TeleGeography Explains the Internet

611: The Podcast Goes Dark! (Dark Fiber, That is)

We haven't been getting enough fiber here at TeleGeography Explains the Internet, but we're about to change that.

Nutritional jokes aside, this week, we welcome Todd Chapman, a veteran in fiber development, to the hot seat. Todd walks us through the ins and outs of Layer 0 of the physical infrastructure underlying data transmission. Some classic explaining of the internet. 

In this episode, you'll get a walkthrough of the process that takes a fiber project from manufacturing to lit service—get ready to learn a thing or two about different types of fiber and their uses. We also get some good explanations of the dark fiber market and an overview of when enterprises might be interested in leasing dark fiber instead of lit service.

More Fiber-Rich Content:

• How Many Submarine Cables Are There, Anyway?
• Submarine Cable FAQs
• The Key Trends Shaping Long-Haul Capacity Demand
• The Speed of Light Never Changes—Except When it Does
• Will Fiber Pairs Become the New Coin of the Realm?
• Comparing the Fiber Strategies of the Big Three U.S. Mobile Operators
• Meet The Father of Fiber Optic Communication

610: What You Need to Know About Network as a Service in 2025

Welcome back, TeleGeography Explains the Internet listeners. We took a nice long break for the holidays, and we've returned refreshed with another batch of telecom conversations for your feed.

Our first guest of 2025 is Fahim Sabir, Director of Digital Solutions at Colt.

Fahim joined us to clarify the often confusing world of Network as a Service (NaaS). As you know, our whole deal is explaining the internet, so we started by discussing Fahim's definition of NaaS and a breakdown of why it's important in the market right now. 

We also discuss the back end, examining what the carrier ecosystem still needs to accomplish to make customer-facing NaaS a full reality. 

More NaaS Talk:

• When Networking and Security Collide
• Episode 504 | How NaaS Relates to SDN and Automation
• Episode 315 | How Enterprises Are Implementing NaaS 
• Episode 313 | The Need for NaaS 
• Episode 219 | NaaS, the Cloud, and the Future of 5G
• Episode 213 | Nailing Down Network-as-a-Service
• Real Talk: Are WAN Managers Adopting NaaS?

609: A Telecom Year in Review

Happy holidays, TeleGeography Explains the Internet listeners.

As the year ends, a few teammates joined us on the podcast to review the major telecom events of the past 12 months and chat about what we might anticipate in 2025. Some highlights 👇

• Analyst Lane Burdette joins the show to review some of the most headline-grabbing trends we saw in the submarine cable world.
• While cables keep the continents connected, Principal Analyst Patrick Christian got on the mic to discuss one of the key reasons for that connectivity demand: cloud services.
• Of course, underlying the cloud are the data centers. For that conversation, we welcomed back Senior Manager Jon Hjembo after recently explaining our new Market Connectivity Score a few weeks back.
• When it came to enterprise networks in 2024, it was hard to have a conversation that didn’t involve NaaS and security, specifically SASE. To talk about the real trends surrounding the buzzwords, we had to call on Research Manager Brianna Boudreau.
• So many of these conversations are underpinned by the transport network. To chat about the cost of sending bits around that global network, we were thrilled to welcome Research Director Rob Schult to tell us what was noteworthy in the world of telecom pricing in 2024. 

608: Data Assurance in the Age of AI

Vinay Prabhu, Director of Product Management at Graphiant, is our latest guest on TeleGeography Explains the Internet. He recently joined us to discuss the intricacies of moving data around the globe.

Vinay outlines the reasons you should be thinking about your data in motion and what Graphiant is doing to ensure its safe passage, particularly as AI becomes more prevalent. 

607: Internet Sourcing, as Explained by an Internet Aggregator

To truly explain the internet, sometimes we have to get into where your internet comes from. For that, our guest today is Rutger Bevaart, CEO and Co-founder of GNX.

As you'll hear, Rutger has a deep history in the telecom industry and founded GNX to streamline internet sourcing, which is undoubtedly a pain point for many listeners.

We discuss the shift away from MPLS and toward the internet and how that transition can bring many benefits to an enterprise; however, it also comes with complexity and new challenges, especially in sourcing and managing internet links worldwide. 

From This Episode:

• Episode 606 | When Networking and Security Collide
• Episode 501 | Are These WAN Sourcing Trends Real or Just Hype?
• Episode 413 | A Brief History of Networking as a Service
• TeleGeography Literally Explains the WAN
• About our WAN Cost Benchmark
• About our WAN Geography Benchmark

606: When Networking and Security Collide

There's a common theme we encounter here at TeleGeography Explains the Internet.

It goes like this: the enterprise WAN has undergone significant changes in the past several years to align the network with digital transformation, cloud adoption, rising bandwidths, and cost control. These changes—while making the network more resilient and affordable—can introduce new challenges in complexity and management. 

Our guest today is Marcel Stadler, Product Manager of SD-WAN at Open Systems.

Marcel joins our semi-annual conversation on this landscape; he outlines how managed SD-WAN providers like Open Systems approach these issues with their enterprise customers. (Yes, we chat about SASE and integrating security into an SD-WAN because we know what the listeners want.) 

From This Episode:

• Building a Network Business Case: Essential Data Insights for CIOs
• Episode 508 | How Geography Influences Network Security
• Episode 421 | What Makes a WAN Truly Secure?
• Episode 414 | SASE and Secure
• Episode 312 | SASE Isn't Revolutionary. It's Evolutionary.
• TeleGeography Literally Explains the WAN
• What SD-WAN Is and How It’s Deployed

605: A Guide to Calculating the World's Next Interconnectivity Hub (According to You)

Where are we building data centers? Why? What markets are primed for interconnectivity glory? Which ones are getting left in the dust?

We've heard these questions again and again. So we did what any reasonable telecom data provider would do: we developed an interactive tool to rank the world's best-connected and fastest-growing cities, scored on a scale of 0-100 across nine key categories.

This week's guest on TeleGeography Explains the Internet is our resident data center expert Jon Hjembo. He walks us through how (and why!) we developed the Market Connectivity Score and reveals what initial rankings tell us about the interconnectivity landscape and metro areas to watch like Kuala Lumpur.

From This Episode:

• Episode 603 | What Network Managers Should Know About AI and Machine Learning
• Episode 308 | Data Centers and Digital Transformation
• TeleGeography Literally Explains Data Centers
• Jon Hjembo at PTC 2024
• About the Data Center Research Service
• Quarterly Market Connectivity Scores

604: Who Orchestrates the Orchestrators?

We're back on the AI beat, specifically looking at how it can support corporate network automation.

Per usual, we had a little help. Our guest today is Jamie Pugh, CTO at Globalgig.

Jamie joined the show not only to ponder all things automation but also to discuss enterprise network orchestration in the era of an increasingly complex WAN.

603: What Network Managers Should Know About AI and Machine Learning

It's 2024. We obviously had to do an AI episode of the pod.

And for that, we welcome our guest Michael Wynston, Director of Network & Security Architecture at Fiserv. 

Michael is the first esteemed member of TeleGeography Explains the Internet's four-timers club. Indeed, as I'm sure you've guessed, he's back on the show for the fourth time. And this time around he's here to help us better understand how AI is developing as a network management tool.

 

602: What to Know About Direct-to-Device Satellite Communications

For our next episode of TeleGeography Explains the Internet, we look to the sky.

Our guest is Sal Salamone, Managing Editor of Network Computing magazine. Sal joins to discuss the emerging market for direct-to-device satellite communications.