Telco in 20

Over the next 20 years, the telco industry will radically change as we move the entire IT estate to the public cloud to use AI. Are you ready? Telco in 20 helps telecom execs drive transformative change through the savvy use of public cloud and AI. Host Danielle Rios and high profile guests from across telecom share their vision for the industry’s future, the impact of artificial intelligence, and what telcos need to do to thrive.

Telco in 20 is a business podcast hosted by Danielle Rios, TelcoDR, with 148 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Danielle Rios, TelcoDR hosts Telco in 20, a business show with 148 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #147

  Ep 147 - ANTA: TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Accelerator (Guy Daniels)

  Aug 17, 202618 min

  Everyone has an opinion about how telcos are doing with AI. Almost nobody has evidence—until now. Guy Daniels, chief strategy officer and content director at TelecomTV, spent the year compiling the AI-Native Telco Index—the first 100% evidence-based report on telco AI adoption . It’s one piece of TelecomTV’s new AI-Native Telco Accelerator (ANTA), a community built to bring operators, vendors, and standards bodies together to share what’s actually working in our industry. I sat down with Guy to talk about what his research reveals, how ANTA works, and what’s coming at the AI-Native Telco Forum in Düsseldorf this September. Listen now to hear: What ANTA is, and the three pieces that make it run [04:21]; Which operators are doing impressive AI work [08:01]; Why so many telcos keep their best AI work hidden [09:08]; and The “AI in telco” myth that Guy’s research debunks [13:44]. Links and Resources: Read TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Accelerator (ANTA) announcement , the community launched to help operators move from AI pilots to deployments that actually scale. Learn more about ANTA and the AI-Native Telco Index —the first evidence-based read on how 56 operators are scaling AI. The members-only report drops this September at the Forum in Düsseldorf. Join the conversation! Book your spot at the AI-Native Telco Forum , September 8 and 9 in Düsseldorf. Learn how the Totogi Ontology keeps every AI decision in one governed model, so you can show which rule fired and why. It’s exactly the kind of real-world deployment ANTA is tracking. Watch it run at our demo pod in Düsseldorf or set up a meeting with Team Totogi . Catch up on the AI breakthroughs I rattle off at the top of the show: Anthropic’s “ When AI builds itself ” report lays out how AI now writes most of its own code and runs unsupervised for hours, even days. Fortune’s write-up covers how Claude Fable 5 helped disprove the 87-year-old Jacobian conjecture. Explore the two operators that Guy singles out as pace-setters: Read about Deutsche Telekom’s march toward AI-native and the customer-facing bot that’s posting published results. Check out Orange, which is putting AI at the center of its strategy and briefing investors on it, something almost no other telco does. Watch my keynote and panel from last year’s AI-Native Telco Forum, where a room of operators told me you can’t vibe code a carrier-grade BSS—so we built one live that day. See what Totogi shipped in Düsseldorf last year: 617,000 lines of production code, generated live, all captured in this LinkedIn recap . Go deeper in my blog, “ Düsseldorf changed everything for BSS ,” on why the use case is never the moat. Want an invite to the Totogi party while you’re at the AI-Native Telco Forum? Stop by our demo pod, or DM me on LinkedIn or X at @TelcoDR for more information. Speaking of parties, cue up some of the greatest ever put on film to help you prepare for a good time: the house party in Eddie Murphy’s Trading Places , the night that spirals in Bachelor Party , the rager that leaves the house a mess in Sixteen Candles , and the granddaddy party movie of them all, The Hangover . (Warning: explicit scenes, but they’re epic so I’m putting them in the show notes anyway!) Check out this episode on our YouTube channel . You can find the episode transcript here . Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring. Follow DR: Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in ! Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know . Follow DR on X @TelcoDR The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! We’ve won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, and 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards. We are also recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast , Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast . If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews! This week’s guest: Guy Daniels is chief strategy officer and content director at TelecomTV, where he leads editorial strategy across the company’s events, including the DSP Leaders World Forum, the Great Telco Debate, and the AI-Native Telco Forum. He recently launched ANTA, the AI-Native Telco Accelerator—TelecomTV’s industry-backed initiative uniting operators, vendors, and industry bodies to help telcos move from AI experimentation to real-world deployment. A pioneer of online video in telecoms, Guy co-founded Decisive Media and TelecomTV in 2001 after a decade in telecoms publishing. Podcast Credits: Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing Audio Editor: Andrew Condell Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio Music: Dyami Wilson

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  Episode #146

  Ep 146 - Eutelsat’s AI in the sky (Dr. Mariam Kaynia)

  Aug 3, 202621 min

  It’s hard to manage a network in space. That constraint shapes everything Dr. Mariam Kaynia thinks about as chief data and information officer at Eutelsat, Europe’s only LEO alternative to Starlink in orbit today. The company runs more than 600 satellites at 1,200 kilometers alongside a geostationary fleet parked even higher. When Eutelsat launches a satellite, the intelligence running it has to be right before it leaves the ground: self-calibrating, self-healing, and autonomous by design, not by choice. I sat down with Mariam to unpack why satellite is becoming core connectivity instead of the backup layer, how Eutelsat federated its data platforms instead of ripping them out, and where AI decisions should—and should NOT—live inside an operator. Listen now to hear: Where satellite fits in telco connectivity strategy [04:03]; Why Eutelsat connected its data platforms [06:47]; The customization trap—and knowing when to say no [08:49]; and Four guardrails for AI—including one everyone overlooks [13:25]. Links and Resources: See how Eutelsat delivers a “ mobile network from the sky ” with higher speeds and lower latency. Read about the next-generation sovereign constellation Eutelsat has filed for, its sovereignty and critical-infrastructure play. Explore the TM Forum Catalyst Team Awards , where Eutelsat’s multi-orbit AI prototype won the “Tech for Good” award. Then learn about the SATCOM with an Edge – Phase III project behind that win, championed by Airbus, Bell Canada, Eutelsat, and MTN Nigeria. Track Eutelsat’s OneWeb LEO constellation in real time , the fleet that has to keep itself alive once it’s in orbit. Learn how Eutelsat is connecting remote communities across Greenland , where population density can’t cover the cost of terrestrial networks. Read my blog “ Where do decisions live? ,” which argues that decisions belong in an ontology, not at inference time, where they hallucinate at scale. Want AI that can explain itself? Check out the Totogi Ontology , which keeps decisions in one governed model so you can show which rule fired and why. Mariam and I got into the challenge of being working parents with big jobs. Read two of my recommendations on the topic, Anne-Marie Slaughter’s 2012 Atlantic essay “ Why Women Still Can’t Have It All ” on fixing broken workplaces and Sheryl Sandberg’s “ Lean In ” on the importance of personal ambition. Check out this episode on our YouTube channel . You can find the episode transcript here . Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring. Follow DR: Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in ! Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know . Follow DR on X @TelcoDR The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! We’ve won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, and 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards. We are also recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast , Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast . If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews! This week’s guest: Mariam Kaynia is Eutelsat’s chief data and information officer and a member of the group’s Executive Committee. She oversees IT, data, and AI for the group. She brings extensive telecommunications expertise from VP roles at Telefónica Germany, where she led digital transformation, strategy, and data analytics, and from her time as an associate partner at McKinsey & Company. Named among the Top 50 Women in Technology in Germany, she holds a Ph.D. in Wireless Communications and Electrical Engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Podcast Credits: Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing Audio Editor: Andrew Condell Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio Music: Dyami Wilson

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  Episode #145

  Ep 145 - Swisscom is building the AI-first telco (Mark Düsener)

  Jul 20, 202622 min

  What does it actually take to become an AI-first telco? Swisscom is finding out. It has launched the biggest transformation program in its history: a ground-up rebuild of the software core behind its consumer and enterprise business units. In this episode, I sit down with Mark Düsener, chief technology and information officer at Swisscom, to unpack how the operator is doing it. We get into why standardization is the new differentiation, why you can’t be agentic without a brain, and how Swisscom is converting the know-how of its hero engineers—critical talent at telcos—into skills everyone can use. Listen now to hear: Why data is the “brain” AI needs [05:17]; How Swisscom is collapsing its systems into one platform [07:51]; Mark’s rule for killing technical debt [12:14]; and How to bring your experts along when AI codifies what they know [12:49]. Links and Resources: Read Swisscom CEO Christoph Aeschlimann’s LinkedIn post about why telcos have to reinvent themselves at the core, not just the edge. Listen to Mark’s interview on the TM Forum podcast . He talks about how Swisscom is using AI to move to an open, composable architecture, even across applications still tied to legacy systems. Tired of knowledge staying locked inside your experts’ heads? Read Anthropic’s explainer on Agent Skills , the codified, reusable expertise Mark wants his "heroes" to package so any agent or colleague can call it. Learn how the Totogi Ontology sits over your mainframe, BSS, and network systems so they all speak one language, letting you retire one legacy system at a time instead of betting on a multi-year rip and replace. Interested in the underlying architecture for becoming AI-first? I’ve written three blogs on this topic: “ You built a data lake. You needed a river ” about why AI needs an ontology close to your live systems so it can act, not just report. “ Nail your AI architecture ” about why business logic doesn’t belong inside your agents. “ Where do decisions live? ” about the board-level question of where decisions should be made in an AI-native telco. Mark’s go-to dish is filet with asparagus and béarnaise. Béarnaise is the sauce home cooks fear most, a temperamental combination of egg yolks and butter that breaks the second you stop whisking. I attempted it and produced something I’d rather not describe. If you want to try it, watch culinary icons Julia Child, Jacques Pépin, and Martha Stewart make béarnaise together in this TV clip from 1999 . Check out this episode on our YouTube channel . You can find the episode transcript here . Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring. Follow DR: Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in ! Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know . Follow DR on X @TelcoDR The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! We’ve won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, and 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards. We are also recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast , Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast . If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews! This week’s guest: Mark Düsener is chief technology & information officer (CTIO) at Swisscom and a member of the Executive Committee, Swisscom Switzerland. He leads the IT, Network & Infrastructure division and drives the modernization of Switzerland’s network landscape as part of Swisscom’s TelCo to TechCo journey. His focus includes advancing Switzerland’s best and smartest network across fixed and mobile, expanding 5G and preparing for 6G, while driving the transformation towards automated, software-driven networks and an AI-driven Swisscom. He joined Swisscom in November 2020 and most recently led the Mobile Network, Mobile Services & B2B Telco unit. Prior to Swisscom, he was managing director of Deutsche Telekom Healthcare Solutions GmbH and held various leadership roles at Vodafone Germany. Podcast Credits: Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing Audio Editor: Andrew Condell Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio Music: Dyami Wilson

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  Episode #144

  Ep 144 - TDC’s dragon in the basement (Carlos Moreno Alonso)

  Jul 6, 202616 min

  Every telco has a system it can’t get rid of—a mainframe, a billing platform, a vendor with hooks in everything. The transformation math is brutal: years of work, massive investment, and a failure rate that makes every next attempt harder to sell internally. Carlos Moreno Alonso is CTIO at TDC Brands, Denmark’s largest telecom provider. Nine months into the job, he’s leading the next phase of one of Europe’s biggest IT transformations—including wrestling with a decades-old mainframe that the former CEO called "a dragon in the basement." He talks about inheriting a transformation mid-flight and what strategies actually work when your legacy system is too entangled to rip out. Listen now to hear: How TDC got its consumer business onto a modern stack [03:58]; Carlos’s two-part plan for the harder B2B side [06:45]; Where AI actually speeds migration [07:56]; and The phase of transformation that is the heaviest lift [09:32]. Links and Resources: Read the announcement that Nuuday is now TDC Brands , which unites six brands—YouSee, TDC Erhverv, Telmore, Hiper, eesy, and Relatel—under one 145-year-old name. Learn how TDC Brands brought Carlos on board as CTIO to lead the next phase of its digital transformation project. Read the story behind “ the dragon in the basement ,” a phrase coined by former Nuuday CEO Jon James at DTW 2022. It describes the decades-old Columbus mainframe as a beast that needs to be “fed and watered and constantly checked to make sure it’s still breathing.” Ready to slay your own dragon? Learn how the Totogi Ontology sits over your mainframe, BSS, and network systems so they speak one language, letting you retire one legacy system at a time. Check out the live World Cup standings as the tournament plays out across North America. When we recorded, I was pulling for Mexico, and Carlos was backing Spain. As of this episode's release, England knocked Mexico out, but Spain squeaked past Portugal to move into the quarterfinals. Looks like Carlos gets the bragging rights—for now. Think World Cup stakes are high? Try kids’ soccer. In the 2005 movie Kicking and Screaming , Will Ferrell’s Coach Phil gets so threatened when his assistant (NFL legend Mike Ditka) offers coaching advice that he orders him to fetch a juice box instead. Even the fiercest competitors need to hydrate. Check out this episode on our YouTube channel . You can find the episode transcript here . Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring. Follow DR: Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in ! Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know . Follow DR on X @TelcoDR The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, and 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards. We are also recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast , Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast . If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews! This week’s guest: Carlos Moreno Alonso is CTIO of TDC Brands in Denmark, where he oversees a 700-person IT organization (employees and subcontractors) and leads the company’s cloud BSS migration and AI-driven automation programs. Over a 25-year career spanning ONO, Vodafone Spain, Vodafone Italy, and Vodafone Group, Carlos has run complex BSS transformation programs, including a four-year platform overhaul at Vodafone Italy and the post-acquisition integration of ONO into Vodafone Spain. He most recently served as CTIO at Adamo. Podcast Credits: Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing Audio Editor: Andrew Condell Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio Music: Dyami Wilson

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  Episode #143

  Ep 143 - Norlys bets big on Telia (Daniel Askeroth)

  Jun 22, 202618 min

  Telcos love mergers. In 2025 alone, the industry spent nearly $70 billion on M&A, and every single deal brought its own baggage. New systems, new cultures, new tech debt—all bolted onto everything that came before. Everyone celebrates the deal. No one celebrates the hard work of bringing two organizations together. For this episode, I sit down with Daniel Askeroth, senior vice president of telco at Norlys, the Danish energy and broadband co-op that acquired Telia Denmark in 2024. Daniel spent 17 years at Telia Denmark. Now, he's the one tasked with stitching his old company into Norlys, which is itself the product of 40+ prior mergers. We dig into how he runs the integration without breaking the customer experience, how to unite workforces without losing the people you need most, and what Daniel would do differently if he had to do it all over again. Listen now to hear: Why the people side of mergers takes longer than anyone expects [03:20]; How Norlys keeps integration invisible to customers [05:08]; How AI is changing the way Daniel’s teams build [06:48]; and What Daniel learned from temporarily stepping into an HR role [11:58]. Links and Resources: Read Bain's Telecom M&A: Here Are the Latest Deal Trends Worldwide for the latest on where the industry is placing its bets. Learn more about Norlys's $926M acquisition of Telia Denmark and why adding mobile was the missing piece in its full-service play for Danish consumers. Check out Daniel’s LinkedIn post about the Norlys leadership role-swap . He traded his telco seat for one in People & Culture for a few days and came back with a different perspective on the business. Every merger means bringing together new billing stacks, CRMs, and decades of past decisions. Learn how the Totogi Ontology sits over all those acquired systems so they speak the same language. Want to see the Totogi Ontology in action? Catch Team Totogi at DTW Ignite , running June 23-25 in Copenhagen. Daniel's kids discovered historical architecture through Pokémon GO , a location-based mobile game that uses your phone's GPS and camera to catch virtual Pokémon at real-world landmarks. Launched in 2016, it peaked at 232 million players and still draws 55 million monthly players and $545M in annual revenue—accidentally tricking a generation into exploring historic landmarks. Who knew Pokémon GO was still going so strong? Check out this episode on our YouTube channel . You can find the episode transcript here . Wanna talk AI and public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value they can bring. Follow DR: Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in ! Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know . Follow DR on X @TelcoDR The Telco in 20 podcast is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts globally by Listen Notes! 🎉 We’ve won 2026, 2025, and 2024 Hermes Creative Awards, and 2025 and 2024 MarCom Awards. We are also recognized as a TeckNexus Top 12 Telco and Tech Podcast , Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast . If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review? It takes seconds to do in your app and really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews! This week’s guest: Daniel Askeroth is senior vice president of telco at Norlys, a Danish energy and telecoms cooperative. He leads Norlys’ telecom business following the acquisition of Telia Denmark, including the integration and transformation focusing on simplifying systems, aligning cultures, and driving large-scale technology and organizational change. With over 17 years of experience at Telia Denmark prior to joining Norlys, Daniel brings deep expertise in telecom operations, transformation, and leadership. He is passionate about building strong teams and delivering customer-focused, future-ready connectivity solutions. Podcast Credits: Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing Audio Editor: Andrew Condell Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio Music: Dyami Wilson

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