The Week with Roger

Latest Episodes:

This Week: What will Become of T-Mobile's 800 MHz Spectrum? Jul 15, 2024

Show notes

On their 200th episode, analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner discuss T-Mobile's pending auction of 800 MHz spectrum and what entity may ultimately end up purchasing it.

00:27 T-Mobile's forced sale of spectrum

02:28 Potential uses for the spectrum

02:54 Why Dish won't buy

03:37 Auction details

04:08 This band is not particularly useful

05:00 Possible public utility use

06:41 What carriers actually need

07:18 Episode wrap-up

Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, prepaid, postpaid, cellular phone, Don Kellogg, Roger Entner, T-Mobile, spectrum, 800 MHz, Sprint, Dish, Nextel, FCC, auction, throughput, utilities, PG&E, AT&T, Verizon

This Week: The End of Chevron Defference, What does it mean for Telcom? Jul 08, 2024

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner discuss the landmark Chevron deference Supreme Court case and what it means for the future of telecom.

00:23 Chevron deference overview

03:33 Politicization of the process

04:18 Power shifts away from agencies

05:00 Relevance of the Telecom Act

06:19 Settled law is no longer settled

06:55 Predictions for the industry

Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, prepaid, postpaid, cellular phone, Don Kellogg, Roger Entner, Supreme Court, Chevron deference, regulation, FCC, net neutrality, telecommunications Act of 1996, Title II

This Week: Verizon Rebrands: New logo, New plans & Handset deals, Verizon Access and More Jul 01, 2024

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner discuss Verizon's recent rebranding, complete with a new logo and ad campaign as well as features for both consumers and business.

00:24 Verizon's rebranding overview

1:47 Expanding use case focus

4:28 myHome and bundling streaming

8:05 Handset trade-in program

09:18 Will AI drive phone purchasing again?

11:47 Verizon Access deals and giveaways

12:58 Verizon Business Complete's end-to-end smartphone management

14:30 Episode Wrap-up

Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, prepaid, postpaid, cellular phone, Don Kellogg, Roger Entner, Verizon, T-Mobile, myHome, FWA, Fios, AT&T, net adds, churn, streaming, trade-in, AI, iPhone, Android, NFL, B2B

This Week: Digital Transformation World: from AI to APIs Jun 24, 2024

Show notes

Analyst Don Kellogg receives an update from Roger Entner and Daryl Schoolar, who are attending the Digital Transformation World conference in Copenhagen.

00:25 Overview of the conference

04:06 Practical AI use cases

07:27 Cloud native is crucial for operators

08:24 Corporate culture is a sticking point

09:10 How should outages be treated?

10:22 Event wrap-up

https://dtw.tmforum.org/

Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, prepaid, postpaid, cellular phone, Don Kellogg, Roger Entner, Daryl Schoolar, DTW24, AI, OpenAPI, Nokia, simplification, cloud native, corporate culture, outages

This Week: Microsoft Azure for Operators Shakeup, Carlos Slim buys part of BT Jun 17, 2024

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner discuss Microsoft's Azure for Operators shakeup, as well as Carlos Slim's new interest in a European telecom.

00:30 Microsoft to quit Affirmed and Metaswitch

02:20 Comparisons to Google

03:31 Microsoft is usually more persistent

06:09 Predictions for virtualized cores and cloud for telco

06:59 Carlos Slim takes a stake in BT

08:52 Predictions for BT

Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, prepaid, postpaid, cellular phone, Don

Kellogg, Roger Entner, Microsoft, Azure for Operators, Affirmed, Metaswitch,

Etisalat, Dish, Amazon, Google, Deutsche Telekom, Cisco, AT&T, vCPU, cloud

for telco, Carlos Slim, TracFone, BT

This Week: Best Plans for the Best Customers, NVidia Dabbles in OpenRan Jun 09, 2024

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner discuss Verizon's recent wireless plan updates, as

well as Nvidia's acquisition of spectrum to test Open RAN.

00:25 Verizon's new plan updates may reduce churn

02:11 Prepaid and retail struggles continue

04:03 Verizon's overall strategy

04:28 Nvidia's spectrum acquisition and Open RAN predictions

Note: “Roger erroneously added that OpenRAN efforts only began to stabilize once Dish Network brought on established open RAN vendor Samsung, “which took over a lot of that stack.”” Mavenir continues to play a significant role in Dish’s 5G Open RAN network.

Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, prepaid, postpaid, cellular phone, Don Kellogg, Roger Entner, Verizon, AT&T, net adds, ACP, churn, retail, TracFone, Straight Talk, Visibile, Total, MobileX, Nvidia, spectrum, Open RAN, interoperability, Dish, Samsung, Ericcson, AI

This Week: T-Mobile Buys A Portion of US Cellular Jun 02, 2024

Show notes

Analysts

Don Kellogg and Roger Entner discuss T-Mobile's recent acquisition of most of US Cellular's assets, including what this means for customers and the other carriers as well.

00:24 Roger's overview of the deal

03:53 What the deal doesn't include

07:16 Don's analysis of customer behavior

09:27 Carrier strategies going forward

Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, prepaid, postpaid, cellular phone, Don Kellogg, Roger Entner, U.S. Cellular, T-Mobile, spectrum, HHI, Herfindahl Hirschman Index, Verizon, AT&T, C Spire, rural, Sprint, Metro PCS, Nextel, merger, MNO, net adds, 5G

This Week: 5G Factory Insights with Mitch Klaassen, T-Mobile raises legacy rates, the march towards convergence May 27, 2024

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner are joined by fellow Recon Analytics analyst Mitch Klaassen to discuss Ericsson's recent smart factory analyst event. Don and Roger then delve into a T-Mobile price increase as well as the increasing focus on convergence within the industry.

00:36 Smart factory overview

03:19 The push for American tech manufacturing

04:14 T-Mobile raises prices on legacy plans

06:28 Carriers have too many plans

08:09 The “march upward” toward premium plans 10:17 Convergence is key as net adds stagnate

This Week: Business Fixed Wireless Trends with Jake Hawkridge May 20, 2024

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner are joined by fellow Recon Analytics B2B analyst Jake Hawkridge to discuss the results of a recent survey on how businesses use FWA.

00:35 Overview of the survey

03:15 Speed tier FWA focus

04:12 Prioritization FWA focus

04:48 Primary reasons for businesses choosing FWA

07:18 HFC vs. fiber

09:28 Satisfaction with FWA

10:29 FWA bundling

11:26 Episode wrap-up

Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, prepaid, postpaid, cellular phone, Don Kellogg, Roger Entner, Jake Hawkridge, B2B, FWA, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, speed tier, data, prioritization, data caps, speed caps, speed, reliability, fiber, cable, HFC, hybrid fiber-coaxial, satisfaction, NPS, bundling

This Week: The State of Broadband with Jonathan Chaplin May 13, 2024

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner are joined by Jonathan Chaplin from New Street Research's U.S. Communications Services Research Team to discuss the current and future states of broadband, cable, Dish, and more.

00:55 Jonathan's take on broadband's recent decline

04:48 Roger's analysis of broadband

06:39 Jonathan's no-growth 2024 outlook

07:36 Roger's slightly optimistic 2024 outlook

09:04 Don's FWA predictions

10:49 Cable's culture is problematic

17:19 FWA's value vs. cable

21:08 T-Mobile's plan to buy parts of U.S. Cellular

24:10 What will happen to Dish's spectrum?

30:26 Episode wrap-up

Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, prepaid, postpaid, cellular phone, Don Kellogg, Roger Entner, Jonathan Chaplin, New Street Research, broadband, cable, ACP, Charter, RDOF, BEAD, FWA, spectrum, DSL, T-Mobile, Verizon, DOCSIS 3.1, DOCSIS 4.0, NPS, Comcast, symmetrical service, U.S. Cellular, rural, Dish, AWS-3, FCC, Boost Infinite, AT&T

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