DBTT Episode 7: FTTH developments, BEREC Stakeholder Forum, DNA Updates, FCC Router Ban & Thoughts on Telecoms Sovereignty

In this episode (recorded on April 1), Ben & Dean discuss FTTH, copper switch-off and the upcoming FTTH Council conference in London, the recent BEREC Stakeholder Forum event in Brussels & EU DNA Digital Network Act readouts, the importance of Wi-Fi and the Upcoming Unthinkable Lab event on Telecoms Sovereignty.  

2.00 – Gigabit broadband, FTTH, VHCN, Cable, Copper Switch-Off and more European fixed broadband issues. What’s in the DNA, what is BEREC saying? Is there a genuine need to accelerate the end of copper, including in-building? What practical and legal issues are raised?

17:30 – European Targets for Gigabit Coverage: Can the FTTH gaps be filled by satellite broadband or 5G FWA? Are regulators helping or hindering this? Meet Benoit at the FTTH Council Europe Conference April 14-16 to discuss it

23:50 – Wi-Fi is the real Broadband Endpoint: The importance of Wi-Fi for the last 10 metres of connectivity, including 6GHz spectrum, shifts in regulatory stance on indoor wireless – and the FCC’s ban of foreign-made home Wi-Fi routers: sovereignty or protectionism?

29:50 – Telecoms Sovereignty: How it differs from cloud/AI sovereignty. What does it all mean, and what can telcos offer in terms of connectivity, solutions and the overall stack?  Come to the Unthinkable Lab on April 23 to discuss!

34:20 – Book Ben & Dean for your event! Get us on stage at your conference, or facilitating at your private meeting or executive offsite

Links:

FTTH Council Conference 2026, April 14-16: https://ftthconference.eu/

Unthinkable Lab on Telecoms Sovereignty, April 23: https://www.telecomtv.com/content/unthinkable-lab-sovereignty-in-the-unthinkable-age/

BEREC Stakeholder Forum: https://www.berec.europa.eu/en/events/14th-berec-stakeholder-forum

Benoit's article on Copper Switch-Off: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/conundrums-copper-switch-off-benoit-felten-7okpe

Dean's review of the BEREC Forum: https://deanbubley.substack.com/p/event-report-berec-stakeholder-workshop

Dean's article on Telecoms Sovereignty: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sovereignty-telcos-draft-structure-dean-bubley-sbuke

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello and welcome to this uh slightly belated March edition of DBTT. Uh hi Dean, how are you? I'm pretty good, thanks, Benoit. Yourself? Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh a lot of uh a lot of work and a lot of uh thoughts going through my brain in the run-up to the Fibre to Home Council event in London uh in just 10 days from uh March 14th to 16th. Uh full disclosure, my company Fiber Revolution is a partner. Uh, and in fact, if you're looking for a discount code, feel free to reach out. Um but um yeah, so I think for today our list of topics are gonna be primarily, though not only um fiber focused or fixed focus. Um and um yeah, one of the things that uh we see as kind of pervading the whole set of discussions on telecoms right now is sovereignty, and that's something we're gonna come back to at the end, but I think you have some uh some strong views on that, um Dean.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Absolutely, yeah. I mean I'm I've got my own event on April 23rd, it's another unthinkable lab on particularly on telecom sovereignty. And I'd say the bulk of discussion on sovereignty later on is on cloud and AI and a bit on chips, but there's actually quite a lot going on with networks, telecoms, voice, connectivity, and so on. And I'll I'll come back to that later on.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

All right, so um maybe uh just to ease us into this topic, and obviously the other pervading uh element to the conversation is the DNA, which is now uh fully underway in terms of being discussed everywhere, uh especially in Brussels. Um so so one thing I noticed which uh which is is worth mentioning, and I don't quite know what to make of it, to be honest, is that the DNA seems to have thrown cable under the bus. Um until now the terminology in the European code um was VHCN, very high capacity networks, which more or less explicitly included cable, or at least Oxys 3.1 and beyond as being, you know, an equivalent uh in terms of performance to uh whatever fiber could deliver. Um it looks like that terminology has been superseded by uh less clearly uh identifiable, or maybe not less clearly identifiable, actually VHDN was pretty obscure for a lot of people. But now basically the DNA says gigabit as you know kind of the the the goal, the target, but they do define gigabit as symmetrical, which cable will struggle to deliver. So uh basically doing a one gig symmetrical on DOXIS 3.1 is very complicated and it requires a lot of resources, um, which is so unlikely to happen. Now I'm not sure what this means, to be honest, because on the one hand, that's the basis on which the European targets are now set, but on the other hand, if you're a private operator deploying cable and you're not the incumbent, you can easily take the point of view that this doesn't really affect you in any way. In other words, unless unless governments start saying, well, you're you're non-compliant.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

I'm not sure it makes a difference. I think one of the things, this is something that I mean, I was spent yesterday uh in Brussels at the BEREC stakeholder workshop, and I also looked through, they published a document this week on their BEREC's early assessment of the DNA, the draft DNA, and they specifically call out the role of they referred to it as HFC hybrid fiber coax, which is cable networks, as being unclear. But one of the messages which came out strongly yesterday was the DNA draft has a perceived lack of clarity and a few omissions, and so cable is one of them, another is where you've got uh fibre to the building, um, but then the last drop is on some sort of LAN technology. Another point they said is what do you do about in-building for things like MDUs, where you've got copper networks inside the building. So you might have fibre to the building, but then either copper copper twisted pair or coax up or down between the apparatus.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

So so when it comes to copper switch-off, this is going to be, I think, one of the areas that absolutely needs to be clarified. So, so I mean, this is a good segue because obviously that that's a very discussed topic. I think possibly a bit too much, if I'm honest. Not not in the sense of this is not an important and interesting topic, of course it is, but my point is in the grand scheme of the DNA, I think this is a relatively long-term and and relatively uh solvable. Well, I'm not I'm not so sure about that. So so I was at another Beric workshop a couple of weeks ago in Brussels, specifically on copper switch off, and and and I was and I was um speaking there. And um like one of the things that came out very clearly is that the rationale for copper switch-off is unclear. I mean, there's an impact assessment in the DNA attached documents that basically says, well, you know, there's huge amounts of value to be unlocked by switching a copper off. But in reality, when you start digging in a little bit, it's like it's more like that value is unlocked from having the entire economy switched to fiber, which I mean is associated with copper switch-off, but is not a benefit directly of copper switch off, so that's the first thing. The second thing is this is a very theoretical construct in the impact assessment. But for example, there is no analysis of Spain or Sweden to say, well, actually, they have gotten that 1% GDP increase from copper switch off. If it was as you know, as clear-cut as that, then these types of analyses would have done a lot to kind of encourage other countries to say, we oh, we absolutely do need to accelerate this.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

We we should have some proof points. Actually, another question is I don't know. Do cop do um uh is inbuilding copper still used in Spain and Sweden? Or have they ripped everything out, the rises of apartment blocks and and dealt with?

SPEAKER_01 7:09

I I I I know pretty well about the Spanish market, and I do think there is you know fiber to the actual home everywhere, or fiber to the dwelling or premises, whatever we want to call it. Um in Sweden, I would be surprised because the initial deployments of fiber in Sweden were very much FTTB. Um I would be surprised if there wasn't still a whole lot of Ethernet inbuilding because that's that was the initial deployment model in MDUs in Sweden. And and it works fine. So if it works fine, why would you why would you change that?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

And it and also it just brings in so many complexities. I mean, who who's then responsible? It's a bit like the indoor wireless stuff that I spend a lot of time on. Is is it a building owner that pays for it? Is it one or more of the operators? What happens if you look in the the riser and there's asbestos or I don't know what it well, whatever it is, the the thing you think, oh, it's gonna cost a fortune to update the wiring inside the building.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Well, and actually, this is also an area where having a Europe-wide ruling is very difficult because ownership of what's inside the building depends on a country-by-country basis. So typically in Sweden, the building owner owns whatever infrastructure is inside the building. So basically, uh theoretically, they should pay for deployment. Although, in many instances, the operator said, Well, I'll take that cost, but it's still the it still belongs to the building owners. Whereas in France, um, you know, whatever fiber is inside the building is still owned by the operator. So so there's a lot of legal kind of you know stuff that's not associated with telecom specifically, but with with you know land ownership and building ownership and this kind of stuff. So so that's a that's a second point you you're right to raise that I was gonna put on the table, is there's still a lack of clarity as to what copper we're talking about exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Um I mean that that that phrase lack of clarity came out generally about the DNA yesterday in not just comments from Beric, but a lot of people I spoke to were saying for something that's supposed to be a simplification, it's basically 400 pages of complexity. Um, and there's a lot of things where there's just gaps in in what was in the DNA draft, and there's lack of definitions and uh and sort of a fair amount of hand waving. Yeah, no, no, I I agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

But but when it comes specifically to copper switch off, one of the really interesting points, and I'm hoping that there's a bit more kind of conversation about this in London uh in a couple of weeks, is uh basically uh Peter Alexiadis, who's a really uh really interesting and and very skilled um legal guy uh in the telecom space, uh said, Look, uh under European law, there's a very distinct possibility that forcing an operator to switch their copper off could entitle them to compensation. And suddenly you go like, oh, that certainly hasn't been factored into any calculations as to benefits of copper switch off. Because the thing is, like we use France and Sweden and Spain as examples, but these are countries where the operator actively wants to accelerate copper switch off because it's the incumbent, it's in their benefit. But if you look at Germany or or Italy, the the incumbents are a very different place and they do not want to switch the copper off. So how do you well can the tools that are in the DNA actually force you to switch off if you don't want to? And if that is the case, then are you entitled to some compensation for basically having to scrap an asset that you own and it's still working? Um, and then of course, as part of that whole discussion, the bit that I think gets omitted to a certain extent is the end user. In other words, the there is a uh an understanding in the DNA and more broadly in the countries that have you know accelerated copper switch off that you need to have a substitute network not necessarily enabled to sorry in order to switch the copper off, but at least as a public policy goal, everyone needs to have access to broadband. Um is a generally good rule. Uh there's a there's a much less clear, in my opinion, objective around um in particularly the UK is a very good example of that, around people who have invested in fiber infrastructure that are not the incumbent, and that you would naturally imagine would be where customers would go when the copper gets switched off. But that's actually why BT doesn't want to switch the copper off in areas where they haven't deployed fiber. So there's a a big ambiguity there. Um and and and the rule actually, this is a really interesting point that uh that Tony Shortl raised at that at that Barrett meeting, which I had alluded to, but he went a lot more in depth and he kind of confirmed my hunch, which was that there is a 95% deployment target after which the regulator, the national regulator under the future DNA rules, could then impose copper switch-off. That's very easy to game. You just deploy to 90% in a given area and then you stop. And so basically, not only can copper switch off no longer be mandated, but in addition, we've lost 5% potential coverage just because it's it's more in the interest of the incumbent to not go there.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

And and I mean there's so many second order effects, whether you're gaming those rules, whether well, I mean, one of one of the things is if you're switching off copper, you're implicitly telling people you must have a new hole drilled through your wall and you know fibre run through your garden, which I can imagine if a certain proportion of people will be unhappy with. There's a set of other things which has been on my mind, which is around often with the copper switch off, we're gonna have PSDN switch off at the same time, or the new network you will be PSDN optional. I would say always that I don't see how you maintain PSDN without without yeah, I mean it depends a little bit on the the rules, but yeah, what what that then implies is, and this is something which I've been looking at a couple of recent events, is all of the emergency calling will either become wireless by default or wireless primary, which then has essentially means you need to be able to call 112 or 999 or 911 in the US everywhere indoors because there's not going to be necessarily a fixed phone you can use. Um, even more complicated in the US, where emergency calls need to get um uh Z-axis uh height above ground as well if you've got multi-story buildings and you've got to be within one floor. So emergency services know you're on the fifth floor rather than the sixth or the ninth or whatever. Um and so that one of the one of the corollaries is that that you're if you're gonna switch off your P your copper and therefore switch off your PSDN, you've got to make sure your indoor wireless coverage and the ability to dial emergency calls is pretty ubiquitous, and ideally that the regulator checks that and monitors it. Um and doing a drive test for wireless coverage won't cut whether the stairwell. A concrete stairwell, if you think of a big building with a concrete stairwell, are you you and there's a fire, which and you're going to be in the emergency exit stairwell, can you call for for a fire for fire service?

SPEAKER_01 15:07

I mean, yeah, there's all sorts of knock-on inputs. And I mean, to take a step back to a slightly broader one, which is rural. I mean, is rural coverage good enough? I mean, one of the things that struck me looking at uh again the UK market, but I'm pretty sure this is true uh you know in a lot of other places, is uh there are a lot of private uh 5G networks that are actually there to substitute for poor uh general MNO service, and and yet these areas look like they are covered, you know, on coverage maps and and stuff like that. So um the there you're right. I don't think that that particular issue has been really accounted for in the in the current um setup.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

There is a I mean especially especially because the copper switch off is happening in parallel with the 2G 3G switch off, which makes all of that even worse.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Or could make that even worse, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, no, I agree. I agree. And and bizarrely, the 2G3G switch-off is is barely mentioned anywhere. Um for reasons I don't necessarily understand.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

He came out of the Berrett workshop as some work that's been done in their future wireless evolution, I can't remember the name of the working group, in particular, because um that then means that all um calls um have to be IP-based using uh Volti or Vonner. And there's been issues, including in Sweden actually, um, where on certain phones you can't make emergency calls because not every phone registers on the operator's IMS for um Volti calls. It's been I know Rudolf Vanderback was excellent.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

I was gonna mention that this is something he's been on top of, and and anyone who wants to look into these particular issues should check out Rudolf's uh writing on this. Um so uh all of this actually ties into another topic which uh which I think uh is now getting a lot of prominence and I suspect will be discussed at the FTTH council. But um there's this ambiguity, uh, and it's not just from the DNA because it's been around for a while now, about the European targets being set at 100% coverage of fiber, effectively, because now any other alternative is is no longer part of the definition. Um and yet very few countries have a realistic path to 100% fiber coverage. I was speaking to a regulator just earlier this week, and they'll remain nameless, but they said in our calculations we don't see FTTH deployment going much beyond 80%. Um so so how do we how do we deal with with the remaining 20? Um and this is where, and it's gonna tie back to the sovereignty question as well. This is where like a laissez-faire approach would be look, well, satellite will pick that up. And I know that you know both Starlink and Koiper are actually pushing this as you know, we can do this, um, which is technically maybe true. I I I'd have some doubts about capacity, but um but does raise you know significant sovereignty issues around around uh that particular part.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

The other thing that there's a bit of five 5G fixed wireless in the middle, I'd say between the richer fiber and the the the sort of pulling the satellite uh handle, there's there's a f 5G FWA bucket in the city.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

I absolutely agree, and this is where I am a bit irritated at the vendors who are not, I don't think they don't have a coherent uh discourse about what they can now deliver with fixed wireless access. And I think the public perception or the public policy perception of fixed wireless access is five years old, and five years ago it was a lot of promises that were not delivered, and and so now there is this kind of ingrained view that FWA does not allow you to deliver not even a fiber equivalent service, but maybe not even a hundred meg service, which is patently not the case, but but I'm I'm irritated because the vendors are not you know openly saying, look, guys, we're here. So the only ones we're hearing are the non-European satellite providers, um and the European vendors are just just not addressing this.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

I mean, uh Ericsson and Nokia both talk up um FWA a fair amount, and especially because of the US growth in it, and uh to an extent some other markets, maybe Japan and others. But not in Europe. Um I think maybe but in Europe, no, you that they they don't pitch it as much. I think it's because that they look at Europe and also, to be fair, Middle East, and often it gets grouped into EMIA, um, and they look at you know most of the Gulf states and they're fully fibre pretty much because they've got lots of MDUs. Um actually a lot of a lot of Europe is MDU heavy, and I think that's that's why. The other side to it is Europe has been so slow on getting set together on millimeter wave, um, which actually both Ericsson and Nokia now claim to have 10, 12 kilometre reach um with millimeter wave. Um, but that means external installation, and it's it's yeah, it's it's sort of, and I think until they knew where the fibre stopped, that there was like an emphasis on pushing FWA in other markets of you know India and Africa and Australia and places. Um so I think you're right that they could probably be doing with a bit more of a pivot to that, but there needs to be a signal from the policymakers that that's an acceptable um you know part of the solution, and they've been a bit equivocal for the most part.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Well, and certainly the DNA doesn't help there because that there is no recognition that that that last five to eight percent might be largely theoretical.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

And to be honest, this is also the the mythical gigabit is something which I I I mean, why why is it a gigabit? Why isn't it 700 per meg? Why isn't it 1.3 gig? Who picked this nice round number, which is obviously, yeah, so we all like you know, one thousand, it's got lots of zeros in it. But is there any science but that that why it has to be a thousand rather than seven hundred, let's say?

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Probably not. Well, I mean, you know, public targets always pick something and not necessarily with a huge amount of science behind it. I don't so much object to that as as to you know the the kind of lack of recognition that the target if the target was described as aspirational I I would I would I would be okay with that right but the target isn't described as an absolute um and and it's actually used in in public policy discussions by you know people like Connect Europe to say well at the current rate we will not have a hundred percent by you know 2053 or whatever and you're like well you uh your your members have no intention of deploying so so why are you even saying that and and and and in particular it's then you well I I know why it's because they've then added in the eight million euros it would take to get fiber out to some remote island somewhere um and that then helps them with their spurious investment gap number calculations. No but that's but that's what I find annoying but by not engaging into this uh discussion which I think is a really important one I think the policymakers are actually uh doing themselves and the industry a disservice because it it means it's it's a lot harder to look at this dispassionately and with you know kind of cold rational numbers and say well what's a realistic option here and I mean I'm all for like everyone should have gigabit a gigabit if if possible but there is an if possible in that sentence which seems to have just gone out the window so anyway yeah so I think that's gonna be a big topic as well at the council event um and one thing which I I really wanted to discuss with you because you probably understand this way better than I do is we we're always talking about fiber as an endpoint to broadband but the reality is that's not the endpoint. The endpoint is actually Wi-Fi uh because in 95 or whatever you probably know the numbers better than I do but but I would say 90 plus percent of devices are actually not connected physically to the router they're actually using Wi-Fi to um to operate and so the quality of the Wi-Fi becomes a key question. The spectrum availability of Wi-Fi becomes a key question. And also I think you have some news from the US that the uh the the router where the country where the router was was designed and built becomes a an important consideration as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Well yeah no I mean so so obviously you if you look around whether it's a home or an office um the bulk of endpoints these days are Wi-Fi connected in the home yes there's some indoor to outdoor cellular but you know every there's no cellular TVs there's few cellular laptops all of your IoT devices will either use Wi-Fi or something like a Bluetooth or a Zigbee via a Wi-Fi gateway probably um smart speakers all this stuff um and yeah obviously you have high density of Wi-Fi in MDUs where you've also got to think about interference in the number of channels with the apartments next to you and the floors above and below and that gets back to the the perennial discussion about things like six gigahertz spectrum in the US they're now starting to look at the lower 7 gigahertz as well um and we know where that took us with the RSPG's last um you know look at the upper 6 gig in Europe which is sort of heavily cellular focused. I do note now Brussels actually is understanding this a bit more than it did a year or two ago and so Wi-Fi cropped up at the BEREC workshop there's a couple of mentions in the DNA there's this understanding that having fibre that goes as far as the front door doesn't actually get you to all of your economic goals your social goals your inclusiveness goals your productivity goals and you do actually need to connect endpoints whether that's a TV or it's a telemedicine device or whatever it happens to be. So I I think that that's good. I noticed that there's now a permanent representative of Wi-Fi Alliance in Brussels rather than getting an occasional visit from uh their um uh overworked global guy regulatory guy um whilst broadband alliance is is you know there's two uh Portuguese guys who who you who are the heading it up at the moment so it's it's it's good that there is a bit more profile on that and a recognition that the hybrid networks are going to be essential and there's this there's even possibly and and this is something where um the the there was a the call for what next year's BEREC projects and work program is their wireless group is considering having an indoor wireless and I'll be putting a submission in saying yeah that's a great idea we should actually have more specific documents coming out of Brussels on that. So I think that's interesting. And then in the US um there's a completely different development in the last week or so where suddenly the FCC put out a paper last week saying um root wi routers not just Wi-Fi but consumer grade routers um not manufactured in the US will be subject to their um essentially import restriction policy I can't remember the the formal name of it in the same way that you can't buy foreign-made drones in the US anymore and it's like all of a sudden all Wi-Fi routers are subject to the same rules unless you get an exemption. Now given basically every single Wi-Fi router in the US is made in Taiwan or China or maybe Vietnam that's a big problem. And essentially if you means if you going forward if you move house or you want to switch provider they can't provide you with with a Wi-Fi gateway or router. They either need to have an existing one refurbed or they just need to try and work out how this exemption policy works. Interestingly someone pointed out that the only company that does make at least some of their routers consumer grade routers in the US is Starlink rather interestingly where although the latest smaller ones are actually made in Vietnam historically they're in home because you with Starlink broadband you have the dish outside and you have the Wi-Fi router inside and they actually have made some in Texas in the past and whereas all the sort of Netgear and and Sajincom and all the rest of them generally are are shipped in. And so I was also speculating whether maybe maybe the FCC and maybe the Department of Homeland Security has identified a specific malware threat that they believe is is related to whether it's the chipsets, the firmware um so maybe there is maybe there is a genuine issue rather than protectionism or a combination of the two I I I wrote a post last week speculating well imagine imagine in Europe if we did the same there are some European Wi-Fi manufacturers you know Sajoncom's one and and uh Microtik in Latvia and a couple of others but it would still a lot of the um operator branded ones are actually manufactured in Taiwan or elsewhere that would be hugely disruptive and you know you could wave the sovereignty banner um but it's interesting that this there's now you know we've we've had all this before with um mobile network equipment but I wasn't expecting it to to read across to you know consumer grade Wi-Fi uh access boxes.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Yeah yeah yeah and and and as you say I mean this this comes back to this overarching theme of sovereignty.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

So why why don't you tell us a little bit about this workshop that you're organizing uh in a few weeks yeah on April 23rd I'm running my next uh Unthinkable lab uh workshop with Andrew Collinson and also supported by Telecom TV it's a a small group maybe 30 people in a room under Chatham House rule and here we're going to talk about what is telecom sovereignty because a lot of the sovereignty discussion at the moment is around data and cloud and AI and chips but networks and telecoms have some intersection points in some cases you're finding telcos being the national sovereign cloud provider I spoke to one uh in Central Asia uh yesterday um but there's uh a a lot more in terms of sovereignty for telcos either that they can run internally in terms of their own network equipment the Wi-Fi routers being an example or where they can offer sovereign telecom services and solutions to enterprises to government and I I I've got a sort of framework now in my mind where you've got sovereign connectivity which is things like zero uh trust networks it's resilient and redundant fiber for utilities and government connections uh maybe it's you it's for really secure uh requirements is quantum key distribution and things like that then I think there's a category which is really interesting and overlooked call that I'm calling sovereign telecom solutions or products and this is where I think you're going to see stuff like contact centres or um next-gen voice services and yeah maybe integrated security where you could have a say a sovereign contact centre for a bank or a healthcare service or the tax office or somewhere where your data is stored in country and which is I mean the the big worry in Europe in particular is that that there's a essentially a metaphorical big red off switch in the Oval Office and that we obviously there's certain things for that that that would prefer to have locally resident. Now that could still be using foreign-made you know elements and components um but it has to have the the governance the control the encryption keys um you know locally um and then the last part of this so you've got the connectivity there's the solutions and the last part is this stack and the stack is like cloud and telecoms and supply chain and that's where it gets really messy where fundamentally there's never going to be a European equivalent of NVIDIA and we are going to be reliant on a number of sort of US and China made components for some time in certain areas but you can start to to sort of work whether I I think the cloud aspect to it is the hardest is Sovereign Cloud going to be a European partner with AWS and Azure and Google that we see already in a lot of a lot of areas or is it going to be this sort of idea of a Eurostack where they try and build the whole thing and then get developers to sign up and a toolkit and all of the stuff all of the APIs that's sort of sovereign European and to be honest I have grave doubts that that's feasible except in you know maybe the military can do one or whatever but is your average European retailer where you've got a developer who's used to using AWS suddenly going to be writing their their um applications to whatever that platform is and Mistral AI rather than open AI I doubt it. So I think that there's there's there's the the the network pro net the networking connectivity the integrated solution sovereignty and then there is something in this stack and supply chain but I think we need to be a bit more nuanced on what's realistic. And that's one of the things we're going to explore in in the workshop I'll put a link in the show notes um and so if you're interested in signing up I'll I if you contact me I'll probably be able to do a discount for listeners of this as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

It uh sounds like a really uh interesting programme I'll actually be in the UK that week but on vacation for once so I will not be able to join you. I will be in London the week before however for the FTTH Council Europe. If you do want to meet um please do. And um I think uh both Dean and I are very keen to uh also maybe um you know have these discussions in public if that makes sense for events and stuff like that. So if you're running events and you think it would be interesting to have us uh you know discuss these things and maybe interact with an audience on some of these topics I think we're very keen to do that.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Yeah we've did we've done a couple of sort of Ben and Dean live on stage events um and that's actually you know quite interesting because if you've got audience participation and maybe you know a host or an MC uh doing a sort of two-way fireside chat um I I think that's an interesting format. So please do get in touch if uh you'd like us to be uh gracing your event in future.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Okay and that's uh us for this month I think um Dean see you soon probably uh and in any case at the latest see you next month fantastic thanks have a good one cheers and thanks and everyone subscribe please thank you