Unlock the mysteries of the wireless universe with industry guru Jeff Kagan, as we dissect the rapid transformations rocking the telecom world. This episode is your ticket to understanding the pivotal trends before they unfold at the Mobile World Congress. We're peeling back the layers of the telecom industry's past, present, and future—examining the rollercoaster of wireless growth, the repercussions of colossal mergers that never saw the light of day, and the beckoning frontier of private wireless networks. As we converse with Jeff, we illuminate the path led by T-Mobile's foray with Starlink and Rakuten Mobile's alliance with AST SpaceMobile, charting a course to blanket every nook and cranny of the planet with connectivity.
Strap in for a journey through the seismic evolutions that have seen titans like Motorola and BlackBerry yield to the might of Apple's iPhone and Google's Android. Our discussion with Jeff Kagan takes a hard look at the app market's stronghold, daring to question who might next disrupt the technological firmament. And as we peer into the crystal ball of tech's future, notions of implanted smart devices and their impact on our privacy send ripples through the conversation. We're also tying in the vital threads of digital health and wireless's central role in our lives, wrapping up with a reflection on how even the most established companies and fledgling startups are navigating these waters at events such as the Mobile World Congress. Tune in for an episode that bridges the chasm between today's digital landscape and the electrifying possibilities of tomorrow.
Unlock the mysteries of the wireless universe with industry guru Jeff Kagan, as we dissect the rapid transformations rocking the telecom world. This episode is your ticket to understanding the pivotal trends before they unfold at the Mobile World Congress. We're peeling back the layers of the telecom industry's past, present, and future—examining the rollercoaster of wireless growth, the repercussions of colossal mergers that never saw the light of day, and the beckoning frontier of private wireless networks. As we converse with Jeff, we illuminate the path led by T-Mobile's foray with Starlink and Rakuten Mobile's alliance with AST SpaceMobile, charting a course to blanket every nook and cranny of the planet with connectivity.
Strap in for a journey through the seismic evolutions that have seen titans like Motorola and BlackBerry yield to the might of Apple's iPhone and Google's Android. Our discussion with Jeff Kagan takes a hard look at the app market's stronghold, daring to question who might next disrupt the technological firmament. And as we peer into the crystal ball of tech's future, notions of implanted smart devices and their impact on our privacy send ripples through the conversation. We're also tying in the vital threads of digital health and wireless's central role in our lives, wrapping up with a reflection on how even the most established companies and fledgling startups are navigating these waters at events such as the Mobile World Congress. Tune in for an episode that bridges the chasm between today's digital landscape and the electrifying possibilities of tomorrow.
More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel
Speaker 1:
Hey everybody, I am super excited to have influencer author, extraordinaire analyst Jeff Kagan here. Jeff, how are you?
Speaker 2:
I am doing fine, Evan. How are?
Speaker 1:
you. I'm doing really well and so nice to catch up. It's been far too long and I thought it would be really timely to have a chat about all things wireless. Given your decades of industry expertise and experience and commentary, I'm so excited to chat a few days before the big show in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress. Get your insights and perspectives, always illuminating and interesting for the folks viewing. Who may know me not yourself. Introduce yourself, if you would, jeff.
Speaker 2:
Okay, around 1984, I became a telecommunications industry analyst. I had no idea what that meant and I had no idea the direction that it would take me in. But over time, as other industries have grown and become part of that industry wireless, internet, pay TV and now with all the new technologies AI, genai, iot there's an explosion of new technologies. I have continued to follow all these different industries and I attend all the analyst briefings and meetings and I have to sort of juggle it around and make sense in my own head. Then I turn around and I explain to the world what I think. It's just my opinion, but I've been doing what I've been doing for I don't know 35, almost 40 years.
Speaker 2:
I've developed a pretty strong brand name in the business as someone who follows this industry and I help the companies get their messages out. I write about it. I talk about it because I attend these meetings and I'm pretty much up to speed on all these different areas. But the rest of the world is not yet. So I just try to fill that gap and help everyone in the outside world, whether it's customers or investors or whatever understand the direction that the industry is heading. And boy is this industry heading in new directions going forward. We'll talk about that now.
Speaker 1:
Well, if there's one thing that we are seeing is change, and not just change, but the pace of change is accelerating. And wireless in every industry, but particularly wireless. What is top of mind in terms of the top one or two themes this year at Mobile World Congress? What is keeping your attention?
Speaker 2:
Well, first let's look at the bigger picture. Let's pull the camera back and look at the changes that are occurring in the telecommunications industry the wireless industry, paid television, the broadband and all the different areas that are cropping up as potential growth sectors going forward that really people don't really understand yet today. So I'm talking about about five years ago the wireless industry was a mess. It was growing. The wireless industry has been around since 1970 and it's going up and it's going down. It's going up and it's going out. Now, over time, it's continues to rise, but that doesn't mean it's a continual rise. It goes up and it goes down, and it goes up and it goes down. So a few years ago we were in a down and the industry has to have investors. They have to keep their investors happy, otherwise the investors leave to go to another industry. So the wireless industry was not really growing as quickly as it was in the past. So the main drivers, the AT&T's and the Verizon's, for instance, started taking some really strange directions. At&t acquired Direct TV, they acquired Time Warner, warner, media Warner, brothers, studio, cnn, all the rest of that, and Verizon acquired AOL and Yahoo and everything. We all thought that was going to be the direction going forward for the wireless industry. It wasn't. It failed, it completely flocked. They had, several years ago, sell their way out of this.
Speaker 2:
Now, with 5G, with the movement in the industry, we're seeing the same need for the carriers to show growth. But we're also seeing brand new areas. So, for instance, private wireless. This is when companies like AT&T and T-Mobile and Verizon, or the network builders like Qualcomm and Juniper Networks and BetaCom there's literally dozens of big and small companies in that space building networks private networks for companies the AT&T's and Verizon's they offer private wireless services over their public network. The other companies build a private network for their enterprise customers. That's an enormous opportunity, but it's a brand new segment and every brand new segment takes time before the marketplace really understands what is going on. So we've got small companies with great ideas and we've got big companies with a brand name that everyone knows they don't really have the new technology yet. So what we're gonna see next in this next step is private wireless is gonna see a wave of mergers and acquisitions and partnerships. So we're gonna see and we started to see that already. We see, very recently, juniper networks with HPE and we see Qualcomm getting together with BetaCom and US Cellular getting together with BetaCom, and then there's another one overseas a European merger as well. So we're gonna start to see more of these mergers as private wireless becomes a growth sector.
Speaker 2:
And you've also got other areas. You've got satellites, you know. You've got satellite wireless. Never really had satellite wireless. You had a network, a wireless network, and then you have connections to the wireless network and most people in the United States have connections. But there are plenty of areas with a zero wireless connection Top of mountains and middle of deserts, middle of lakes, wherever. And using satellites as a cell tower is a brand new idea that's just starting to come into reality. Apple introduced there a year ago with oh GlobalStar, offering not voice and not apps, but a wireless connection to allow you to basically say I need help, and they can find where you are based on the satellite and they can send help to you. Today, a year later, we're seeing T-Mobile getting together with Starlink, and Starlink is Elon Musk's project. And we see Rakuten Mobile just announced that they're partnering with AST SpaceMobile. So these are all part of the same transformation of the wireless industry.
Speaker 2:
And another area is what we talked about private wireless but we didn't talk about FWA, which is wireless broadband. Today most people get their broadband from their cable television company and some get it from other companies as well. But FWA is fixed wireless access and it's wireless broadband and it's offered by the wireless telephone companies. So AT&T, t-mobile, verizon, us Cellular, c-spire and all the rest of them. They're gonna be offering and they're starting to offer this brand new wireless broadband for your home. So you don't have to have a wire from the cable company coming in and plugging into your house. You just have to plug in a device which connects to the wireless network and then offers you a wifi connection throughout your house. So it's a brilliant idea and the cost is much less than from cable television companies. That's gonna put a big threat for the cable television companies. So we see how wireless is now starting to get back on the growth path again.
Speaker 2:
But it's also impacting other industries, like the industries that offer broadband. So the cable television industries are now gonna be are they gonna be in the wireless industry? Are they going to offer this same kind of FWA wireless broadband and if they do, will it be interesting to customers at a high price, or will they have to then lower their price so in order to attract customers. Cable television companies used to lead their industry, but now they're really losing customers very, very quickly Much less than 50%, generally speaking, of the customer. Some of the cable companies have only 10% of their customer base watching their TV and they're continuing to drop like a rock.
Speaker 2:
And many cable TV companies are starting to get out of offering cable TV. So what we see is they're losing cable TV customers and they're relying on broadband, but now they're gonna be relying they're losing broadband customers. So what are they gonna be doing? That's gonna be interesting to see what the cable television companies do next, but this is all part of this vibrant mix that's going on in the industry and at Mobile World Congress. It's always a great place to take the temperature of the industry, to see where everything is and what's coming next, because all of these things that I talked about are all brand new. And if they're all brand new, this is not the end. We can expect to see more exciting new segments bubbling up to the surface, going forward.
Speaker 1:
Well said. Well, there's a reason you're on all the big media shows you do such a great job of explaining the landscape, but one point we're all seeing is that Big Tech, the Magnificent Seven, are really dominating in terms of all this innovation, intellectual property, r&d, the products and hot services and devices. Are they going to sort of eclipse or consume the wireless industry? Is it we're gonna see just more partnerships like we have in the past, or are they gonna become, you know, wireless players themselves at some point? That? We've been talking about that for a decade as well. What do you see as far as this, the Big Tech landscape and all the innovation happening on the AI front?
Speaker 2:
Well, once again we gotta pull the camera back and we have to look at this from a longer term historical perspective. Everything in the wireless industry has changed. In fact, everything in the wireless industry has changed many times over the past several decades. Started off the invoice only then it was an analog industry and then late in the 90s, everything changed from analog to digital. That caused a big shift. Before that, motorola was number one in the handsets. Then Motorola never really caught on to the fact. They thought the whole world would never be without them. But all of a sudden we started seeing other new innovative technologies enter the marketplace, like apps like wireless data, like sending text messages and emails, things like that. And Motorola wasn't ready for it and they lost and they basically dropped all the way to the bottom. But they were replaced by BlackBerry, and they were replaced by Nokia and by Palm Everybody remembers the old Palm pilots and they led for a decade until Apple with iPhone and Google with Android hit the marketplace. And those companies were not that. They never thought they would lose out and suddenly they're at the bottom of the list of competitors along with Motorola.
Speaker 2:
Now you've got new companies, you've got the Google and you've got the Apple, and these are the companies that have basically juiced up the app market. So, if you have apps, everybody has apps on their iPhone or on their Android. They're from two different app markets the Google app market and the Apple app market. There used to be a few others, but that was when this whole thing started, when Apple and Google started, and now the app market is really just an Android and an Apple and iPhone item. We've gone from about 500 apps to millions, basically overnight with the iPhone and with Android, and that could answer the question. I always ask a question well, if all the rest of these companies lasted for about a decade or 15 years, well, apple, iphone and Android are about 15 years, about 17 years. Who's next? Who's gonna come in next? I don't know if you're gonna see another one coming in next, because they have such strong app markets and the app market is basically what's going to keep them in the leadership position, unless a brand new idea comes out that changes everything all over again the way they did 15 years ago. So you've got these massive changes that are going on in the industry. You've got new technologies that are coming in that are transforming the industry. Ai is gonna be a blockbuster.
Speaker 2:
Everybody is digging in deep into AI. On the other hand, these companies are not letting their own workers use AI because they're afraid of what AI is gonna spill. They're afraid of what AI is gonna tell their company secrets to the competitors or to the general marketplace. They don't want that. They know they can't control AI the way they controlled everything else, because AI is to write its own software and it continues to get better and stronger and it's hard to control. That's not stopping them from making it and making it available to their customers. They just don't want their own employees using it. So that should tell you something. You never want to tell any of your core family secrets on something with AI, because you never know where it's gonna end up. But still, it's a very big growth sector.
Speaker 2:
I always talk about the growth wave. It's important to understand the growth wave. The growth wave starts and it goes up, and it goes up and it goes up. Finally, no growth wave lasts forever. It crests and then it starts its way down.
Speaker 2:
Every company rides a growth wave. Every product, every service rides a growth wave. These are, if you think about, the services that we used to use 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, that don't even exist today. They went up and it went up, it went down, and all the companies I talked about already, all the technologies they ride a growth wave. It's important for companies to understand nothing lasts forever. They have to create the next growth wave, otherwise they're gonna be left behind when the growth wave that they're riding continues to move forward. Think about what happened with Motorola how they just never thought the growth wave was gonna go on without them, but it did and they're suffering, and all these companies that don't think about the growth wave moving ahead without them will suffer. So it's really important to understand the growth wave, which is what wireless tried to do when they acquired AOL and Yahoo and all the rest of that, and it's what the industry does.
Speaker 2:
The industry continues to grow up, continues to mature, continues to move, in large part of it because of investors. It comes back to that because, without making money, investors are not interested in investing. And in order to make money, you've got to continue to innovate. You got to continue to bring these new services. You got some of these services that are gonna be make it and some of them won't.
Speaker 2:
It's like throwing mud against the wall. Some of it will fall off and stuff that sticks you build. That's what the smartphone world is all about. That's what MWC is all about. So what we're gonna experience when we go and see what's happening is not only where we've been, not only where we are today, but what's most important is to understand the direction the wave is heading, where it's going to be in six months, a year, five years, 10 years, so that we can continue to ride that wave of growth. Because if we don't, if we take the attitude to some of these companies that failed, we may too. So it's important to stay with the growth wave rather than having it move ahead and having it leave us behind, just sort of floating in the ocean.
Speaker 1:
Well said. Well speaking of growth wave, we all have our favorite products and services and devices that are emerging, and part of the thrill of MWC is discovery discovering those new devices and services. Obviously, we've seen the Apple Vision Pro. That's generated a ton of interest and hype. We've got X-ray glasses kind of AR glasses from multiple vendors that look really intriguing we're wearing on my flight over to Barcelona. You've got new form factors, so it's not just these things anymore, it's smart pins that you pin to your lapel. It's the Rabbit R1, which is like almost a toy-like AI-powered new category of device. Are there any particular devices, services, apps you think may be leading the way into this new growth wave? Or we won't know until we see it?
Speaker 2:
It's a little bit of both. I have a unique perspective. I've been in this business for a long time. I'm trusted by quite a few companies and they bring me in and they brief me and then they show me what's coming. They not only show me what's out now, but they show me some of these things that are coming and I tell you it's amazing. It's not anything from this world. It's scary, but it's forward thinking there are.
Speaker 2:
What we use as a wireless device now is a smartphone that we keep in our pocket, but going forward we're gonna have a smart device that's implanted. It's gonna be used with what do you call those things that go over your eyes. It's like contact lenses, but it's got technology and not just to improve your vision. That's where you're gonna see what you're talking about now, with these new devices that Apple just was bringing up and the metaverse and everything. It's not gonna be devices that you wear over your eyes like goggles, but it's gonna be those little implants, those little just places that you put on the tips of your eyes. That's where all of this new technology is gonna be seen. You're gonna have something surgically implanted, a little tiny, which is going to have a battery that'll last for a long, long time before it has to be replaced, and it's going to empower everything that you do on a smartphone, everything you do on a computer, everything you do with the metaverse, everything that you do with all the technology that's coming. But you're not gonna have to hold it in your hand. You're gonna be able to speak. You're gonna say call this person, stop this call. What's the stock price on this? What's the news on this? What's my? Do I have any text messages? Everything will be either written in front of you or it'll be spoken into your ear, because everything will be inside of you. Now, when it gets to the annual upgrade, like we have with the iPhone and the Android, I'm gonna wanna go in for surgery every year, but who knows, maybe we will. And so all these implanted, implantable devices are really has to have the potential to transform the way we live and the way we work.
Speaker 2:
And that brings up an important point that I always bring up to them what about privacy? There's no more privacy. We lost our privacy back in the 80s and the 90s and it gets worse and worse, but we never talk about it. Just know that anytime you're on your smartphone, anytime you're typing something on your computer, anytime you're visiting a webpage, anything that you're doing, they are recording, and by they I mean the government and the companies. And they have these big farms, these big industrial server farms in the desert capturing everybody's information for everything that they ever do not that they're ever gonna use it against you, but just in case you get yourself into trouble at some point in the future. They can then go backwards and see everything that you've done to the beginning of time, back to the whenever, the 90s, the 80s. So my kids think I'm crazy, but I always warn everybody just make sure you're careful about what you say, because there's no such thing as privacy anymore.
Speaker 1:
No, it's very true, and at least Europe has some idea of protecting its citizens and data protection, data privacy. We really don't have that at all. The other area I'm really intrigued by, as guys like you and I get older, is aging tech and these little things that I wear from Apple, these AirPods in the future will be health devices. They'll be hearables. Your watch will measure your health and wellness and your glucose levels and your body temperature and heart rate and a whole variety of things, and call 911 if you fall. This is kind of a great time for digital health and health tech that's intersecting with the wireless industry and creating all kinds of new opportunities for companies big like Apple, but also small startups, and, as someone who's I'm sort of middle-aged, let's say that's exciting too to take advantage of all of this innovative AI and health-related technologies. Maybe we'll live a little longer or live better in our older years.
Speaker 2:
That's a great point to bring up, because when you go to Moa World Congress, when you go to any of these shows, you've got core vendors who have their big giant booths but you also have loads of small companies with breakthrough ideas, just like what you were talking about we're living through. This is the early stages, but we're living through the convergence of various different technologies and they're all converging on wireless. They're using wireless to connect to the outside world. And wireless there's two parts. One is the services that people use, but the other part is that it's just the connection the connection.
Speaker 2:
Companies are all going through the same thing that wireless companies are, with new technologies like AI and IoT and all the rest. They have to figure out how to connect to the customer, how to connect to the carriers for updates, how to connect and the wireless technology is the most important segment because it's the one that connects everything and everyone. So you connect every device, every person, every place, all in one network, and all the different technologies from all these different industries have to use wireless. So wireless has been, and will continue to be ultimately important going forward.
Speaker 2:
It's not just a piece of the puzzle, it's the centerpiece of the puzzle and that's why these events like Mobile World Congress, it's a great way to, on an annual basis, take the temperature aware we are and look at where we're going moving forward, because the wireless industry today is very different from the wireless industry that we used 10 years ago. 20 years ago heck, 20 years ago there wasn't even an iPhone or an Android, and it's going to be very different. Five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now. We're just in the middle of a moving target. We're in the middle of a race track the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500, every race that you see on television. Just imagine it going forever and we're in a race car and we're just driving as fast as we can, and some of them will fail.
Speaker 2:
Some of them will ride the growth wave for several years. Some of them, like Apple and Android, may ride the growth wave for a longer time, but the average company, the average idea, will only last a period of time. They have a growth wave that they have to really keep advantage of. What every company needs to know is that they have to be found. They can't just have a great idea. They have to be discovered, because if they're not discovered, they'll disappear. Unfortunately, I've seen many really good companies over time make it and many good companies not make it and just simply disappear. They had really good technologies.
Speaker 2:
Every company has to figure out how to punch their way onto that map, punch their way. There's a noise level in the industry and you punch your way through that noise level just to be seen and heard Because everybody's trying to get some attention. But you got to punch your way through and you got to be one of the companies that people see and people understand as important and as something that they want to work for, invest in, be a customer of, be a partner of. There are so many companies and so many of them have really good ideas, but how do you get noticed? You only get noticed by.
Speaker 2:
You've got to punch your way through and there are ways to do that and that's what I teach companies how to do. But I do that because I want them to have the chance to make it. I want them to have the chance to survive. Wireless has always been and always will be a wonderful business to be in and a fantastic opportunity for any entrepreneur, any scientific mind, any business mind with a breakthrough idea and going forward. It is always this way and it will always be this way. The marketplace continues to change. We must continue to adapt, but that truth will always be.
Speaker 1:
Well, that's a mic drop moment and ended on a very positive high note, despite all the machinations and change and disruption out there. Thanks so much, jeff. Always a joy to catch up. We'll have to do a post-MWC debrief on some of the specific announcements and thanks everyone for watching. You may be following me on Twitter and LinkedIn YouTube, but follow Jeff Kagan. He's a source of real insight, inspiration and thanks everyone. Thanks for watching. Thank you, thanks, jeff. Take care everyone. Bye-bye.