 Hey everyone, it's time to welcome you to yet another edition of JSA's Fast Forward. I'm Jamie Scott-O-Kutaya, CEO and founder of JSA. And I'm Dean Perrine, Executive Vice President at JSA. Thanks for joining us as we broadcast live. That's right, we are live online via LinkedIn and YouTube through our very own JSA TV newsroom. And Dino, you know what? It has been quite a month in this industry, hasn't it? That holds like all the way to Dubai just to check out the latest news. I absolutely did, Jay. We had a fabulous time in Dubai, catching up with old friends and meeting some new friends as well. We conducted a number of great interviews at Capacity Middle East, as you mentioned, in Dubai. And I got to moderate a very, very cool panel on cloud adoption in that region. So they've got their own set of challenges with regard to cloud adoption there in the Middle East. And it was a really, really great event, and we appreciate the folks at Capacity for inviting us. Yeah, I heard you did a stellar job moderating. So thanks for representing. And yeah, JSA TV actually is going to keep that train rolling with more this month. We are gearing up to attend Data Cloud Global Congress, of course, in Monaco legendary event. And we will be broadcasting live JSA TV from the conference floor. So excited about that. Yep, that's right. And shortly after our team will be trying this very, very busy season right now for us, isn't it, Jay? But we'll be traveling to Las Vegas to broadcast live from channel partners and then on to National Harbor for one of my favorite events, ITW. So much going on. And you know what? I have to say this about our industry. We pick the coolest locations to travel to. Hawaii, Monaco, and even DC. So much going on and in fabulous locations. Make sure, guys, if you can't get there, that you are checking out JSA TV on YouTube, LinkedIn for all of our latest broadcast lives from great events. Yeah, yeah. And so while we're catching our breath between events, we're here, Jay and I, to bring you the latest and greatest headlines from the last month of our Telcom News Now blog. And as we're getting used to, we're going to do it quiz style again. I don't know why I keep setting myself up for these, but yes, that's right. We are taking turns asking each other trivia questions and traditionally how it works. I find like I give you easy ones. You give me hard ones, but yeah. But you've won the last two times, you've won. No, I haven't. Have I? Oh, I think so. I think we talked. Anyway, question topics are often relating to they will. They should relate to a headline from this past month. So we do some kind of fun word play. So it makes it a little bit more exciting, I think. Let's kick it off, right? All right. Okay. All right, Jay. This worths one is for you. Which country is the proverb? Which country is this proverb from? It is better to have a hundred friends than a hundred rubles. A hundred friends than a hundred rubles. I got to tell you, never, ever heard that saying before. But okay. You know what? I agree with it. It's important to be rich in friendship. The question going to guess because of the rubles inclusion, Russia? That is correct, Jamie. One point for you. This month, the folks at Light Path asked themselves whether they would rather have a hundred friends, a hundred rubles, or a hundred gigabits per second of connectivity between eight major markets. Amazing. You really asked that. Yeah, amazing segue to the writers there. Wonderful job. I bet you can figure out which one they throw. That's right, a hundred gigabits per second. The recently enhanced National Long Hall Network enables scalable bandwidth options between Boston, a new market of theirs, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, and Miami, another new market of theirs to bring their total network to 20,000 root miles of fiber. Congratulations to our friends at Light Path. Oh, I love it. I love it. Love it. Love it. Well done, Light Path. Okay. Here's another one for you. Dino, the chorus of this song, Home on the Range, mentions which three animals? Oh, my God. Okay. Oh, give me a home where the buffalo room and the deer and the antelope play. I am going to go with, I could keep singing this song, but I'm sure the writers probably want me to do that. I'm not going to. You're welcome. Yes. Okay. So let's see here, the deer, antelope, and buffalo. Three. Nice. Nice. Nice. Where seldom is heard. This origin word. And the skies are not cloudy. You got a cowpoke and so entertaining. We're going from Home on the Range to Fiber to the Home Now. Here we go. Here we go. Yes. Actually, I like that. This month, Horizon, our friends there, announced an expansion project for its fiber to the home deployments across Ohio. Their regional fiber optic network will soon reach residents and businesses located in 13 new Ohio communities. I'm not sure if that includes deer or antelope there, but yeah, 13 communities in Ohio. Probably some deer in Ohio. You know, sure. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So buckle up, Jamie. The next question is a toughie. What is the name of the famous granite boulder in Pilgrim Memorial State Park in Massachusetts? Famous granite boulder in Pilgrim Memorial Park. Okay. Well, sadly, you know, I went to college, Tufts, in Massachusetts. I feel like I'm not doing my alma mater any justice or they're going to be like, Jeremiah. But yeah, not sure. Veterans War Memorial. No, but that is actually a pretty good guess. It's actually Plymouth Rock. That granite, that granite's, it's Plymouth Rock. I was focusing on Massachusetts. You mentioned Pilgrim Park. I should have got that hint. So silly. Yeah. And it's, I would just say, you know, I was too distracted by all my college flashbacks. So I don't know. Anyway, from one bit of granite news to another, our friends at ConnectBase announced another strategic industry partnership this month. This time the team is partnering with granite telecommunications. There we are. There's a similar cloud and pricing visibility. ConnectBase is banking on the partnership with granite. We'll provide many new benefits to users of their connected world platform. That thing just keeps on getting bigger. Rock solid, Dean. That's not even in the script, Jamie. That's amazing. Couldn't help it. OK. So here's a question for you. The slang word sparky. Oh, no. So hard to do this. Is for someone you might hire to do some repairs around the house. What is a sparky? OK. Well, first of all, I can tell you I'm definitely not going to be hiring someone to do what I think this work is because there is no way I'm going to wind up one of them like glowing skeletons and like the closet. But you know what I'm talking about? Like in the cartoons. I'm going to go with electrician, Jamie. Electrician. You got it. You got it, Dino. It's funny because I always feel bad for plumbers. Like electricians, you know, they get cool nicknames like sparky and plumbers, all they do is have their butt cracks hang out. Oh, there we go. Yeah. No fun that what are they going to call them? Buttcracky. But at least they have Super Mario to represent them. Very good point, Jay. Very good point. I forgot he was a plumber. Very super. All right. Let's go from electricians to executives now as there were some exciting new exec hires out in the world of telecom and data centers recently. Go ahead and let's take a look at some. I'm going to kick it off with our friends over at stream data centers brought on my friend Joe Kavanaugh as their new SVP of IT. We love that he'll be in charge of all their tech security and efficiency. So great, great hire over at stream. Awesome. I love to hear that. We're going to keep right on going with some of these new hires. Archtop, they made three big additions to their team. They got a lot of news coming out of that newsroom right now. Kulver is a new vice president of engineering and technology, Mike Skardina, a new vice president of finance, Mr. Kevin Kulver and new vice president of network and system planning, Alex Harris. So lots of big names going over there to Archtop. Yep. Over the top at Archtop. There you go again. You should write the scripts. Indeed. Indeed, Jay. Okay. So far, the score is two to one for me. I'm winning. So if you can tie things up, what is the name of I think you're probably going to get this one. What is the name of small plate dishes in Spain such as pan con tomate in Barcelona? Finally, something up my alley. As you know, Dean, I am a foodie and I love Spain. We went to Barcelona for our honeymoon. All right. So I'm confident in saying that it is top us. And I love it. I could eat potatoes bravas all day. You even said potatoes bravas perfectly. Yeah. So yeah, nice job, Jay. That is correct. And now my stomach is really rumbling, but we've got lots more coming out of Barcelona starting with, yeah, you like what I said that. Yeah, well done. Thank you. Starting with Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona. Mobile World Congress was there. It was there where net number launched their brand new product portfolio. Very cool stuff coming from net number. The new announcement features three core lines designed to optimize provisioning, routing, and trust capabilities for the mobile ecosystem. So a new product launch for net number in Barcelona. Yeah, I got to say I was loving all those net number social posts from the floor of MWC because you could tell they were having a good time. And boy, did they just do a brand takeover there. So great job guys launching that. I should also mention there's been a second announcement out of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this month. And that comes from Aseotope who unveiled a new technology to accelerate open-ran adoption. The new product is called Cool Extreme and it's an enterprise grade enclosure solution offering a hybrid environment for high performance liquid and air-cooled devices. Very cool. Did I did that? Yeah. Also EdgeConnex, you've heard of them before, haven't you, finalized a cable landing station connection in Barcelona just this month. They view the new data center connections as a critical transfer point between Europe and Africa. And through this new connection are able to offer new international routes to their customers. Congratulations to EdgeConnex. And you know, our friends at EdgeConnex doing big stuff, having big news. So let's stick with EdgeConnex for a second. They made news in another way. They announced 3.3 billion with a B in new financing aimed at supporting the development of new critical digital infrastructure, new funds, leverage EdgeConnex, green finance framework focusing on energy efficient and innovative sustainable solutions. So huge deal, huge news, the type of news that I love. So greener data of them. We love that. You know, there were also a lot of tongue twisters in that bit, in that bit of the script too. And Jamie, you flew through it like a champion there. Nice job. So lots going on in Barcelona this month. I was worried that my mind might get stuck on the tapas, I do love tapas, but all of that info really got us in gear. Let's kick it into high gear, Jamie. You know what, speaking of gears and high gear, ready for your next question, my friend? All right, fingers crossed. Here we go. What car race was first held in 1911 and is run on a track nicknamed the Brickyard? Okay, this is way too easy for me. As you know, Jay, I am an Indiana boy in lifelong Cousure. So this one is easy-peasy. It is the Indianapolis 500 or the Indy 500. You got it, my friend. Absolutely. It is the Indy 500, but we are talking just with the 500 reference here. CRN did announce their managed service provider 500 list this month. You see how we went indeed to MSP 500. Yeah, making their fourth consecutive appearance on the list was our friends, Involta, recognized as industry leading MSP. Congrats to Involta. Great people there, I should say. Yeah, congrats to Involta. Absolutely. Here's your next one, Jay. There's a fish native to the Amazon River, where some people use their teeth as razor blades. That's right. There's a fish in the Amazon River. They use their teeth as razor blades. What fish is it? These questions are fishy for sure. Are you okay? Yeah, okay. You should speak to your day job, Jay. Piranha is correct. Please don't write for your day job. All right, so fish, fishy, teeth, piranhas? I don't know. Piranha is correct, Jamie. And speaking of Amazon. No, I didn't. They were in the Amazon, by the way. So that was just teeth reference. Only fish I know that has teeth, by the way. Like, and I'm sure there's a good... Oh, shark. I don't know. Anyway, shark's our fish. That's right. Sharks are fish. Anyway, Piranha is, in fact, the correct answer. Good job. Speaking of Amazon, however, Cologix has partnered with Amazon to bring AWS outposts to their Vancouver data centers. We'll stop there. Now Cologix customers on the west coast of Canada can access AWS capabilities directly. Luckily for them, there are no piranhas in Vancouver. Definitely lucky. You, just when you were too nervous about what's going on in the world, now we have one less thing to be nervous about. That's right. Piranhas in Vancouver. In Vancouver. I'll rest easy tonight. I can tell you that. I'll tell you. You have to make things up to just decrease your stress these days. All right. Dean, you are a music guy, of course. We all know that. So I know you got this one in the bag. Which band guitar player is known as The Edge? Yeah. You recognize, I would recognize The Edge is playing immediately. The band is U2. That's right. But I will be very, very candid with you, Jamie. I've always thought The Edge as like a nickname or moniker for The Edge was always kind of lame. You know, I mean, The Edge, I feel like it's a roller coaster ride. He is the only guy who can pull that off. It's true. That is true. Yeah. And Bono. I know that's a common name. Don't forgive me. I've only known one Bono and it can only be Bono. You know what I mean? That's true. And I guess that's the way it is with The Edge. As lame as that might sound when someone says The Edge, they usually, unless they're in our industry, of course, they think of the guitar player for YouTube. And, you know, talking The Edge, I bet he knows a lot more about music than I do. But he does not know. Rock fiber or wireless land, you know, and how many meanings The Edge might have in our industry, in our neck of the wood, we are so edgy. We are very edgy. Very edgy. Okay. Zenlier appeared in an article this month that we need to mention because everybody's talking about it, discussing the top edge computing trends in 2023. They also published a great op-ed talking about how to address VPN infrastructure challenges, both worth checking out, my friends, if you haven't done so already. Outstanding. Okay, Jay. The score for trivia questions is all tied up at three apiece. So let's go ahead with the tiebreaker. Here it comes. It's to you. What are the muscles that flex the knee? What are the muscles that flex the knee? And I will give you a hint. Pigs probably don't injure theirs as often as humans do. Of course not. The muscles that flex and pigs probably don't hurt theirs as much as humans do. Okay. I think you're hamming this up for me. So I am going to say hamstring. You did it again, Jamie. You did it again. We're talking about flexing for this last question because Light River recently released the latest version of its net flex platform. That's right. Net flex is a transport domain, orchestration and control software. And version 4.7 has all sorts of great new features. You probably don't even need to stretch out your hammies before you use it. I'm having a fall flat right in the end. Oh my goodness. When I think about net flex is on version 4.7 that blows my mind because I remember when those guys were just announcing that flex. One point no. So how fun, how amazing and what a way to keep tabs of this ever-changing dynamic marketplace we work in and Light River, those guys absolutely so innovative. Just love it. Okay. Guys, that is a wrap of another episode of Fast Forward and another month of exciting industry headlines. Hello, April Q2. Here we come. Yeah, next month we'll be even busier with lots going on. I know definitely we're all over the place right now, aren't we? Yeah, like Data Cloud Global Congress in Monaco. Come say hi to the JSA TV team there. Yeah, plus the first ever cybersecurity vishing. That's with a V. Vishing Awareness Week starts on April 10th, hosted by our friends at Mutare. Check out Vishing. That's with a V. V-I-S-H-I-N-G-Awareness.com for more information. I am so excited about Vishing Awareness Week. I cannot even tell you. Yes, yes, yes. And oh guys, don't forget our own JSA virtual roundtable April 20th, April 22nd, Thursday falls on the weekend. So start celebrating April 20th, 21. We are starting, of course, on the 20th with our virtual roundtable, panelists discussing renewable and clean energy solutions to cut carbon in the data center. And that is yet, you know it, a special greener data addition of our virtual roundtable. So celebrating Earth Day. So learn more at jsa.net. And we will see you there. It's good seeing you, Jay. Love you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dino. And catch us next time. Happy networking, y'all. See you later.