 Good morning NerdFam, and welcome back to Barcelona. We're here at Mobile World Congress for four days of coverage. This is the beginning of day two. My name is Savannah Peterson, you're watching theCUBE. I'm joined by two extraordinary veteran analysts. I feel smarter just sitting between the two of them. On my right, Dave Vellante. On my left, Chris Lewis. Thank you so much for being here with us, Chris. How's the show going for you so far? Absolutely brilliant. I mean, the fact is we don't really have, this is not day two, this is day three, because there's always a day zero now. So full days, full downs. Who's counting? Yeah, exactly. Well, it's just that how do you count is the question. No, it's great to have everyone around, and the different influences that we see around the industry all being here. You can see from the numbers in the corridors and on the stand, it's buzzing, you know? It is buzzing. You can feel the energy. It's certainly helping all of us combat the jet lag. And it's been a blast. You two have known each other for 40 years. We have, I was, wow, we have wisdom. Yeah, you have known each other and been analysts longer than I've been alive. So I feel uniquely poised to learn from you. Well, and Chris has, you know, schooled me on MWC. My first MWC, Chris was the year we did Cloud City. Yeah. With Danielle Royston. So last year, Chris came on with Danielle. Danielle's very outspoken how the cloud is going to kill Telco. I mean, that's the shorthand version. You know, she's probably more articulate than that, but also more controversial. But she saved MWC in 2021. There would have been no MWC that year, Chris. That's right. Yeah, and because some of the big vendors pulled out and she stepped in. And, you know, one of the things that we do always need in the industry is a bit of controversy, a bit of outside pressure. You know, we used to be an industry that was always self-contained. We always developed stuff inside. We never exposed it very much to the outside world until we thought we were ready for it. And what the IT world is teaching us and the cloud world is teaching us and the AI world is teaching us is that you've got to be more open. You've got to open up your treasure chest and let people come and share the treasure and get more involved. So Telco's used to dictate the way that the industry was run and people use the technology. And now it's much more about part of being the broader ecosystem. And I think that's evident from the people you see exhibiting here, the conference topics that you see discussed. And yeah, it's a changing world. So in the daily news today, MWC, it's like the more things change, the more they say the same. But the heavyweight EU operators demand a new deal. Okay, and I'm not sure what that new deal looks like. So I wanted to wonder if you could give us some insights here, but they're basically saying they can't keep funding the CAPEX necessary. And they're saying they have a $200 billion shortfall and then EC's Bretton pushes for a spectrum auction shakeup. If I understand it correctly, this individual's proposing not giving spectrum to the highest bidder, but giving spectrum to those who promise fast rollouts, faster networks, and to do so in a shorter timeframe. What do you make of all this? Well, there's a whole basket of things in there. But the spectrum issue is personally, I think we should have what they call a beauty contest rather than the auction. And the commitment from the operator should be to build out and to connect rural leaders so we have complete coverage for everybody rather than purely commercial rollout. You know, we've seen it in the US, massive rural funding from the government to create an environment where it wouldn't exist. The operators just wouldn't build it. So we have to have government involvement. There's a very national level sovereignty involvement as well. The issue of CAPEX and in the contribution from other players, personally, it's a moot point. You know, there's $1.6 trillion of revenue comes into this industry. So to have CAPEX shortfall, I think is that the doors of many of the telcos in the past, some mistakes, they've made with rolling things out. So we need a reality check with the telcos about what broadband should be, fix and mobile combined. So obviously we need that from our personal, from our business lives. And what margin, what reasonable return on that investment should those telcos be able to make? And part of that, especially in Europe, by the way, comes down to the competition that regulators that people at Cherry Brun's predecessor has actually put in place. So we have too many players. So they're not making enough money. You know, whereas ironically, the model in the U.S. with three massive players in a 350 million market, they make money, they make good arpues. And the Chinese market where the government imposed a structure of an industry and decided where spectrum was going to go and model the market, massive, massive market. So explain that, the European CEOs are calling for the ability to consolidate, right? You're saying they're getting blocked from the net? Well, the consolidation has been blocked in the past. The European Commission blocked famously the Telefonica 02 and 03 in the U.K. and 03 is now trying to merge with Vodafone in the U.K. We've just seen the merger here in Spain between Orange and MassMobile. So there's a glimmer of hope it's starting to free up. But of course, part of the problem of this is pacing. So how quickly can we consolidate the market and give people the power to invest and build CapEx and OpEx? Because we know that the regulators take a long time. How long should an investigation take around consolidation? Give us a couple of months, get it done, you know? Yeah, right. Let's talk about speed for a second. You've been coming to MWC for longer than you can remember as we discussed before. And this is an industry that historically does move a bit slower than some of the other tech spaces. Do you see an acceleration now more recently, perhaps because of AI, because of these collaborations or consolidation? AI gives everyone hope, doesn't it? Does it give everyone hope or does it scare everybody? I'm not sure. So the pace of change has shifted radically for the telcos because we used to have some very separate networks to address different solutions. We've consolidated that, we've collapsed them into a core and obviously the move to fiber and wireless services gives us a cleaner architecture to build around and evolve. Now, can they afford to invest as quickly as they'd like? Can they deploy as quickly as they'd like? There are some physical constraints because we're still digging fiber. We don't have fiber everywhere. The ideal situation is we've got fiber everywhere and we've got cell towers everywhere and we combine that with Wi-Fi and deliver the services they want. So the market structure often slows that down. Competitive environments slow it down and frankly we slow it down as customers because we don't really want to change from service provider to service provider. So there's a lot of things that actually go to make the telco market what it is and we as customers are part of the issue. It has speeded up but the other side of it is that often the invisibility of what the telcos do is a problem because we only really care about the mobile network like last week with AT&T when it doesn't work. So most of the time the things that we're doing we don't even think that we're building it on a 5G or 4G network or on a bit of fiber or a bit of copper or over Wi-Fi. That's the job of the industry to make that stuff work seamlessly. So the management of all of these moving parts all the way from the mobile device that we're using all the way through the edge into the data center we need that as what often now get referred to as observability but we used to call it network management by the way managing all these pieces and AI helps massively in that because AI can cope with the scale that we as humans can't cope with. One of the complaints about for the telco management point of view is you've got so many screens to look at to make sure all the different components are running smoothly. Because AI can analyze that data and feed it to you in a single picture. So we're using AI to scale things up and make it better operational decisions often automated decisions, right? So a lot of it won't even be done by us. So yeah, it's moving very quickly. It's an exciting time. And I think we're both firmly in the hope camp when it comes to AI. Definitely in this course there's a big conversation in the US markets about well is this AI boom like the dot com bust when's it going to blow up, et cetera. Right, right. Well you went back Chris I'd love to get your thoughts on this and did sort of a retrospective because we have wisdom because we lived through those days. And it was interesting the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in the States really opened up competition and then it brought in a flood of investment from a bunch of companies that went out of business. And Ron level three global crossing, right? And they put in half a trillion dollars in CAPEX which in today's terms approaches a trillion. So today you're seeing another big CAPEX infusion for a 5G build out and the hyperscalers now Chris are laying on their trillions. So how do you see this new AI era in comparison to the dot com boom? So of course, what you're missing in that analysis Dave is all the investment in fiber. So the build out of fiber and a load of investment only following fiber, civil works build out in many countries around the world because we need that fiber to compliment the cellular from the 5G investments. Which everybody thought was too much and it turned out to be just perfect or not enough, right? I mean, we're still waiting for the returns on the investment on me. So there are many moving parts. There are many different life cycles, different investment cycles. So the investment only has gone right into that infrastructure. And interestingly in the AI world if you look at NVIDIA's share price the investment has gone into infrastructure again. So we're putting the shovels and tools in place for the gold rush. And who's making the money? The guys are selling the shovels, NVIDIA and the like. So how will it impact the revenue later on? There will be a premium. It will make life simpler. It will reduce cost massively for the telcos in terms of their operational environment. It will improve the product development and product delivery because you can use AI to draw the components together. And the big hope is that it will improve customer service because it will reduce the failure points that we've seen in well acknowledged cases over the last few years. So it has an impact all the way through. Part of the question is what is the life cycle impact of that investment? And who's going to make the money? Is there a big premium at the end of it? One of my concerns is that AI will make the telcos so knowledgeable about their customers and will give the service that we want as individuals or households or businesses that we won't move away anymore. So the churn will go. It will kill competition. It could reduce competition. I hadn't really thought about it like that. It's an interesting thought like that, isn't it? Yeah, that is an interesting thought. It almost breeds a complacency or comfort within a system. But the other bit, which I think is really important, is that because we're building observability throughout the whole of the end to end service, that we tend to think of it inside out. So we look at the, is that router working properly? Is that device working properly? Actually, combining all those things together with an AI engine and interpretation. Actually, you can have something on your phone in the future which will say, yeah, you're secure. Yeah, you got great service. You can do a video conference or you should just be texting. So it should turn it outside in and give us the ability to use the services much better, which will give us more confidence about communication. Well, we didn't have to log in this year to MWC, to the Wi-Fi, it just automatically connected, right? Like magic. Yours might have done. Yeah, I was going to say, you had a unique user experience. Is that safe? Are you on our Wi-Fi or their Wi-Fi? No, it's on their Wi-Fi. Oh, wow. It just happened. Is that safe? I don't know. It's great, but is it safe? Well, you have to trust the provider, don't you? Right. And that's the thing, we've always had a love-hate relationship with our telcos. We love them because they're our national asset. You know, SingTel or Telstra or BT or whatever, Deutsche, but we hate them because their service levels have always been so appalling. Right. So actually, this ability to say, yeah, you've got good service. Go ahead, do whatever you need to do. I think it's a really interesting, it's a longer term thing. We're not quite there yet. I want to shift gears a little bit because that was fantastic, but you are wearing some very fashionable, also functioning glasses. You are blind, correct? I am, yeah, yeah. So this is a huge packed event, 95,000 people. How accessible is MWC? Well, luckily, I employ somebody to walk me around all the time now. So five years ago, I'd walk on my own with a white cane. And as Dave has noticed, the crowds just part, they get out of my way. Like Moses, I love walking with it. It's called the Moses stick. That's amazing. But it's got more difficult. My side's got worse side. But actually navigation around is difficult. At least you've got a rigid structure. So you've got a map in your head where things are. The problem is, and the GSMA still don't give very accurate map navigation, which should be great for everybody. And one of the things I'm looking at when we're building inclusive design is that inclusive design obviously benefits me because it allows the stuff to be translated into voice so I can consume it and listen to it. But it gives everyone benefits. So if we, traditionally, we've designed for the so-called center of the market, let's call it a white polo shirt, middle-aged, Anglo-Saxon person. But if you design for the peripheral cases, for the vision impaired, the hearing impaired, the elderly, mobility problems, all these things, actually you get the center for free. And it's a really powerful argument. But we just, we need everybody to have this inclusive design thinking from every aspect to what they develop, whether it's an application, a website, a physical device, or anything. But the good news is the tools are getting easier and easier to use. Accessibility on the smartphone is brilliant these days. I can almost run my business totally off a smartphone. And major is more accessible. I get all the films come now audio described so I can enjoy movies the same way anyone else can. So massive developments, the problem is the sheer numbers here, right? In terms of people aren't always looking where they're going. I can't see, I can't look where I'm going, but they're not looking where they're going, right? They're looking at their phones or they're talking to their colleagues or they're lost as well. So yeah. So yeah, it's that whole curb-cutting theory that everyone benefits when we design with inclusion. I love that. I'm curious, what is your advice to companies who are showing off at an event like MWC? How can they be more inclusive? Well, it's an all-embracing question. If you think of anything that you produce, which is going to touch the market, touch a customer, then it should be accessible. So there are standards for website design, which make it more accessible, avoiding confusing colors and pointless graphics is always a good one. But then in terms of documents, making sure they're all right. Any applications you develop. And by the way, there's a flip side to the accessibility to the customer, which is that it creates a more open environment for a more diverse workforce within your business. So if you have everything accessible, contact center is a great example. You can employ those that I think it's a genesis has a contact center partner in Florida, which is 40% manned by visually impaired people because all of the applications are so accessible. So it creates job opportunities. We have a lot of people on the neurodiversity curve working in the programming and in the coding and AI worlds because they just think differently about these things. They're sitting next to a neurodiverse person. So you're in good company. So my daughter's vegan. So she loves to go to vegan restaurants. Chris, you told me last night about a blind restaurant. That's right. I've never heard of that before. Can you explain that to our audience? So the experience is it's a totally black environment, totally no lights, and you're served by blind people. So the experience is completely about sensing things, obviously by feeling for the food and by eating completely blacked out. And it's just, personally, I don't want it. I'm clinging onto that little bit of sight I've got I don't want to work in that completely darkened world. But it's all about sensors. So it appeals to your senses. The food just tastes different. You're feeling it. The tactical experience is totally different. And I think it makes people appreciate what it's like. And of course, one of the big issues for people like Dave and I, not you, because you're so young, is that as we age, the hearing starts to go, sight starts to go, dexterity starts to go. So we need to build these salute, everything in the future with much more accessible with that usage pattern in mind. Don't design it for all those young people who are much more dexterous and have access to everything now. So make sure when you're designing anything that it's inclusive. And one of the big benefits of thinking that way is that it's partly a reflection on 5G and all the connectivity we have, is that when we need to have social environment supporting people, rather than always going into a specific home, we should be able to do a lot more of that in people's own homes. Wrapped around with robots and with sensors and with all the things that will help you out. What are some of the do's and don'ts for your hosts, right? We get invited to all these shows. We go to Cisco Live and IBM Think and Dell Tech World, obviously MWC. What are some of the do's and don'ts for folks that are inviting people to their events? What they present? Yeah, how can they improve accessibility? What are some of the things that you've experienced were like, well, don't do that, do this. I think you told me a story one time about a giant suite that you got, which was like a gymnasium, is it? Well, I think one thing to bear in mind, especially in this sort of very noisy environment, is if you're trying to present to people, make sure that the audio is clear. I know you're video guys, you're media guys, but actually, audio is so important because if people can't see the screen and slideware is often unreadable anyway, if not meaningless, the audio becomes so important. And yet the quality of audio, I was walking past a stand yesterday and I was trying to tune into what they were saying. It was always like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's terrible. So really think about, I mean, we used to call it multimedia in the good old days. Think about the way in which you can use different media to get your message across. And obviously, stand design is important. Not too many steps, like the one I tripped up coming up onto the set here, but that's a minor issue. I think just think about the content you're producing, the message you're trying to get across, and thinking about all the ways in which you communicate that to people and make it easy. Absolutely, I love it. We talked to the deaf and hard of hearing group at CNCF as well, and so much to learn always from, we can all be more inclusive. I feel like we're all a little selfish and biased to our own brains and ways of moving around and it makes it for a nicer world. Chris, last question for you. What are you most excited about looking at 2024 in the mobile space? What's got you pumped? Well, I hate to go with the flow, but actually it's AI. And the reason it's AI is that my degree 40 years ago was in computational linguistics. And we were trying to- Oh, you were ahead of the curve. And we were trying to teach computers to translate French and German to English and so on. And actually what AI can do for the user experience with all that power behind it, but not just in the big, not just back in the large language models, but actually out onto the device. I think if we can get AI in a generative AI, especially out into that device, it will make life so much easier. Because I think the, so I was always terrified of going from a push button interface to a glass interface, but actually I can use it because of the way the accessibility work to move away from that multi icon glass interface, perhaps to a voice interface, or perhaps just a simpler touch interface to give you access to all the power behind it is just so exciting. And don't lose sight of the fact that voice is phenomenally still important. As humans, we will still talk to each other a lot and we should encourage that. We should certainly with our kids, we should not let them not talk to each other. So I think simplifying and amplifying the experience that we get through our mobile devices, not being restricted by the screen and actually of course the add-ons of all the peripherals whether in perhaps in 10 years time these glasses will be talking to me and feeding images and interpreting images to me. You know, it's a world of endless possibilities. It's an exciting time to be in our space. Really exciting. Yeah, very exciting time. Chris, thank you so much for being on the show. I see why the hype was very real. You're a ball of insight and enjoyed us the next two days. Super articulate, knowledgeable, love having you on, thank you. Thank you guys, thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. And Dave, thank you for joining me. Always pleasure to have you on my ride. And thank all of you for tuning in wherever you are in the world today. Here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, my name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leading source for enterprise tech coverage.