn't been available outside that market. So our US customers have been benefiting from it for a while This is the first global market that we've launched in so what it is is it's our plan and prospect tool So ConnectBase provides a lot of location-based insights for the connectivity industry and what we're doing with this tool Is we've actually loaded Tendency data. So this is commercial companies across the UK and Ireland and we've loaded that into our industry leading location platform and now what it allows customers to do is to use this as a Planning tool for building fiber routes. So you can look at what's my ROI going to be based on estimated telco spend in an area You can also use it for customer targeting So I could put in a UK business like you know waitrose or whatever it is And it will show me every location that they have around the UK And it will also tell me where my network as a service provider Intersects with those buildings so I can see are they a good fit for my footprint Do I cover most of their locations and get them good price or not? So from a targeting Tool for you for your team's prospecting. It's a it's a game changer I mean no one else is doing this in the market and our intention is to continue to roll this out across other countries around the world But UK and Ireland was the first excellent. Yeah, that's super innovative I mean you can always look to ConnectBase to stay on top of the market when it comes to helping buyers and sellers in the ConnectBase industry. Yeah, we like to we like to stay ahead of stuff and do some cool things. Yeah, it's good. Awesome Okay, so so you have been heading up Mia sales at ConnectBase for about six months now Yeah, so it's been quite a busy time since then I'm wondering what's now that you you really know the the market, you know You've been in the industry for quite a while before that even so And you've been you know like so with ConnectBase for six months So what do you feel like is the number one challenge that ConnectBase is solving specifically in a Mia for customers? Yeah So yeah, I joined in May. I spent 15 years in APAC in the Tokyo industry and then five years in in a Mia in Europe And I joined ConnectBase in May actually a week before ITW and I went to ITW and did 35 company pitches You know, it's like a company that makes computers or a computer that makes companies I don't know a week into the job, but but so the challenges in a Mia It's it's interesting that these are actually global challenges, right? The the cool thing for us is that the problems we solve exist everywhere Which is actually a bad thing for the industry, right? and the challenge is that there's a lot of Local knowledge here in the industry, right? If you look at just the UK I was at another conference, you know a couple weeks ago That was around the connectivity Industry in the UK and I'm walking around and there's companies there that have spent millions of dollars building fiber assets I've never heard of and so global buyers just don't understand local markets And that's a real problem if you're a service provider and you're trying to be found. That's our that's our hashtag And so what we're doing for a Mia customers The same thing that we're doing for global customers is we're giving them the ability to promote their capabilities To show the world where they can provide services and you know and at what price and really tap into that global Wholesale buying community and expand their reach right and it's very difficult to do if you're not on a digital platform, right? Yeah, yeah, that's that's really interesting I feel like it falls in line with a lot of the themes we've been hearing during other JSA TV interviews and just around at the conference like the Important importance of ecosystem as an industry and the power of partnership and how we all kind of have to work together in some way In order to meet the incredible demand that we're all faced with absolutely And I think the the challenge is the like the industry knows this right? We know we need to digitize We know we need to you know transact better and collaborate better and and people are trying to do that They're building, you know APIs and their own portals and it's etc But again to your point if everyone's doing things in a silo then your customers You know buyers still have to log into 16 portals or but or build to 18 different APIs and it's just it's still fragmented It's just digitally fragmented Whereas when you when you bring on an ecosystem a combined marketplace or an ecosystem like connect base You bring together everyone it's the same reason that financial exchanges aren't fragmented You want to trade on the nasdaq you got to connect to the nasdaq, right? I mean, it's a it's a centralized exchange And that's what we're building for the connectivity industry, right? If you if you keep everyone separate then you lose that benefit But if you bring people together it can collaborate that can transact and and you know it makes life easier for everyone, right? Yeah, I love that analogy. Yeah, everybody can understand that for sure. I make sense, right? Yeah, and so you had mentioned when you started back in May right before itw, which sounds like A week into the job. Yeah To get thrown into and also around that time I mean, we were we were announcing the last mile exchange, you know acquisition So connect base acquired London base. So this is very relevant for the show LMX So could you talk a little bit about that and really how it's helped connect base customers? Yeah. Yeah, for sure So yeah, so LMX. I mean last mile exchange or LMX as we call them They had built the most powerful digital procurement platform, you know in in Europe, right? anything outside of the US and connect base had the most powerful platform in the US, right? And connect based customers historically mostly US based And LMX was Europe and a little bit of a pack as well So bringing these two platforms together again, it comes back to this ecosystem, right? You know, there was a lot of conversations obviously about it And you know, we kind of realized that the platforms are better together, right? We bring together these two marketplaces. So the benefit for connect bases existing customers being US Is that they now have access to all these european providers that weren't previously on the connected world, which is our platform And for last mile exchange, we're bringing in a whole bunch of new functionality Like the plan and prospect tool we just launched for the uk which they didn't do So we're bringing in all this new functionality for their customers, right? And bringing in additional, you know tools that they can use And again, it just comes back to that whole concept of We need to bring everyone in the industry globally together onto one ecosystem And then allow them to make the decisions on who they buy from who they sell to how they transact, right? But if we keep people fragmented and separate, you know, it just doesn't work So the LMX acquisition was great. The team we the team's all on board with us now Everyone's working really well together And you know, we're super excited to to be partnering with them and and working with them as one company. So Excellent. Well, obviously connect base very fast fast growing companies. So definitely your space to watch And connect base.com Absolutely Yeah, yeah, and be found hashtag be found. That's right. Keep an eye on that for linkedin and twitter Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much. This was an incredible first interview for the day to kick us off Thank you for having me. It's great to be here and good luck for the rest of the conference. Have fun Thank you so much. Same to you and to all of our viewers. Thank you so much for hanging out with us here at JSA TV. Happy networking What do you see as a digital hub for europe? And where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well, Europe. I mean, first of all, this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just, you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this, you know, massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still let that Moore's law kind of doubling every year Type of growth. So that's a lot of growth. Uh, and that aligns pretty well with the global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean, they're doing a couple things they have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will go to other regions But some of those will continue sir out of europe. So you have all the connectivity Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on at europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoy you'll be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsche telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors. So Quite the lineup of thought leaders there Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways you may think will come from this panel? Absolutely as you know that there are many in the industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region were their footprint, right? But is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network And what's the benefit, you know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right in saying, hey We are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us? You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter and what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service or What are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network But lastly, you know what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone Into the platform where A fully automated session can happen across the world. So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because it's If it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it fully automated, it's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? That this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are yeah, they're well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean, I mean you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know basic You know inventory management and service delivery, but in this business That can be really hard to do and to be fair That's hard to do because some of these networks are sort of have legacies extended by Alexander Graham Bell I mean, there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage And then you want to try and modernize all that while taking all that with you So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly you know in parts of this business where you know There's not a lot of margin to provide some basic connectivity services You'd like to do that as efficiently and as as automated as possible But as if the technical challenges weren't hard enough You also have all the commercial arrangements that you have to bring along with that You know everybody wants to be special and get the best deal And you know this is capacity Europe. It's a big part of what goes on there is is So can you automate, you know a protracted negotiation for connectivity and extend that as Jezebel was alluding to across networks across borders And assure that you know service from end to end and these aren't new issues You know, this is a big deal, but automation can certainly be a big part of that And we're hinting about it. So let's go ahead and talk about it Jezebel Let's talk a bit about interoperability How do network operators ensure those network advancements across country borders And through partner network interfaces Well, there's lots of different types of interoperability as networks We've always had interoperability because you have to be able to pass Packets from one place to another, right? So The technologies already exist on the physical layer. We do pack packets easily But when it comes to interoperability Eric said it well Beyond technology, there's a ton of complexities, right? There's commercial relationships There's software if you're actually doing automation, how are you moving packets in the software layer from one place to another? You need to have some sort of standardization translation To be able to move to speak everybody have to speak the same language To be able to move the things from one place to another and to have a ubiquitous environment and Beyond the technology right beyond the software technologies of the infrastructure technology And the software technology. There's also the business terms, right? We need to align the business terms for the different service providers So that their customer who used to be consuming service in a particular fashion can continue to consume that service in a particular fashion, but in a different area where The network that they're working with does not have current coverage No network can have global ubiquitous coverage in their own network There's just not enough capital to invest in that. So all of the networks really need to work together and collaborate to bring a ubiquitous smooth and pleasant experience to the enterprise customer base And that is what the enterprise customers are looking for That's right. So right well said. All right. So Eric with everything we just discussed How do you see the service mix evolving? Well, there's you know, there's a lot of different services kind of up and down the the value chain And we we covered a good portion of that you can start at the very at the very core I mean again, it's a big wholesale event So you're always going to have your bread and butter transport and transit services And I guess you know part of what's going on there. They're they're getting you're less granular You know 10 g is becoming 100 g 100 g is becoming 400 g and then in some really big time transactions You've got more fractions of a five of entire fiber or even building up new fiber But then you go the other way down the value chain We're on the enterprise side or or, you know, this whole wholesale ecosystem again And the java was alluding to of, you know, you have maybe 80% of the customers locations you can service with your own network But nobody has a ubiquitous network that other 20% or whatever it is you have to go elsewhere To with partner networks to achieve that and a lot of the way that works now by default is with, you know kind of a vpn and using local access from some other carrier and And kind of terminating the vpn service on a partner network But that's no longer the default option with new technologies that are available that there's more internet involved And in some cases even private lines, you know for you know, say for for example directly to cloud providers Are in the mix as well So that service mix is is really evolving and it creates some really interesting opportunities For automation and and I guess expedited delivery of those services since these you know vpn defaults You know are are no longer well the vpns are no longer the default option. You know, so we have some The markets kind of influx, you know with those choices, but But you still have that fundamental, you know Need to to partner with other networks So it'll be really interesting to see how that involves as the service mix involves as the as a technology available changes and Yeah to ultimately accomplish the same goal which is to interconnect all the end users seamlessly over global network Yeah, absolutely. We all need each other That is definitely one of the core messages here and one of the reasons why capacity europe is happening at a very critical time What do you see as a digital hub for europe? And where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well europe, I mean first of all this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included, but also you also have this massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that moor's law kind of doubling every year Type of growth. So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean they're doing a couple things. They have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will go to other regions Some of those they'll continue sir out of europe. So you have all the connectivity Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on out of europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you will be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsch telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors. So Quite the lineup of thought leaders there. Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways you may think Will come from this panel Absolutely, as you know that there are many in the industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region were their footprint, right? But is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network and what's the benefit? You know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right and saying hey We are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us? You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter? And what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service or what are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network um But lastly, you know what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone into the platform where um a fully automated session Can happen across the world So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because it's If it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it fully automated, it's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? That this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are yeah, they're well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean, you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know basic You know inventory management and service delivery, but in this business That can be really hard to do and to be fair That's hard to do because some of these networks are sort of have legacies extending Alexander Graham Bell I mean there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage And then you want to try and modernize all that while taking all that with you So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly, you know in parts of this business where you know, there's not a lot of margin to Provide some basic connectivity services You'd like to do that as efficiently as as automated as possible But as if the technical challenges weren't hard enough, you also have all the commercial arrangements that You have to bring along with that, you know Everybody wants to be special and get the best deal and you know, this is capacity Europe It's a big part of what goes on there is is so can you automate, you know a protracted negotiation? Welcome back to jsa tv and jsa podcast alive here from capacity Europe in London We are here covering the latest stories trends and innovations From leaders in the global connectivity and digital infrastructure industries I'm very excited to introduce you all to our tremendous. He's vp of sales for angola cables Welcome to jsa tv Arthur. Thank you for for inviting us. Yeah, absolutely We're so we're so happy to get the chance to chat with you all today So first of all, we heard that angola cables is actually the most interconnected operator in africa and you all are actually based in africa So could you could you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, it all started with angola from angola and with the investment of walks That is a cable that connects 11 african countries and three european countries And and we did and we thought the strategy that we made it along the side We have been ranking number three of kaida. That is one of the most important rankings And we are the only african player that is in that ranking the top 100 And that specifically says because we we did interconnect to the today the five continents Afterward, even if we started from a small african point so Because we built it the the first ever made cable in the south hemisphere by connecting Well to brazil then brazil to united states and then together with Using other cables that that that we have capacity. We are interconnecting the five continents today. Yeah, excellent Thank you for that a quick overview And so you you reached an important milestone recently You reached the highest peak of more than 12 terabits of data traffic, right? Yeah, it was it was an interesting numbers to us World wild of course then I'll say that majority of that that traffic is on our most used routes That is between brazil and united states with the money cable But of course this is all of the circuits and also the ip transit that has has a huge grow In the last times in the company. Yeah, great And also because we develop and push for a specific region in brazil that it was fortaleza That was nothing when we started and today is the second biggest city in terms of traffic in brazil After sumpalo and and with a very healthy grow and a great ecosystem that have been created there Which make us happy of course. Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah, that's incredible. Um, okay So, you know, we're talking demand. Obviously, there's a ton of demands and in august West africa actually had a quite a major outage And that created a disruption from africa to europe So, you know a big um kind of headline in the industry at the time So can you talk a little bit about how angola cables help to sort that out? Yeah, it's it's a major problem because um in the rc that is a country after angola There's the congo canyon river that is very strong. So is the second cut In the in the next in the three years in the past three years And when it cut it it cut all the cables that are passing the region So in this case was walks ace and sartre which put it in blind the dual west african Um On the south of of the rc So angola cables because we have sacks We have been able to to to devise the the traffic using sacks Connecting to brazil and then with money to united states and being able to pick it all of that traffic We also use it a kiano that is a brand new cable that was not affected that we have been able to diversify the Traffic down to south african then entering in the kiano and push it to to europe Um, so it was pretty interesting and and we see positive cases. There's the entity that is kenteek that studied the traffic patterns And and the good thing is was that a few of the Southern regions countries have been fully dependent on angola cables was the case of namibia or the rc or even congo That they maintain all of their traffic through angola cables network Which was which was great to be able to help them With the specifically with sacks. Yeah, excellent. So, so glad you all were there to help in that definite time of need Um, excellent. So it's been great to to chat with you. Archer. Thank you for joining us on jsa tv today Okay, our pleasure. Thank you. Absolutely And thank you to all of our viewers who are hanging out with us today here live from capacity europe on jsa tv today As always happy networking Thank you What do you see as a digital hub for europe? And where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well europe, I mean first of all this capacity european europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this you know massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and Canada So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent You know only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that moor's law kind of doubling every year type of growth So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with the global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean they're doing a couple things they have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will go to other regions But some of those will continue sir out of europe. So you have all the connectivity Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you will be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsch telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors So quite the lineup of thought leaders there Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways you may think will come from this panel? Absolutely as you know that there are many in the industry leaders on the panel um who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region were their footprint, right? But is there a key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network and what's the benefit You know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right? In saying hey, we are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us? You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter and what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service or what are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network But lastly, you know what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone into the platform where Um a fully automated session can happen across the world. So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because it's If it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it fully automated, it's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? Uh that this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are? Yeah, there well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean, you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know basic You know inventory management and service delivery But in this business that can be really hard to do and to be fair That's hard to do because some of these networks are sort of have legacies extending Alexander Graham Bell I mean there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage And then you want to try and modernize all that while taking all that with you So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly you know in parts of this business where you know There's not a lot of margin to provide some basic connectivity services You'd like to do that as efficiently and as as automated as possible But as if the technical challenges weren't hard enough You also have all the commercial arrangements that uh you have to bring along with that You know everybody wants to be special and get the best deal and you know This is capacity Europe. It's a big part of what goes on there is is uh So can you automate you know a protracted negotiation for connectivity and extend that as Jezebel was alluding to across networks across borders And assure that you know service from end to end and these aren't new issues You know, this is a big deal, but automation can certainly be a big part of that And we're hinting about it. So let's go ahead and talk about it Jezebel. Let's talk a bit about interoperability How do network operators ensure those network advancements across country borders and through partner network interfaces? Well, there's Lots of different types of interoperability as networks We've always had interoperability because you have to be able to pass packets from one place to another, right? So The technologies already exist on the physical layer. We do pack packets easily But when when it comes to interoperability Eric said it well beyond technology There's a ton of complexities, right? There's commercial relationships There's software if you actually Hello and welcome back to jsa tv and jsa podcasts. We're here live from capacity europe We are covering the latest stories trends and innovations in the digital infrastructure industry with leaders such as gen parkill here from barizon partner solutions She is director of strategy execution. Thank you for joining us gen great to be here. What a great opportunity Yeah, absolutely We're so excited to chat with you and we are talking about a very specific topic on this interview Which i'm really excited about we're talking about attracting more talent into the industry So um on that note, you were actually on the keynote panel yesterday talking about that very topic So could you give us just a little overview for folks who weren't able to attend? A key takeaway perhaps perfect Yeah, it was a great panel with some of my esteemed colleagues across the industry as well And I think one of the key takeaways is that we have to use data to really make sure we're identifying where the challenges are Where are the opportunities and then once we institute initiatives and actions? How do we actually then measure their success and what does that do for the industry and I think continue to do Partnerships with universities and trade programs so we can get that talent into the industry early on And then of course develop them and provide upskilling and reskilling opportunities throughout their careers is going to be key For this industry as we continue to innovate and take advantage of the opportunities the industry has in front of it as well Yeah, absolutely And so actually getting to those practical solutions that you're talking about So what is one practical solution? That's telecom companies who are watching this Can implement to support that upskilling and that uh reskilling that you're referring to yeah, that's perfect So I'm part of the global leaders forum and each year we do an annual study with all the member organizations and upskilling And reskilling came out as one of the key takeaways this year that we needed to focus on And as part of that one of the initiatives and a call to action We have for everyone is that we're going to have it like an open source library Of curriculum and material that anybody can then access and so we're asking member companies and everybody here Who's watching if you have content a curriculum that you'd be willing to share for the larger industry to leverage And obviously you would have then access to what everybody else provides You know reach out to me in linkedin and we're going to set up this library with the glf And then get it communicated and updated as time goes on So we're looking at a sort of a near term initiative to get this kicked off Excellent awesome. Well, that's perfect. Thank you so much for that quick update there and so you've been Verizon partner solutions for about a decade now and and worked for other Telecom operators previously. So you've been in the industry for for quite a while So could you talk a little bit about the shift and priorities when it comes to global wholesale telecom? Sure, I mean, it's amazing a decade goes quickly as we can all imagine And I think we've all seen across the industry the appetite from customers for self-service and automation making sure They can control the destiny of their services I think even before the pandemic but definitely with the pandemic and the hybrid or remote working Making sure we're supporting employees wherever they are with any time connectivity So I think we're seeing the shift from wire line to wireless services. I know in our space at Verizon partner solutions We're really seeing an uptake in fixed wireless access demand Iot and making sure we've got a suite of services that can then support customers wherever they're and customers are And I think we're going to see that continue in addition to enhancing the digital platforms and customer experience So they get what they need to actually activate and quote services when they need them So it's an exciting time I think we'll continue to see more use cases private networking and mech come through in the next 12 24 months where I think there's a lot of opportunity for the global wholesale industry and brides and partner solutions to meet the needs of Customers around the globe. Yeah, so I think that brings up full circle It's an exciting time to be in the industry, which is why you know, folks should Consider joining the industry if they're not or you know, re-skilling staying in the industry You know, it's just such a such a dynamic industry to be a part of Yeah, 100. Well, thanks so much for having me. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on jsa tv And thanks to all of our viewers for joining us on jsa tv. Happy networking What do you see as a digital hub for europe and where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well, Europe. I mean first of all, this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this you know massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent You know only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that moor's law kind of doubling every year Type of growth. So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean, they're doing a couple things. They have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that, but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions. Some of that they will go to other regions Some of those will continue sir out of europe. So you have all the connectivity Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on out of europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many, of course, jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you'll be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsch telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors So quite the lineup of thought leaders there. Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways you may think Will come from this panel Absolutely as you know that there are many in the industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region were their footprint, right? But is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network and what's the benefit? You know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right? In saying, hey, we are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us? You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter? And what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service or what are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network Um, but lastly, you know, what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone? Into the platform where? um A fully automated session can happen across the world So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because it's If it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it fully automated, it's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? That this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are? Yeah, they're well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean, you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know basic You know inventory management and service delivery Hello, everyone. Welcome back to jsa tv and jsa podcast We're recovering the latest stories trends and innovations in the digital infrastructure industry with leaders So i'm here with one of those such leaders with omer wilson your chief marketing officer of carbon technologies who you know are very Quite new company. You're you're just telling me you're coming up on your your one-year anniversary or birthday So, uh, so we'll we're very excited to chat with you and get the latest with what's going on So thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. Yeah, so um, let's just dive right in So, uh, could you tell us a little bit about you know, since it is such a new New company for the folks who don't know, uh, carbon yet Can you tell us a little bit about um, what you all are doing why you were founded and what your mission is? Absolutely. Yeah, great to be with you. So thanks for the opportunity carbon technologies Uh, very exciting startup singapore based Being around just coming up to a year now But really looking to transform the data center industry. So, you know, this multi-billion global digital infrastructure Industry, uh, which is driving everything a i cloud, you know, all of the revolutions we've been through Uh, but but interestingly some of the layers within the data center infrastructure is still very manual And that's where carbon's coming in. So carbon technologies is really looking at its simplest level to automate The data center and the customer interface and that's really from a Operation perspective. So really the data center about the data center So any of the ordering going on between data centers and their customers Any of the remote hand access energy usage energy data, you know, all of this data that goes between Users of data centers and the data center operators themselves. That's where carbon with its, uh, you know, automated api Layer is looking to really automate that Building incredible efficiencies and also from an energy reporting perspective really transform that in terms of getting real time critical data For customers around what energy they're using within data centers. So any of the data that goes between from a transactional perspective Carbon is looking to build that from its platform layer. Okay, excellent. Yeah, that's a great update and overview And you know, you're hitting on some of the key topics that we talked to data center operators about all the time, right? Automation energy reporting. So definitely some hot topics there So you could could you dive a little bit more into the challenges? Related to complexity cost security and observability and data center operations that you all are solving Yeah, so I mean where you know, as we said, we're sort of six months to a year coming up to the year anniversary of the company itself But the area There's a lot of areas that we we will and can focus on but it's really part of the roadmap It's going to be difficult for our size company to solve everything from day one So so the initial release which is called carbon lattice is focusing on cross connect ordering So that's an area which we immediately see especially around network providers telcos When they put their content into these large data centers across the globe The cross connect ordering process is still very manual So there's a lot of issues there around, you know reconciling bills making sure the orders are correct so really the carbon lattice automation layer is Creating huge efficiencies there on both sides, not just the telcos, but also the data center operators as well So they both have different interfaces and different api layers and you know, we're translating that between them So I think that's that that's an immediate area we're focusing on But then there's so much else as I said that comes after that. So, you know, smart hands remote hand access Shipping and inventory access in data centers And then the whole esg area, you know this idea around getting to a scenario where you can have real-time data around Your temperature your humidity, you know, what are your servers doing that day? For multiple customers between, you know, the dc operator and the customer is going to be hugely valuable Not just for customers actually but also reporting up to Governments, we're hearing that more and more. They're looking for real-time information as AI ramps up, you know What is the energy usage in in these different facilities? How efficiently are you running your your servers? So that sort of real-time data reporting is something we're going to focus on and probably the last thing to mention again around What is the the problem we're solving is also Downtime issues So you hear a lot about downtime issues and the immediate thing that jumps to mind is that it's more Redundancy needed. Well, sometimes it's actually more automation may be needed to actually know How your servers are running what sort of backups you've got in different parts of the world? We look at it Rather than an infrastructure issue more around an automation and Data issue between customers and data center operators So it's a very critical area if you think of it from that perspective, you know Actually reducing downtime by having better data around how you're running your Servers and equipment. Yeah, I love that. That's really interesting point automation and data as a Solution for for downtime Um, excellent. So is there anything else that you'd like to share about? Carvens approach to you know, the transformation of data centers really taking the data center industry into a new era, right? Yeah, I can see, you know, it's uh, it's always um And I come from a from a data center background and being in data center From the operate side and now in the startup world It's always been an industry that's very niche, you know, I've spent a lot of my last 10 years explaining What a data center is to people people are getting that even more now because it's so critical, right? but from a carbon perspective that you know, it's that idea of Looking at the operating system for a data center. I think that's where we're coming into it now from an automation perspective that as ai makes automation So intrinsic in our daily lives the data center and their customers who drive Everything around ai is within data centers that needs to become automated much more automated than it is today And people don't realize that, you know, the data is hugely automated because it's you know algorithms are automating everything But the actual infrastructure has still as many layers that are manual So it's really that building an operating system for the data center world and becoming that operating system For dc's and operators and and their customers, right? So I think if we had to sum up this conversation in one word it would probably be that a word, right automation I think that's it All right, perfect. Well, that's a great place for us to close out the conversation But this is really fascinating and you know, folks should keep an eye on your space It's you know, as you know carbon tech.io for any more information On the company. All right. Well, thank you so much. Um omer is great to chat with you today Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you and thank you to all of our viewers for hanging out with us today at capacity Europe live on jsa tv happy networking What do you see as a digital hub for europe? And where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well, Europe. I mean first of all as capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle East that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and Canada So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year was about 35 percent only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that moors law kind of doubling every year type of growth So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean they're doing a couple things they have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will they will go to other regions But some of those will continue sir out of europe. So you have all the connectivity Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you'll be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsche telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors So quite the lineup of thought leaders there Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways you may think will come from this panel? Absolutely as you know that there are many industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region or their footprint, right, but is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network And what's the benefit, you know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right? In saying hey, we are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter and what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service or what are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network But lastly, you know what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone into the platform where A fully automated session Can happen across the world. So there's ubiquitous access Through this type of automation for everyone because it's If it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it Fully automated. It's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? Uh that this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are? Yeah, there well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean, you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know, basic You know inventory management and service delivery, but in this business That can be really hard to do and to be fair That's hard to do because some of these networks are sort of have legacies extending Alexander Graham Bell I mean, there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage and then you want to try and modernize all that We'll take me all that with you. So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly, you know in parts of this business where you know There's not a lot of margin to provide some basic connectivity services You'd like to do that as efficiently and as as automated as possible But as if the technical challenges weren't hard enough You also have all the commercial arrangements that you have to bring along with that You know everybody wants to be special and get the best deal and you know, this is capacity Europe It's a big part of what goes on there is is uh, so can you automate, you know a protracted negotiation for Connectivity and extend that as Jezebel was alluding to across networks across borders And assure that you know service from end to end and these aren't new issues, you know This is a big deal, but automation can certainly be And we're hinting about it. So let's go ahead and talk about it Jezebel, let's talk a bit about interoperability How do network operators ensure those network advancements across country borders and through partner network interfaces? Well, there's Lots of different types of interoperability as networks We've always had interoperability because you have to be able to pass packets from one place to another, right? um, so The technologies already exist on the physical layer. We do pack packets easily But when when it comes to interoperability Eric said it well beyond technology, there's A ton of complexities, right? There's commercial relationships There's software if you're actually doing automation How are you moving packets in the software layer from one place to another? You need to have some sort of standardization translation To be able to move to speak everybody have to speak the same language to be able to move things from one place to another and to have a ubiquitous environment and Beyond the technology right beyond the software technologies of the infrastructure technology And the software technology. There's also the business terms, right? We need to align the business terms for the different service providers So that their customer who used to be consuming service in a particular fashion can continue to consume that service in a particular fashion, but in a different area where The network that they're working with does not have current coverage No network can have global ubiquitous coverage in their own network There's just not enough capital to invest in that so all of the networks really need to work together And collaborate to bring a ubiquitous smooth and pleasant experience to the enterprise customer base And that is what the enterprise customers are looking for That's right. So right well said. All right. So Eric with everything we just discussed How do you see the service mix evolving? Well, there's you know, there's a lot of different services kind of up and down the value chain and we covered a good portion of that You can start at the very at the very core. I mean again, it's a big wholesale event So you're always going to have your friend butter transport and Hi everyone and welcome to jsa tv and jsa podcasts where we're connecting the latest stories news and innovation from leaders across our industry And today I'm happy to be joined by Theo Voss CEO and co-founder of interlink. Yeah, welcome. Thank you for having me Yeah, so great to have you. It's nice to to catch up. We're on day two here of Capacity Europe at the intercontinental. How's the show going for you? It's amazing for us. It's the first presence of interlink Since we've been found in 2021. So this is the first capacity that we're doing. It's really exciting We're having a lot of good conversations. We have been Announcing a new product just yesterday. We've been on a panel yesterday. So no Voss is really going well. Well, yeah That's great to hear. Yeah first time here and already lots happening So let's back up for a second and just letter because you're you as you mentioned relatively new to this audience Tell us about interlink Yeah, of course So I think important to mention is that the people behind interlink are not new to this industry So everybody is an industry veteran. I've been in the industry for 10 years But interlink itself is relatively new. So interlink has been founded in 2021 by my co-founder mark and me To combine two things in this industry and one is the need for automation and one is the other is the need for more sustainable Kind of practice and more sustainable business and more sustainable products Okay, so talk let's talk a bit more about that in terms of What you're doing in in the ways of automation and sustainability that are innovative for the industry So we spoke about this on the panel yesterday that we see so much growth in this industry and we see traffic growing We see new trends like AI coming up. So there is a long-term Perspective for everybody in the industry that needs more capacity needs more infrastructure need more services provision But we're still in a time where most of this is done by hand So most of the carriers most of the providers most of the telcos still have 20 weeks lead time for services And this is where we think that in order to work with this demand in order to fulfill this demand We need more automation in order to scale. So interlink is purely built on 100% automated platforms Everything with provision every service that is being purchased is instantaneously provision And there's no manual interaction needed anymore And I think this is something where we really kind of yeah set an example as well When you look around here at capacity that this is going to be a next trend When it comes to technology and and and how we do business And I think the other thing is the sustainability part for us as a business that is carbon neutral certified since last year One of the first big corporations in this industry That we need to yeah That we need to make sure that we as an industry itself pay our fair share and kind of yeah Take care of the responsibility that we have in terms of energy usage And and reduce and make sure that we commit ourselves to a yeah carbon neutral But also kind of that's your journey and I think this is what interlink again is one of the four runners here Yeah, that's amazing to hear. I mean I Sustainability continues to be such an important topic for our industry For all industries if we're being honest, but for especially for our industry We you know for folks like yourself that that can make a difference in this It's really I think appreciated by everyone and and so many people are that we talk to Want to do business with with folks that share that that same Way of thinking so yeah, exactly And I think the the beauty of the business that we do is that we combine these two things automation and sustainability For our customers, which are mostly enterprises and make them able to consume and not long are built So we have a lot of build in this industry custom build for clients and we make this a consume approach Which is more similar to what we have in the cloud industry as of today Where they can consume ip services security services layer 2 services all around the world So we have a global footprint as well Just with a click of a button and I think this is something also related to the discussion yesterday On the panel is what we see the cloud provider is what we see Large enterprises moving towards to and I think this is also where we try and I personally As being industry for for a decade now is trying to push everybody Into that direction and yeah and setting hopefully a good example Yeah, and so the the you've mentioned the panel a couple times now It was about the convergence of connectivity in cloud. Is that right? Yeah, yeah exactly So I think that the panel yesterday was a bit phrased around the challenge of convergence that everybody sees But we don't feel that this is a challenge. We see it as a wonderful opportunity actually To use these tools that I mentioned earlier automation sustainability To to move forward and and kind of yeah Have a much more scalable and much more cost efficient Way to fulfill the demand for more bandwidth for more capacity all around the world Okay, so It's been great chatting with you. I didn't ask where are you based and so where have you come from to So we have the roots in berlin germany. This is where the company has been founded and is headquartered But we're fully remote So we have 30 employees as of today 50 nationalities and everybody is working from home We set this up from the beginning also to make the business scale and not be dependent I mean we have a shortage of staff everybody has hard time finding good people So this makes it much easier as we are small, but we are an international business Right. Yeah covering lots of nationalities as you said, which is so important in the in the global business that this the global marketplace Yeah, exactly. It also makes it easier to hire good talent and so on and so forth So it overcomes again a few of the challenges when you commit and I think this is important from day one to be remote native Um, because then yeah, you don't have this conflict of having people in an office and people remote And I think this has has gone well now. Yeah Yeah, well, that's great. Great to hear. I'm I'm looking forward to talking to you again, you know as the years progress I'm sure we'll be here again next year. Maybe at some of the other shows throughout the year, but it's been great chatting with you Yeah, I was going to say for the you know the remainder of the week and then for folks that maybe aren't Able to be here or or don't get a chance to see you. How can they connect with you? So we have a boost up here one floor above 914 We can stop by and we have a good presence on the web, of course on social So feel free to look at inter dot link. It's the website. I feel free to reach out on linkedin If you want to hear more learn more, I think we have a few press releases coming up We're featured in capacity media. We have now the the interview that the two of us did So I think there's there's plenty of chances to to get in touch fantastic. Thank you, Theo. We appreciate it Thanks very much and thank you viewers for tuning in this morning to jsa tv and jsa podcasts Stay tuned for more interviews throughout the rest of the day in the show and until then happy networking What do you see as a digital hub for europe? And where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well, Europe. I mean first of all this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth that it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and Canada So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that moor's law kind of doubling every year Type of growth. So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with the global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean, they're doing a couple things. They have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions. Some of that they will go to other regions But some of those will continue sir out of europe. So you have all the connectivity Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on at europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you will be joined by executives from equinex uber dutch telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors So quite the lineup of thought leaders there. Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways? You may think will come from this panel Absolutely as you know that there are many industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region or their footprint, right? But is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network and what's the benefit? You know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right and saying hey We are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us? You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter? And what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service or what are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network Um, but lastly, you know, what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone? into the platform where um A fully automated session can happen across the world So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because it's If it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it fully automated, it's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? That this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are yeah, they're well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean, you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know, basic You know inventory management and service delivery, but in this business That can be really hard to do and to be fair That's hard to do because some of these networks are sort of have legacies extending Alexander Graham Bell I mean, there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage And then you want to try and modernize all that while taking all that with you So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly, you know in parts of this business where you know, there's not a lot of margin to provide Some basic connectivity services you'd like to do that as efficiently as as automated as possible But as the technical challenges weren't hard enough, you also have all the commercial arrangements that You have to bring along with that, you know, everybody wants to be special and get the best deal And you know, this is capacity Europe. It's a big part of what goes on there is So can you automate, you know a protracted negotiation for connectivity and extend that as Jezebel was alluding to across networks across borders And assure that you know service from end to end and these aren't new issues, you know This is a big deal, but automation can certainly be a big part of that And we're hinting about it. So let's go ahead and talk about it Jezebel Let's talk a bit about interoperability How do network operators ensure those network advancements across country borders and through partner network interfaces Well, there's Lots of different types of interoperability as networks We've always had interoperability because you have to be able to pass packets from one place to another, right? so The technologies already exist on the physical layer. We do pack packets easily but when when it comes to interoperability Eric said it well Beyond technology, there's a ton of complexities, right? There's commercial relationships There's a software if you're actually doing automation How are you moving packets in the software layer from one place to another? You need to have some sort of standardization translation To be able to move to speak everybody have to speak the same language To be able to move things from one place to another and to have a ubiquitous environment and Beyond the technology right beyond the software technologies of the infrastructure technology And the software technology. There's also the business terms Right, we need to align the business terms for the different service providers So that their customer who used to be consuming service in a particular fashion can continue to consume that service in a particular fashion, but in a different area where Um The network that they are working with does not have current coverage No network can have global ubiquitous coverage in their own network. There's just not enough capital to invest in that so All of the networks really need to work together and collaborate to bring a ubiquitous smooth and pleasant experience to the enterprise customer base And that is what the enterprise customers are looking for That's right. That's so right well said. All right, so Eric with everything we just discussed How do you see the service mix evolving? Well, there's you know, there's a lot of different services kind of up and down the the value chain And we we covered a good portion of that you can start at the very at the very core I mean again, it's a big wholesale event So you're always going to have your bread and butter transport and transit services And I guess you know part of what's going on there. They're they're getting you're less granular You know 10 g is becoming 100 g 100 g is becoming 400 g and then in some really big time transactions You've got more fractions of a five out of an entire fiber or even building up new fiber But then you go the other way down the value chain We're in the enterprise side or or you know, this whole wholesale ecosystem again And then Jezebel was alluding to of you know, you have maybe 80% of the customer's locations you can service with your own network But nobody has ubiquitous network that other 20% or whatever it is you have to go elsewhere To with partner networks to achieve that and a lot of the way that works now by default is with you know kind of a vpn and using a local access from some other carrier and And kind of terminating the vpn service on a partner network But that's no longer the default option with new technologies that are available that there's more internet involved And in some cases even private lines, you know for you know, say for for example directly to cloud providers Are in the mix as well So that service mix is is really evolving and it creates some really interesting opportunities For automation and and and I guess expedited delivery of those services since these you know, the vpn defaults You know are are no longer well the vpns are no longer the default option. You know, so we have some Uh, the market's kind of influx, you know with those choices, but uh, but you still have that fundamental You know Need to partner with other networks So it'll be really interesting to see how that involves as the service mix involves as the as a technology available changes and Yeah, to ultimately accomplish the same goal, which is to interconnect all the end users seamlessly over global network Yeah, absolutely. We all need each other That is definitely one of the core messages here and one of the reasons why capacity europe is happening at a very critical time What do you see as a digital hub for europe and where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well europe, I mean first of all, this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers But part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this you know massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that moors law kind of doubling every year type of growth so that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with global global growth in international bandwidth Hi everyone and welcome back to jsa tv and jsa podcast where we're covering the latest stories news Trends and innovations from leaders across our industry and one of those leaders joining me right now is njfx leader Felix seda always nice to chat and always nice to catch up. Thank you. Thank you for having me always nice to chat with you as well Yeah, I was trying to remember when was the last time we chatted. I'm sure it was recent But uh, maybe a few months ago. Yeah, most likely. Yeah So I know it's been a busy show. We're on day two you literally just walked off of a panel and straight into our Our booth here. Um, tell us about what you were chatting on the panel about Yeah, it was the uh the keynote panel this morning. It was and it was the topic was disruption and Which is a pretty broad topic uh covering our industry. Um, so we talked a little about about the technological advancements that disrupting our industry And one of the one of the topics that's near and dear to my heart is uh, obviously talent, right? Yeah And the the growth of of talent and new talent in our industry and retaining that talent and something that i've been working Working on for for a couple years now is this ptc beyond initiative Right. Um with with with a larger group. It's not just myself. Um, but it's uh, it's a program focus on Developing young leaders in our industry, right? Um, and it's I think it's very important You know The established veterans of our of our industry have done a great job pushing it forward Yeah And getting it to where it's today, which is incredible Um, but at a certain point that Is going to sort of shift shift, right? Yeah, people move on people retire And I think the idea of cultivating new upcoming talent And getting them to assume leadership positions is is vital to keeping our industry Where it is today and pushing it forward. Yeah, it it's so important, isn't it? I mean you hear that in a lot of New markets, but new and old alike, right the importance of of building that talent pool Maintaining it and growing it to support your business. You guys have done a great job of that You're you've just celebrated seven years. Yeah, is that right? Yeah, uh, we just uh, Celebrated seven years of our of our facility being open. Um back in september so It's been a it's been a crazy wild ride. Yeah, and uh, you know, it's it's been a fun seven years Yeah, and then looking forward to feels like longer actually it does You've been here forever feels double that. Yeah, I bet it does for you, especially And and so talk about some of the the growth that's happened over that time. How your ecosystems grown Yeah, I mean so when we started njfx, we were originally meant to be a co-location facility Leveraging uh, the existing cable landing station that was there in in wall, new jersey. Um, what we saw is that new subsea developers and operators wanted to be in a carrier neutral environment Which is exactly what njfx is And so we've become our own cable landing station now With multiple subsea cables coming into our campus and potentially more And because of that, we're seeing a robust growth in our in our ecosystem. Um, what was mainly Really a place for wholesale networks To integrate As a as a as a unique marketplace hub. Yeah Now we're starting to see that shift a little bit not just from the wholesale providers But and to obviously the ot even content guys who are Owners on these subsea systems are being developed. But also the enterprise as well, right? they want to be owners of their own fate and They're starting to look at unique models of interconnectivity not just the traditional ways of tying back to their To their existing data centers But utilizing a place like njfx as their main interconnectivity hub Where those where those tentacles can kind of reach out across both transatlantically and then to rush really across the us Yeah, and amazing just growth trajectory in terms of that whole ecosystem It's been amazing to watch and see the importance of of what you're doing grow But there's more to come. I know you have new products. I believe rolling out Is that right anything you can share? Um, there's potentially new products that we're involved in Um, like again, we're we're a cable landing station. So always looking at development of infrastructure And you know, we're excited to be part of that right as as new subsea cables come on board Um, and you know, there's new products being talked about across the us We're hoping to be a part of that solution And uh, I'm keeping our industry uh going forward. Yeah, great Well, we I'm sure we'll be talking to you more you the week's not over and what's next You know, what are you what do you have planned for the rest of this week? Uh anything? Well, I've been here since saturday I got it. I got here early and uh did a little you know Just kind of adjusted to the time exploring and then and adjusting through the time and uh, You know, it's it's been it's been the usual busy busy busy Yeah, like I said, I just got off the uh the keynote panel this morning Yeah, and I just jumping into into meetings all day and then tonight is the uh the carry awards dinner That's right. Which is the uh the black tie event, which is always pretty fun. That is it gives us an opportunity to kind of You know dress up and uh and be in a nice uh fun environment. So I'm looking forward to that as well Yeah, that's great. It's always a great event. Yeah, enjoy And so for our viewers who may miss you this week, but want to connect in the future How can they reach out? Uh, my email is pretty simple. Um felix at mjfx.net Unless we get another felix that's not going to change. Yeah, um, and obviously i'm on length in uh, so You know hopefully to reach out. Have you happy to have you to connect great Thanks so much for joining us. It was it's always great to make time to have a quick conversation with you Absolutely, absolutely and uh, we look forward to more Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Of course, of course And thank you viewers for tuning in again here to jsa tv and jsa podcast Stay tuned for more throughout the rest of day two here at capacity europe happy networking What do you see as a digital hub for europe and where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well, europe, I mean first of all, this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this you know massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that morse law kind of doubling every year type of growth so that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that I mean they're doing a couple things. They have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that, but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will go to other regions But some of those will continue sir out of europe. So do you have all the connectivity? Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those? Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on at europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you'll be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsche telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors. So Quite the lineup of thought leaders there. Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways? You may think will come from this panel Absolutely as you know that there are many in the industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region or their footprint, right? But is there a key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network and what's the benefit You know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right? In saying, hey, we are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us? You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter and what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service or what are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network But lastly, you know what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone into the platform where A fully automated session Can happen across the world So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because it's If it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it fully automated, it's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? Uh that this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are? Yeah, well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean, I mean, you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know, basic You know inventory management and service delivery, but in this business That can be really hard to do and to be fair That's hard to do because some of these networks are sort of have legacies extended by Alexander Graham Bell I mean there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage and then you want to try and modernize all that While taking all that with you So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly you know in parts of this business where you know There's not a lot of margin to provide some basic connectivity services You'd like to do that as efficiently and as well as automated as possible But as if the technical challenges weren't hard enough You also have all the commercial arrangements that you have to bring along with that You know everybody wants to be special and get the best deal and you know, this is capacity Europe It's a big part of what goes on there is is uh, so can you automate, you know a protracted negotiation for connectivity and extend that as Jezebel was alluding to across networks across borders And assure that you know service from end to end and these aren't new issues. You know, this is a big deal, but Hi everyone and welcome back to jsa tv and jsa podcast where we're coming live to you today From capacity europe at the intercontinental talking to leaders about the latest trends news and innovation Impacting our industry and i'm happy to have stacy pasco vp of product for aquacoms Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. Yeah, your role is relatively new Since since capacity last year, so we wouldn't have spoken at the event at this event last year Tell us about your role and and what it entails Yeah, so I joined aquacoms maybe nine months ago. The business was Smaller at the time really just a couple of submarine cable systems and so product wasn't something that you really needed You've got a couple subsea systems. You're selling wavelengths. What can product really do? But the business is looking to expand we're going into some new markets We're bringing on new cable systems We're looking to get a little bit more specific with our product portfolio to the customer's needs So they asked me to come join the team and build out a product function So they didn't have one before so that's what i've been up to for the last nine months and it's been fantastic Yeah, and so talk about that. You I think you had a big announcement recently. Yes From your team from the product team. So can you talk about that? Yeah, so we just announced our third cable system in the transatlantic AEC 3 it's a great system a nice natural complement to our existing cable systems and It really just shows our commitment to continuing to invest in the transatlantic market to create diversity for the customers And to have those big bandwidth pipes that customers Increasingly need as bandwidth as you know continues to go up and up and up continues to with no end in sight No end in sight, right? And and something that's important. I mean on that note I think a lot of people are talking in our industry with the increased need Demand for increased supply and growth of infrastructure. Yeah sustainability is so important Yeah, can you talk about your commitment to that and what you're doing to support sustainability? Yeah, when I well formerly I was a customer of aquacomps and I admired many things about the business That made me want to join the company and one of them is the commitment to sustainability and Even as a customer, I didn't really see everything that they had going on now that I've joined the company It's been amazing to see The alignment that the business has with the board on sustainability being at the forefront of everything that we do It's ingrained in every single one of our kpis for our business objectives for the year It's in our top three objectives to hit all of our sustainability metrics and kpis So it's really nice to see that and the business does a lot of cool things that I didn't even realize before I joined Like at events like this or any other conference You know you go in and you typically see a bunch of books and pens that have a brand on them And when I first joined it, where's our aquacomps books and pens? What am I supposed to give out to the customers and it was well We don't do that instead instead of giving out things that might get thrown away or end up in a landfill You know these branded things We keep money for every customer that we meet with and then at the end of the conference We donate that to a sustainability initiative instead of having you know a bunch of little things out there That's what we do at our conferences and I thought that's just brilliant I don't know why more people don't do that It's just little stuff like that all throughout the business that Really makes me feel fulfilled working at a place that puts sustainability at the front The big things matter, but so do the little things right and just having that I mean, yeah, who needs more stuff to throw in their suitcase and then throw home When they get home, right exactly, that's you know, sort of walking your talk there makes it you know, it's it's makes an impact Yeah, yeah, that's a good example. So what's the rest of the week called for you? Well meetings meetings meetings as any capacity event It's been great to come here and meet with interviewees like you see some of the panel sessions There's been some fantastic panels this week And then one of the most excellent things about capacity Europe is that we've got our headquarters out here So we've got a huge team of folks here big team meeting tomorrow And it's just always nice to come together and see everybody. Yeah, that's great You get sort of a sort of a double win for you. Yeah, exactly with the team be with the industry All in the same week. That's great. Well, it was really nice to chat with you This is our first time chatting. Hopefully we'll get to talk many more times In the future throughout the year maybe and and again next year when we're probably both back here Yeah, um anything any parting words anything you want us to watch for with aquacoms as we go into 2024 Just keep an eye out. We've got things moving You know, I think the the opening up of a product organization within the business shows that we really are getting ready for some advancements into new market places We're doing some expansions through to india that we're really excited about once those cable systems go live So, you know, everybody thinks about aquacoms in the transatlantic and we are excited to start Kind of changing that brand around and having everybody think of aquacoms for sustainability or sorry submarine services and sustainability I suppose worldwide, yeah Yeah, thank you stacey is great chatting with you and thank you viewers for tuning in here to jsa tv and jsa podcast Stay tuned as we bring you news and updates from more leaders throughout the day at capacity europe happy happy networking What do you see as a digital hub for europe? And where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well, Europe. I mean first of all this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions Particularly africa and middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this you know massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent You know only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that moor's law kind of doubling every year type of growth So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean they're doing a couple things they have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will go to other regions But some of those will continue sir out of europe. So do you have all the connectivity? Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you will be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsch telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors So quite the lineup of thought leaders there Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways you may think will come from this panel? Absolutely as you know that there are many in the industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region or their footprint, right, but is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network And what's the benefit, you know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right in saying, hey We are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us? You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter and what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service or What are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network But lastly, you know what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone into the platform where A fully automated session can happen across the world So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because It's if it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it fully automated. It's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? That this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are yeah, they're well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean, you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know basic You know inventory management and service delivery But in this business that can be really hard to do and to be fair That's hard to do because some of these networks are sort of have legacies extending Alexander Graham Bell I mean there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage and then you want to try and modernize all that We'll take me all that with you So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly you know in parts of this business where you know There's not a lot of margin to provide some basic connectivity services You'd like to do that as efficiently and as well as automated as possible But as the technical challenges weren't hard enough you also have all the commercial arrangements that You have to bring along with that, you know Everybody wants to be special and get the best deal and you know, this is capacity Europe It's a big part of what goes on there is is uh, so can you automate, you know a protracted negotiation for connectivity and extend that as Jezebel was alluding to across networks across borders And assure that you know service from end to end and these aren't new issues. You know, this is a big deal, but Automation can certainly be a big part of that And we're hinting about it. So let's go ahead and talk about it Jezebel Let's talk a bit about interoperability How do network operators ensure those network advancements across country borders and through partner network interfaces well, there's Lots of different types of interoperability as networks We've always had interoperability because you have to be able to pass packets from one place to another, right? so The technologies already exist on the physical layer. We do pack packets easily But when when it comes to interoperability Eric said it well Beyond technology there's a ton of complexities, right? There's commercial relationships There's a software if you're actually doing automation How are you moving packets in the software layer from one place to another? You need to have some sort of standardization translation To be able to move to speak everybody have to speak the same language To be able to move things from one place to another and to have a ubiquitous environment and Beyond the technology right beyond the software technologies and the infrastructure technology And the software technology. There's also the business terms Right, we need to align the business terms for the different service providers So that their customer who used to be consuming service in a particular fashion can continue to consume that service in a particular fashion, but in a different area where The network that they're working with does not have current coverage No network can have a global Ubiquitous coverage in their own network. There's just not enough capital to invest in that so All of the networks really need to work together and collaborate to bring a ubiquitous smooth and pleasant experience to the enterprise customer base And that is what the enterprise customers are looking for That's right. So right well said. All right. So Eric with everything we just discussed How do you see the service mix evolving? Well, there's you know, there's a lot of different services kind of up and down the the value chain And we we covered a good portion of that you can start at the very at the very core I mean again, it's a big wholesale event So you're always going to have your bread and butter transport and transit services And I guess you know probably what's going on there. They're they're getting you're less granular You know 10 g is becoming 100 g 100 g is becoming 400 g and then in some really big time transactions You've got more fractions of a five out of an entire fiber or even building up new fiber But then you go the other way down the value chain We're in the enterprise side or or you know this whole wholesale ecosystem again And the java java was alluding to of you know, you have maybe 80% of the customer's locations you can service with your own network But nobody has ubiquitous network that other 20% or whatever it is you have to go elsewhere To with partner networks to achieve that and a lot of the way that works now by default is with you know kind of a vpn and using local access from some other carrier and And kind of terminating the vpn service on a partner network But that's no longer the default option with new technologies that are available that there's more internet involved And in some cases even private lines, you know for you know Say for for example directly to cloud providers are in the mix as well So that service mix is is really evolving and it creates some really interesting opportunities for automation and and and I guess expedited delivery of those services since these you know the vpn Defaults, you know are no longer well the vpns are no longer the default option, you know, so we have some The market's kind of influx, you know with those choices, but But you still have that fundamental, you know Need to to partner with other networks So it'll be really interesting to see how that involves as the service mix involves as the as a technology available changes and Yeah, to ultimately accomplish the same goal, which is to interconnect all the end users seamlessly over global network Yeah, absolutely. We all need each other That is definitely one of the core messages here and one of the reasons why capacity europe is happening at a very critical time What do you see as a digital hub for europe and where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well europe I mean first of all this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it It's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this you know massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that morse law kind of doubling every year type of growth so that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with global global growth in international bandwidth And yeah in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that I mean they're doing a couple things they have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that, but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will they will go to other regions But some of those will continue sir out of europe. So do you have all the connectivity? Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those you move into some other ones as well So lots of things going on at europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you'll be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsche telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors. So Quite the lineup of thought leaders there Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways you may think will come from this panel? Absolutely as you know that there are many in the industry leaders on the panel who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region or their footprint, right? But is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network? And what's the benefit, you know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right? In saying, hey, we are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us? You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter and what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service or what are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network But lastly, you know what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone into the platform where And a fully automated session Can happen across the world So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because it's If it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it fully automated, it's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? Uh, that this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are? Yeah, there well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean, you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know basic, uh You know inventory management and service delivery, but in this business That can be really hard to do and to be fair That's hard to do because some of these networks are sort of have legacies extending Alexander Graham Bell I mean there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage And then you want to try and modernize all that while taking all that with you So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly you know in parts of this business where you know There's not a lot of margin to to provide some basic connectivity services You'd like to do that as efficiently and as as automated as possible But as if the technical challenges weren't hard enough You also have all the commercial arrangements that uh, you have to bring along with that You know everybody wants to be special and get the best deal and you know, this is capacity Europe It's a big part of what goes on there is is uh, so can you automate? You know a protracted negotiation for connectivity and extend that as Jezebel was alluding to across networks across borders And assure that you know service from end to end and and these aren't new issues You know this is a big deal, but automation can certainly be And we're hinting about it. So let's go ahead and talk about it Jezebel, let's talk a bit about interoperability How do network operators ensure those network advancements across country borders and through partner network interfaces? Well, there's Lots of different types of interoperability as networks We've always had interoperability because you have to be able to pass packets from one place to another, right? um, so The technologies already exist on the physical layer. We do pack packets easily But when when it comes to interoperability Eric said it well beyond technology, there's A ton of complexities, right? There's commercial relationships There's a software if you're actually doing automation How are you moving packets in the software layer from one place to another? You need to have some sort of standardization translation um to be able to move to speak everybody have to speak the same language to be able to move things from one place to another and to have a ubiquitous environment and um Beyond the technology right beyond the software technologies and the infrastructure technology And the software technology. There's also the business terms, right? We need to align the business terms for the different service providers So that their customer who used to be consuming service in a particular fashion can continue to consume that service in a particular fashion, but in a different area where um The network that they're working with does not have current coverage No network can have global ubiquitous coverage in their own network There's just not enough capital to invest in that. So, um, all of the networks really need to work together And collaborate to bring a ubiquitous smooth and pleasant experience to the enterprise customer base And that is what the enterprise customers are looking for That's right. So right well said. All right. So Eric with everything we just discussed How do you see the service mix evolving? Well, there's you know, there's a lot of different services kind of up and down the the value chain and we covered a good portion of that You can start at the very at the very core. I mean again, it's a big wholesale event So you're always going to have your bread and butter transport and transit services And I guess you know part of what's going on there. They're they're getting you're less granular You know 10 g is becoming 100 g 100 g is becoming 400 g and then in some really big time transactions You've got more fractions of a five of an entire fiber or even building up new fiber But then you go the other way down the value chain or in the enterprise side or or you know This whole wholesale ecosystem again, and the java java was alluding to of you know You have maybe 80 of the customer's locations You can service with your own network, but nobody has a ubiquitous network that other 20 or whatever it is You have to go elsewhere To with partner networks to achieve that and a lot of the way that works now by default is with you know kind of a vpn and using local access from some other carrier and And kind of terminated the vpn service on a partner network But that's no longer the default option with new technologies that are available that there's more internet involved And in some cases even private lines, you know for you know, say for for example directly to cloud providers Are in the mix as well So that service mix is really evolving and it creates some really interesting opportunities For automation and and I guess expedited delivery of those services since these you know the vpn defaults You know are no longer well the vpns are no longer the default option, you know, so we have some Uh the market's kind of in flux, you know with those choices, but uh, but you still have that fundamental, you know Need to to partner with other networks. So it'll be really interesting to see how that involves as the service mix evolves as the as a technology available changes and Yeah, to ultimately accomplish the the same goal, which is to interconnect all the end users seamlessly over a global network Yeah, absolutely. We all need each other That is definitely one of the core messages here and one of the reasons why capacity europe is happening at a very critical time What do you see as a digital hub for europe? And where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well, europe, I mean first of all this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and Canada So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent You know only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that moor's law kind of doubling every year type of growth So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean they're doing a couple things they have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that, but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will go to other regions some of those will continue to serve out of europe So you have all the connectivity Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you will be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsche telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors. So Quite the lineup of thought leaders there. Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways? You may think will come from this panel Absolutely as you know that there are many industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region or their footprint, right, but is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network and what's the benefit You know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right in saying hey We are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us? You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter and what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service or what are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network But lastly, you know what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone into the platform where A fully automated session can happen across the world So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because it's If it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it fully automated. It's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? That this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are yeah, they're well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know basic Inventory management and service delivery, but in this business that can be really hard to do and to be fair That's hard to do because some of these networks are sort of have legacies extending Alexander Graham Bell I mean there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage And then you want to try and modernize all that while taking all that with you So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly, you know in parts of this business where you know There's not a lot of margin to provide some basic connectivity services You'd like to do that as efficiently as as automated as possible But as if the technical challenges weren't hard enough, you also have all the commercial arrangements that You have to bring along with that, you know Everybody wants to be special and get the best deal and you know, this is capacity Europe It's a big part of what goes on there is is uh, so can you automate, you know a protracted negotiation for Connectivity and extend that as Jezebel was alluding to across networks across borders And assure that you know service from end to end and these aren't new issues. You know, this is a big deal, but Automation can certainly be a big part of that And we're hinting about it. So let's go ahead and talk about it. Jezebel. Let's talk a bit about interop Hi everyone and welcome back to jsa tv and jsa podcast where we're covering the latest news stories and innovations from Leaders across our industry. Um, where we're talking about global connectivity and digital infrastructure and talking to great leaders like Yourself craig kaplan vp of sales for zen layer. Thanks for joining us Very happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we're halfway through right about dame halfway through day two Of capacity Europe. How's the week going so far for you? It's been a fantastic week we connecting with a lot of our global partners and this is a place for uh, where they all come together and We're very much excited to be here and look forward to the next two days. Yeah, you have a lot to look forward to I think I don't want to say it. I want you to say it Is there anything you want to share? Are you ready to share? Well, you've got an exclusive announcement and sneak preview In about 30 minutes, uh, we're signing our first strategic partnership with the middle east amazing fantastic partner with mobili Uh, and we're incredibly excited to extend our hyper connected edge Even farther into the middle east and uh, we're gonna have a lot more things to come with mobili partnership, but uh Starts an amazing announcement. Thanks for sharing that with us and I'm sure yet more news will follow on that I I have no doubt. Um, so let's From there, let's talk about sort of where you are now and where you're looking to go in terms of new markets You're maybe just for our viewers a bit of a snapshot of of your current, uh, you know Coverage where where you're currently focused Yeah, uh happen to chat about that We're very committed to scaling out our hyper connected cloud Not only emerging markets new markets but current markets So we're approaching pushing our edge computing out to close to 300 pops And 100 terabit network So we're really Scaled ups especially in the last few years In order to support not only media and entertainment companies, but Enterprise and the infrastructure companies out there serving all internet companies out there. So I think a few years ago Folks would have looked at zen layer and saw our our emerging market infrastructure in asia Yeah, and uh, now you can take a look at zen layer and see that we're an emerging market company really globally Yeah, yeah amazing. Yeah, it's it's um We certainly love chatting with you and and the rest of the team at zen layer and hearing about all of these Uh developments as they come and I'm sure there will be more you hinted at a few Is there anything else that you can sort of get a give us a pee? I'm asking for all the scoops here today, aren't I? What else what else is that more secrets sharing more secrets? Yeah Well, I think the other thing that we're very excited about is that our console? In our instant digital compute platform I really think a lot of folks don't know That we're already deployed in 50 locations globally with our bare metal solution and our vm solution So a lot of folks can just go to the zen layer website and plug in and really take a look in our looking glass and see Our very low latency around the worlds for these services And even tested out themselves and so we're going to continue to invest Into our our compute platform and continue to extend in this mobility partnership is going to help us do that Yeah, yeah, I bet I bet so what's the rest of the week look like for you? It's busy jam packed. I'm sure Yeah, yeah, it is very busy. Um, we really support our partners In the data center space quite quite a bit networking services space So we really support them being um Able to contract really around the world very quickly with their clients both in their Data center services and their network services So we have a very busy week because we want to see everybody here From the partnership side our direct customers are here Meeting with us So we'll continue to do that and try to have a little bit fun in between. Yeah, great. Yeah It's always a good show always lots lots of great folks to talk to and so it sounds like you've got a full agenda For those folks who may miss you this time Where can they connect with you? I'm really easy to find You can you can find me, of course Setting email to sales at zen layer dot com and that way my whole team sees it and then you'll get a quicker response From my whole team but to put me in touch. I also love to get linked in connections directly I check that out every every once in a while and uh make sure that people want to meet me directly can ping me there Okay, great. So sales at zen layer dot com and then directly with you on LinkedIn so thank you. Yes. Thanks. It was great chatting with you We look forward to chatting again more uh down the road And thank you viewers for tuning in again today to jsa tv and jsa podcasts Enjoy the rest of the show. We'll be back in a few minutes With more coverage from leaders around the industry until then happy networking Thank you What do you see as a digital hub for europe and where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well, Europe. I mean first of all this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included but also you also have this massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and Canada So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent You know only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that Moore's law kind of doubling every year type of growth So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with the global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that I mean they're doing a couple things they have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that, but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will go to other regions But some of those they'll continue to serve out of europe. So you have all the connectivity Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement we're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you will be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsche telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors. So Quite the lineup of thought leaders there. Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways? You may think will come from this panel Absolutely as you know that there are many in the industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region or their footprint, right, but is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network And what's the benefit, you know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right in saying, hey We are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us? You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter and what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and um, and are we interested in particular type of sl a You know a quality of service or what are the drivers the motivation for us? Um, what are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network Um, but lastly, you know, what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone into the platform where Um a fully automated session can happen across the world So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because it's It's if it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it fully automated. It's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? That this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are yeah, they're well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean, you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know basic You know inventory management and service delivery, but in this business That can be really hard to do and to be fair that's hard to do because some of these networks are Sort of have legacies extending Alexander Graham Bell I mean, there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage And then you want to try and modernize all that while taking all that with you So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly you know in parts of this business where you know There's not a lot of margin to provide some basic connectivity services You'd like to do that as efficiently as as automated as possible But as the technical challenges weren't hard enough you also have all the commercial arrangements that You have to bring along with that, you know Everybody wants to be special and get the best deal and you know, this is capacity Europe It's a big part of what goes on there is is so can you automate, you know a protracted negotiation for connectivity and extend that as Jezebel was alluding to across networks across borders And assure that you know service from end to end and these aren't new issues. You know, this is a big deal, but automation can certainly be And we're hinting about it. So let's go ahead and talk about it Jezebel Let's talk a bit about interoperability How do network operators ensure those network advancements across country borders and through partner network interfaces? well, there's Lots of different types of interoperability as networks We've always had interoperability because you have to be able to pass packets from one place to another, right? so The technologies already exist on the physical layer. We do pack packets easily But when it comes to interoperability Eric said it well Beyond technology. There's a ton of complexities, right? There's commercial relationships There's a software if you're actually doing automation How are you moving packets in the software layer from one place to another? You need to have some sort of standardization translation To be able to move to speak everybody have to speak the same language To be able to move things from one place to another and to have a ubiquitous environment and Beyond the technology right beyond the software technologies of the infrastructure technology And the software technology. There's also the business terms Right, we need to align the business terms for the different service providers So that their customer who used to be consuming service in a particular fashion can continue to consume that service in a particular fashion, but in a different area where The network that they're working with does not have current coverage No network can have a global ubiquitous coverage in their own network There's just not enough capital to invest in that. So All of the networks really need to work together And collaborate to bring a ubiquitous smooth And pleasant experience to the enterprise customer base and that is what the enterprise customers Are looking for That's right. So right well said. All right. So Eric with everything we just discussed. How do you see the service mix evolving? Well, there's you know, there's a lot of different services kind of up and down the the value chain And we covered a good portion of that you can start at the very at the very core I mean again, it's a big wholesale event So you're always going to have your bread and butter transport and transit services And I guess you know part of what's going on there They're they're getting you know less granular, you know 10 g is becoming 100 g 100 g is becoming 400 g And then in some really big time transactions, you've got more fractions of a five I don't mean tire fiber or even building up new fiber But then you go the other way down the value chain or in the enterprise side Or or you know, this whole wholesale ecosystem again in the gel Jezebel was alluding to of you know, you have maybe 80 of the customer's locations you can service with your own network But nobody has a ubiquitous network that other 20 or whatever it is you have to go elsewhere To with partner networks to achieve that and a lot of the way that works now by default is with you know kind of a VPN and using a local access from some other carrier and And kind of terminated the VPN service on a partner network But that's no longer the default option with new technologies that are available that there's more internet involved And in some cases even private lines, you know for you know, say for for example directly to cloud providers Are in the mix as well. So that service mix is is really evolving and it creates some really interesting opportunities for automation and and and I guess expedited delivery Of those services since these you know VPN defaults, you know are no longer Well, the VPNs are no longer the default option, you know, so we we have some Uh, the market's kind of influx, you know with those choices, but uh, but you still have that fundamental, you know Need to to partner with other networks So it'll be really interesting to see how that involves as the service mix involves as the as a technology available changes and Yeah, to ultimately accomplish the the same goal, which is to interconnect all the users seamlessly over global network Yeah, absolutely. We all need each other That is definitely one of the core messages here and one of the reasons why capacity europe is happening at a very critical time What do you see as a digital hub for europe? And where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well, Europe. I mean first of all, this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that Um, one of which is certainly the hyperscalers But part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international, uh bandwidth But it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this you know massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and Canada So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year was about 35 percent You know only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually. It's about 41 percent So still at that moors law kind of doubling every year type of growth So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with the global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean they're doing a couple things they have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that, but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will go to other regions Some of those will continue sir out of europe. So you have all the connectivity Following on with that and diversify Hi everyone and welcome back to jsa tv and jsa podcasts Where we are talking to leaders from across our industry on the latest trends news and Innovation and joining me right now is john bruner co of ages mobile Thank you for joining us. This is our first time chatting on jsa tv. This is thank you for having me Absolutely. We were excited to chat with you and And want to start I think if we could by telling our viewers because it's our first time With this with our jsa tv audience talking to you directly Would love to hear a little bit of the story of ages mobile. I know it was founded in 2006 You came to to take the helm in 2012. Can you talk a little bit about what's happened since? Sure. Thank you very much. And thank you again for having me So ages was founded in 2006 working in an industry called premium sms Which was the ability to buy ringtones and wallpaper with your cell phone and bill it to your cell phone bill During those early years fraught emerged in many different ways False advertising false opt-in processes where you would actually make the purchases And so ages came along to create innovative ways to identify and shut down those bad actors And developed a number of products in that space over the period of years And it was a great industry that ultimately grew to about three billion in the u.s market total revenue It's a lot of wallpaper ringtones. Yeah, right. Yeah, think about it Yeah, so I think I understand that one of the areas that you have a special focus on is the business to consumer Market specifically messaging and and creating a trusted source for that messaging. Can you talk about that? sure, uh, it's very interesting because when premium sms was actually stopped in 2014 in the u.s market and eventually fell in most markets other than the africa and south america and Anyway, so what wound up emerging are things like direct carrier billing location services identity platforms, which are value-added services the carriers offered and ages jumped into those spaces and began providing compliance services but one of the things that emerged was Knowing who the software companies are that are actually engaging the carriers customers And so ages early on developed vetting and verification services to look at the history and legitimacy Of companies and their backgrounds to determine would they potentially harm consumers? Before allowing them to enter the network Now about two years ago the united states was looking to launch something called 10 dlc Which is text enabling your 10 digit log code So companies that have a phone number that everybody knows Can now register and get this phone number Text enabled because consumers love texting far more than they love voice conversations or even emails And so this has emerged uh to a Historic level in that nowhere else in the world have we actually completed the largest registry Process that exists. So what is this? This is about a known sender So that consumers can know that they're safe engaging a text message from a business And what a just did two years ago was took our vetting capabilities, which we've been doing for a dozen plus years And transform those into an automated api based Verification and vetting platform. So today we receive anywhere from five to 10 000 companies every day That are coming through a group called the campaign registry to register and get their phone number enabled And ages in three seconds is verifying the identity of the company And in 10 to 15 seconds can do a complete behavioral background check on that company to determine Is there anything in their history that would indicate that they're going to harm a consumer? And so this you know has created we've now passed over 2 million transactions within the platform over the last 14 months And to our knowledge there is no larger implementation in the world And the ultimate objective is that if we can get to a place where it's low friction low cost high volume capability There's no reason that any company in america or actually there's 180 countries participating in this platform, but Every company can register and become a known sender No matter their size or the industry that they're in because it's low friction low cost and fast Oh, wow Yeah, huge volumes you're talking about and and it's such a secure source for that And so that makes me think you're you and I understand that you I mean obviously you're experts in the management of this data The protection of it, but also that leads to the ability for you to gather large amounts of intelligence Right and and so how do you how do you use that? What value does that bring? To your system your ecosystem. So it's it's actually uh interesting one of the things that we learned from a data perspective Is that obviously this is you know data about companies, but it's not necessarily pii data It's not necessarily data that has problems with gdpr These are businesses that are registering So they're essentially doing a contract to be on a channel to do messaging and supply chains are always doing Verifications just not at this scale and this speed and this uh this accuracy if you will Um a couple of different things though We have to employ a lot of artificial intelligence and machine learning to ensure that all the data We're gathering on a company is in fact on that company All right, and we have processes that identify data quality coming back and does it truly belong to the company that we're looking at And if not then you have people that can intercept and look at it and verify or change the data to be sure that we're accurate um But uh on the on the flip side as well retaining this data As long as you're on the network when we find bad actors And they get shut down by their carriers that they're operating on They often can create another company and come back very quickly Or they've created hundreds of companies to stable low thresholds and you know Do a lot of behavior against consumers that's not good But they stable or thresholds because it's spread across many many different companies So with our verification embedding capabilities, we can actually relate companies to each other And so not only can we identify that there's 300 companies associated to this bad actor And we then discover they're all doing bad things. We can also when they come back as a new entity we're able to match on Dozens of data fields And something is going to match that's going to trigger it to be looked at to say Have we seen this company have they've been shut down? And then we can notify the carriers so that they can make decisions Yeah So it's not only about you know knowing who's sending but it's also about you know people will come in They will do bad things but once we identify them and they and we know who they are It's very hard for them to come back Or spread across other companies within the existing portfolio. Well, that's Powerful and and fantastic and one of the things that you mentioned was around AI and machine learning I think that that's interesting as we think about, you know, where we're sitting right now at capacity in europe Um halfway through the show. I think I don't know about you but a lot of the things that we hear about That I've been hearing about anyway this week Different from years past years past. We've been hearing about how AI has been driving Demand and and the supply to support it But but people now are talking about like you are about how to really use those tools to for the benefit of businesses And ultimately our customers and and the end user that it may impact So that's really interesting to hear how you're able to The big beauty about AI too is that it's and machine learning because it's there it's both about Learning, you know algorithms and technology that's learning And the reality is is that having been in fraud protection services for telecommunications for 16 years 17 years now Um, we have seen continuous evolution. I mean when we started it was flip phones today It's you know small handheld held computers, but the methodologies by which Uh bad actors go after consumers Continues to evolve because they're very smart. They're very well funded. Yeah, and uh, so these these types of technologies actually Are agile and they learn and so it's perfect. It's perfect fit. Yeah Fantastic. It's been great chatting with you. Well, thank you. I hope you have a great rest of the show The rest of the week that you're here and and so for folks that want to connect with you And your company how how can they do so? Uh, well, uh, I guess they can contact me via the email. I don't know if we can post it or Yeah, we'll put up on screen your website for sure people can go go there and and learn more about you Okay, well, thank you very much and thank you to jsa for posting me. This is a wonderful experience We look forward to many many more conversations. Thank you shows like this and otherwise And so thank you again. Thank you and thank you viewers for tuning in here again to jsa tv and jsa podcast Happy networking What do you see as a digital hub for europe and where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well, Europe. I mean, first of all, this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers but part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth that it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this you know massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year. It was about 35 percent You know only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that moor's law kind of doubling every year type of growth so that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with the global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean they're doing a couple things they have some of their their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will they will go to other regions Some of those will continue sir out of europe. So do you have all the connectivity? Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those you move into some other ones as well So lots of things going on at europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these interconnections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you'll be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsche telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors. So Quite the lineup of thought leaders there Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways you may think will come from this panel? Absolutely as you know that there are many in the industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region or their footprint, right? But is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network And what's the benefit, you know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right? In saying hey, we are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us? You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter and what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service or what are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network But lastly, you know what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone into the platform where And a fully automated session Can happen across the world So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because it's If it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it fully automated, it's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? Uh that this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are? Yeah, there well, there's there's certainly a motivation for that I mean, I mean you'd like to think you could take for granted, you know basic You know inventory management and service delivery, but in this business That can be really hard to do and to be fair That's hard to do because some of these networks are sort of have legacies extending Alexander Graham Bell I mean there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage And then you want to try and modernize all that while taking all that with you So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly you know in parts of this business where you know There's not a lot of margin to provide some basic connectivity services You'd like to do that as efficiently and as as automated as possible But as if the technical challenges weren't hard enough You also have all the commercial arrangements that you have to bring along with that You know everybody wants to be special and get the best deal and you know This is capacity Europe. It's a big part of what goes on there is is So can you automate you know a protracted negotiation for connectivity and extend that as Jezebel was alluding to across networks across borders And assure that you know service from end to end and these aren't new issues You know this is a big deal, but automation could certainly be a big part of that And we're hinting about it. So let's go ahead and talk about it Jezebel. Let's talk a bit about interoperability How do network operators ensure those network advancements across country borders and through partner network interfaces? Well, there's Lots of different types of interoperability as networks We've always had interoperability because you have to be able to pass packets from one place to another, right? So The technologies already exist on the physical layer. We do pack packets easily But when when it comes to interoperability Eric said it well beyond technology There's a ton of complexities, right? There's commercial relationships There's software if you're actually doing automation How are you moving packets in the software layer from one place to another? You need to have some sort of standardization translation To be able to move to speak everybody have to speak the same language To be able to move the things from one place to another and to have a ubiquitous environment and Beyond the technology right beyond the software technologies of the infrastructure technology And the software technology. There's also the business terms, right? We need to align the business terms for the different service providers So that their customer who used to be consuming service in a particular fashion can continue to consume that service in a particular fashion, but in a different area where The network that they are working with does not have current coverage No network can have global ubiquitous coverage in their own network There's just not enough capital to invest in that so all of the networks really need to work together And collaborate to bring a ubiquitous smooth and pleasant experience to the enterprise customer base And that is what the enterprise customers are looking for That's right. That's so right. Well said. All right. So Eric with everything we just discussed How do you see the service mix evolving? Well, there's you know, there's a lot of different services kind of up and down the the value chain and we covered a good portion of that You can start at the very at the very core. I mean again, there's a big wholesale events So you're always going to have your bread and butter transport and transit services And I guess you know part of what's going on there. They're they're getting you're less granular You know 10 g is becoming 100 g 100 g is becoming 400 g and then in some really big time transactions You've got more fractions of a five of an entire fiber or even building up new fiber But then you go the other way down the value chain or in the enterprise side Or or, you know, this whole wholesale ecosystem again, and the gel gel was alluding to of You know, you have maybe 80 of the customer's locations You can service with your own network, but nobody has a ubiquitous network that other 20 or whatever it is You have to go elsewhere To with partner networks to achieve that and a lot of the way that works now by default is with, you know kind of a vpn and using local access from some other carrier and And kind of terminated the vpn service on a partner network But that's no longer the default option with new technologies that are available that there's more internet involved and in some cases even private lines You know for you know, say for for example directly to cloud providers Are in the mix as well So that service mix is is really evolving and it creates some really interesting opportunities For automation and and and I guess expedited delivery of those services since these, you know, the vpn defaults, you know Are no longer well the vpns are no longer the default option. You know, so we have some Uh, the market's kind of in flux, you know with those choices, but uh, but you still have that fundamental, you know Need to to partner with other networks. It'll be really interesting to see how that involves as the service mix evolves as the as a technology available changes and Yeah, to ultimately accomplish the same goal, which is to interconnect all the end users seamlessly overcourt the network Yeah, absolutely. We all need each other That is definitely one of the core messages here and one of the reasons why capacity europe is happening at a very critical time What do you see as a digital hub for europe? And where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well, europe, I mean first of all this capacity europe in europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just, you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international bandwidth, but it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers Included, but also you also have this massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and Canada So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year was about 35 percent You know only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that moors law kind of doubling every year type of growth So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with the global global growth in international bandwidth And yeah in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean they're doing a couple things they have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that, but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will they will go to other regions But some of those will continue sir out of europe. So you have all the connectivity Following omelette that you diversify all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So Hello everyone welcome back to jsa tv and jsa podcast where we're covering the latest stories trends and innovations live here from capacity europe in london 2023 We are coming at you live from the peninsula ballroom And we are speaking with global leaders in the digital infrastructure industry So we're actually closing out our coverage of the conference today with Diego tiata Of rate. Let's uh, did I say that? Yes, you said correctly. Thank you. Perfect He is the head of wholesale for the company. So we're really excited to chat with you today. Diego. Thank you for joining us Thank you. Yes, I'm Leading the wholesale in rate elite. We are in italian. I would say Uh, southern european based at the operator. Thanks to our infrastructure and network Connecting europe middle east africa and of course italy Excellent excellent. So and of course italy is one of the most important markets in western europe And so I was hoping that you could give our audience a bit of overview about what's driving the growth in italy What is uh, rate? Oh, it's a role really in driving that growth. They're helping to helping to accommodate that growth Okay, uh, if you look at the telecommunication growth, of course, that's our our business Telecommunication growths follow the ancient road of commerce and italy has been by its geographical position has been positioned as a connecting platform between north south and east and west in the middle of mediterranean Uh, so, uh, there are in fact italy is also the fifth or the sixth largest economy in the world So if you look at what is driving the growth in telecommunication We can see two main directions one is So the internal demand of enterprise consumers public administrations And the other direction is of course the role of italy as a platform for transit The telecommunication service is west north south Rate it in fact is addressing either these growth direction The internal the internal growth is addressed through our enterprise market So we have a large product portfolio going from the cloud To of course network and telecommunication services that is marketed to the enterprises In fact, what we call it we are we are leading a digital transformation of our Countries to Mirror the digital world and that's what we are doing day by day with the enterprise going to what I I like most That is the wholesale We are supporting the role of italy as a platform between east and west with the key Components or breaks that are needed. What are infrastructure? conduits fibers data center and the services connecting or making all these physical components marketable and ready to serve the wholesale market that in fact for us are the OTT's The national and international carriers and we are also our provider of us federal government As you know, italy has a large us presence again because of its geographical position Excellent. That's an excellent overview. Thank you so much. Just one point that I forgot rate elite as a group Is now the result of rate elite plus irideos that our asterion fund Purchased and are now in the process of creating a unique entity and the unique organization and one of the key asset that we gained from these merging is Avalon Avalon is the most interconnected campus in italy south europe and probably europe where We facilitate the interconnect of at least 180 networks And also the milan internet exchange that is the largest in traffic for the southern europe Is a collocated and connected. It's collocated. It's wrong. Sorry. It's in the same campus connected to our infrastructure Got it. That's really impressive. Yeah, that Avalon campus. So like you said one of the most interconnected in europe and and you've talked a lot about the rate to let the Network and so can you dive a little deeper into the backbone? Fully 400 g enabled. So how will the region really benefit from that investment that you all are making in your infrastructure? Okay, so When we talk about the backbone backbone is more than 400 g but given we are here at capacity europe And during this capacity europe, we launched the 400 g Product and services for for italy. I believe it's worthwhile to have a focus on the 400 g capability Of the network 400 g. We are not the first but we are In the pack of the first adopter of this technology 400 g Is enabling a more efficient transport Cost per bit. So this means that every bit of ip content television that you transport Cost i'm not saying one fourth but cost for sure less than 100 g because For each 100 g you have one card one port one cross connect So this is a for sure a large jump in Cost per bit reduction This means that having a 400 g platform within italy One of the first Helps and drives investment or presence For careers especially carriers that are not the number one of tt or the number one global carriers In our country because they find an environment where they can afford A large transport infrastructure Without bearing all the costs that are associated like ila lighting or or similar, right? Okay, excellent. Thank you. Um, and and your team also works with customers on really tailor-made Telco projects. I love that tailor-made telco. Um, so what do you have on the horizon in that regard? okay, uh yeah, we traditionally were Very tailor-made focus and uh, if I can if you beg me pardon, I would say that Now we are less tailor-made than in the past meaning that thanks to our experience We have transformed tailor-made project such spectrum that we have launched now with a retina to a standardized products Addresed to the carrier markets say that our capability of understanding the customer needs and designing tailor-made solutions Is a still one of our key asset? Uh, what we have on a rise on a on a rise on a our tailor-made Is applied to the key component of infrastructure. So we are Uh, trying to get the most of the existing infrastructure. Thanks to our Historical relationship with infrastructure carrier in Italy We are improving, uh, the resilience the overall resilience of the system Connecting the new data center that are Built in Italy. There are many now in Rome many in the outskirts of milano And this is one of our specialities. So creating a network infrastructure either high fiber count Conduit or capacity in order to enable the new data center to be connected to the fabric of the country um, we are working on identifying building and Supporting new landing point for cable system This is also thanks to our experience In the landing of uh, india europe express in savona That is an unusual point in italy and we were the first in general landing the to africa building and a dock large landing infrastructure in terms of transport because the Uh, data center is a clinics in this case. And uh, so we are using this experience And looking at different landing points on one side on the other side Uh, on the other side. Sorry. It's not the right word Uh, we are trying to market the body that is the landing station of the a1 that we overbuilt as Uh, ready made point for other cable system Uh, the other point that we are going to explore is, uh, the edge the edge data center We have a large number If i'm not wrong like 34 35 data center that are not hyperscale, but Safe nest, let's say for a carrier with a good air conditioning good power But for sure they are not the tier four equinex or hyperscaler and uh, with the correct connectivity and The proper positioning. I believe that this data center are very well Attractive for the new needs For of the markets sample is artificial intelligence and machine learning You need distributed power distributed computing Close to where the, uh, ai is consumed and this is one One of the point Yeah, you just said on a bunch of the the keywords edge ai and of course italy is such a critical market In europe and and you know, we've been hearing so much about it. Um, and the digital infrastructure industry and raita Letha is so so uh interconnected and and bringing so much critical infrastructure throughout the region So we're really happy to have the chance to chat with you today. Thank you so much Thank you. Thank you very much. Candice. Thank you and thank you to our viewers for hanging out with us here today on jsa tv Happy networking Thank you What do you see as a digital hub for europe? And where do you see hyperscalers fitting into this? Yeah, well europe, I mean first of all this capacity european europe is one of the biggest bandwidth markets in the world It's actually the biggest in terms of just you know, primary regions and several reasons for that One of which is certainly the hyperscalers, but part of it's just lots of borders in terms of international Bandwidth that it also serves as a hub for itself as well as other regions particularly africa and Middle east that are quite dependent on europe for exchanging traffic and that role Continues for all network operators hyperscalers included But also you also have this you know massive connection with north america a lot of it through the united states to Interconnect all the huge facilities in europe and Canada So it all adds up to a huge market that is still growing even though it's a very mature market It's growing up in the last year was about 35 percent only 35 percent if you take that back about four years compounded annually It's about 41 percent. So still at that moors law kind of doubling every year type of growth So that's a lot of growth and that aligns pretty well with the global global growth in international bandwidth Yeah, in terms of the the hyperscaler portion of that. I mean they're doing a couple things they have some of their Their biggest facilities are in europe and they're kind of Augmenting that they're kind of doubling down on that but they're also Augmenting that to expand to other regions some of that they will they will go to other regions But some of those will continue sir out of europe. So you have all the connectivity Following on with that and diversifying all that connectivity as well finding you still have the traditional hubs But you sort of have you want some diversification around those Moving to some other ones as well. So lots of things going on europe center And that really takes us to the another hot topic Network advancement. We're talking these into connections global growth expansions So network advancement absolutely on the minds of many of course jezebel You will be a featured speaker on day one at capacity europe on a panel That's really exploring the potential of fully automated networks as you mentioned earlier And of course, you'll be enjoyed you'll be joined by executives from equinex uber Deutsch telecom talk talk wholesale service palo alto innovation advisors So quite the lineup of thought leaders there Can you give us a preview of some of the potential key takeaways you may think will come from this panel? Absolutely as you know that there are many in the industry leaders on the panel Who have built fully automated networks, you know in In their region or their footprint, right, but is there a Key focus area for anyone who's interested in building automation into their network And what's the benefit, you know from having Someone like uber on the panel. That's really the consumer the customer's perspective, right? In saying, hey, we are the consumer of this types of service. What's important to us You know, what does it matter? Why does it matter and what is important for you to build that would attract us to come To consume in the fully automated fashion and And are we interested in particular type of sla? You know a quality of service Or what are the drivers the motivation for us? What are the Challenges that one had gone through in building a fully automated network But lastly, you know what really near and dear to my heart is how do we bring everyone Into the platform where A fully automated session can happen across the world So there's ubiquitous access through this type of automation for everyone because it's If it only reaches part of the world that you're trying to get to having it Only on automated it's not enough Are you seeing improvements in cost and performance? That this automation can achieve now and in the near future What are those improvements if you are yeah, they're well, there's there's certainly Motivation for that. I mean you'd like to think you could take for granted. You know basic You know inventory management and service delivery, but in this business That can be really hard to do and to be fair That's hard to do because some of these networks are sort of have legacies extending Alexander Graham Bell I mean there's a lot going on there and it's a lot to manage And then you want to try and modernize all that while taking all that with you So there's a lot of work to be done there But but certainly you know in parts of this business where you know There's not a lot of margin to provide some basic connectivity services You'd like to do that as efficiently as as automated as possible But as if the technical challenges weren't hard enough You also have all the commercial arrangements that you have to bring along with that You know everybody wants to be special and get the best deal and you know This is capacity Europe. It's a big part of what goes on there is So can you automate you know a protracted negotiation for connectivity and extend that as Jezebel was alluding to across networks across borders and assure that you know service from end to end And these aren't new issues. You know, this is a big deal, but automation can certainly be And we're hinting about it. So let's go ahead and talk about it Jezebel Let's talk a bit about interoperability How do network operators ensure those network advancements across country borders and through partner network interfaces? Well, there's Lots of different types of interoperability as networks We've always had interoperability because you have to be able to pass packets from one place to another, right? so The technologies already exist on the physical layer. We do pack packets easily But when when it comes to interoperability Eric said it well beyond technology There's a ton of complexities, right? There's commercial relationships There's a software if you're actually doing automation How are you moving packets in the software layer from one place to another? You need to have some sort of standardization translation To be able to move to speak Everybody have to speak the same language To be able to move things from one place to another and to have a ubiquitous environment and Beyond the technology, right beyond the software technologies and the infrastructure technology And the software technology. There's also the business terms, right? We need to align the business terms for the different service providers So that their customer who used to be consuming service in a particular fashion can continue to consume that service in a particular fashion, but in a different area where The network that they're working with does not have current coverage No network can have global ubiquitous coverage in their own network. There's just not enough capital to invest in that so All of the networks really need to work together and collaborate to bring a ubiquitous smooth And pleasant experience to the enterprise customer base and that is what the enterprise customers Are looking for that's right. So right well said All right, so eric with everything we just discussed. How do you see the service mix evolving? Well, there's you know There's a lot of different services kind of up and down the the value chain and we covered a good portion of that You can start at the very at the very core. I mean again, it's a big wholesale event So you're always going to have your bread and butter transport Hi again, everyone. We are officially wrapping up day two of jsa tv and jsa podcast here at capacity europe 2023 We're on the floor. It's been busy. Candice. How have the interviews been going so far today? They've been going really good Really a great, you know vibes overall at the at the event today We've been blessed with beautiful weather today. Actually, I haven't been outside since I walked in That's true. I don't know you could ever be sure in london But so as far as content we've we've been hearing, you know, definitely some common themes that have come up over and over We've been hearing about bringing in new talent into the industry retaining existing and incredible talent Automation customer service, you know, how to generally how to keep up with the incredible demands And you know from all regions of the world to you That's one thing that I really love about capacity europe is it brings together not just european companies, but you know apac We've got, you know us in the house. We've got canada So we've even just here on jsa tv. I believe we did 20 interviews over the past two days and you know, we've we've we just had Radelet from italy talking about That region of the world and then we've had I think three african operators and infrastructure providers We've had companies from germany and amsterdam and london and us and so, you know I really love the diversity From a geographical perspective. Yeah, it continues to be a conversation around bringing The global community together to support global expansion and facilitating the increasing You know demand that that is has been the case for our industry for a long time driven by things like ai Which I don't I find interesting that the conversation has evolved a little bit, you know from You know a few years ago. We were really talking about we need to get ready for this You know the demand that's coming the infrastructure. We need to build to support it now I'm finding a lot more people talking about how they're utilizing ai in their In their organizations to support their customers and I feel like that's been an interesting conversation Yeah, I've been having with folks. Yeah, absolutely. That's right. That's a that's a huge one ai You know, everybody's basically talking about it. There's always going to be several panels At at these conferences and by the way, I did a sneak up in between interviews and and attend the the messaging platform Or the messaging panel A couple hours ago and that was very well attended, you know standing standing room only people were Definitely tuning in for that and it's really nice. It's on kind of on the left side of the big expo hall this year So it's kind of weaved in nicely with the rest of the event Yeah, and so we're not done. I mean we're done for jsa tv But tonight the awards are on the global carrier awards. Yes You're attending. It's exciting because in addition to many jsa clients greener data brought Which of course jsa has brought Together Collaborators from across the industry to talk about what we're doing to support sustainability and the future of our industry and the planet That's up for an award Yes, it is up for best marketing campaign. So I will be in the audience cheering it on Good luck to all of the other shortlisted companies and campaigns. Very exciting Evening and I'm just really excited to to spend another evening with the excellent folks of the digital infrastructure industry tonight Yeah So until we meet again, which will probably be soon That's a wrap for us today For this week for jsa tv here at capacity europe, but we'll we'll bring bringing to you Soon more news that will continue to come out over the course of the week and of course months ahead Yeah, we'll be at dcd virginia Shortly and we will be of course back at ptc We've been talking to folks about that already So we've got a lot of events coming your way a lot of great coverage with leaders in the industry And until then as we always say happy networking happy networking