The Week with Roger

Latest Episodes:

This Week: Comcast's New Price Plan and Use Cases for Starlink Apr 21, 2025

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner discuss encouraging developments at Comcast that are likely to benefit internet users, along with Starlink’s evolving role in the broadband market.

00:25 Comcast announces new price plans and guarantee

05:26 Competition is driving service improvements

07:04 Contracts are unnecessary with quality products

07:37 Guarantees are now commonplace

10:41 Use cases for Starlink

13:10 Episode wrap-up

Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, prepaid, postpaid, cellular phone, Don Kellogg, Roger Entner, Comcast, Xfinity, internet, cable, data caps, router, contracts, guarantee, fiber, FWA, Starlink, customer service, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, Fios, Chris Winfrey, MSO, Elon Musk, BEAD

This Week: Sunshine and Roses in Telecom-land Apr 14, 2025

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner discuss Verizon's new guarantees and free phone offer, as well as the latest news on tariffs and their implications for carriers, consumers, and the nation as a whole.

00:53 Verizon's new guarantees may not be enough

3:00 Slowing growth indicates recession

05:16 Tariff implications for smartphones and carriers

10:36 Average Americans are under financial pressure

13:04 Uncertainty is bad for manufacturing and investing

14:55 Nevertheless, telecom remains largely recession-proof

17:13 Episode wrap-up

Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, prepaid, postpaid, cellular phone, Don Kellogg, Roger Entner, tariffs, Verizon, AT&T, guarantee, retention, net adds, churn, gross adds, recession, cable, India, China, iPhone, Apple, carriers, BLS, savings, debt, Walmart, manufacturing, bonds, consumers

This Week: Innovations for First Responders with the Vice President of Verizon Frontline, Cory Davis Apr 07, 2025

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner are joined by Cory Davis, Vice President of

Verizon Frontline, for a discussion on the company's ongoing commitment to

public safety as well as innovative advancements on the horizon.

00:24 Verizon Frontline overview

01:44 5G network redundancy and reliability

02:59 Verizon Frontline's Crisis Response Team

03:36 Growth and innovation in the first responder market

05:18 A purpose-built network

07:19 Deployables for crises

08:53 Recent use cases and future improvements

11:15 Verizon's Frontline-Verified program for manufacturers

12:36 Episode wrap-up

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

Kellogg, Roger Entner, Cory Davis, Verizon, Verizon Frontline, public safety,

first responders, 5G, network, capacity, data, crisis, THOR, fiber,

deployables, DoD, Frontline-Verified

This Week: Innovating MVNO Creation with Hermann Frank, CEO of Gigs Mar 31, 2025

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner are joined by Hermann Frank, CEO of Gigs, to

discuss the company's facilitation of MVNO creation for tech companies.

00:24 Gigs platform overview

02:01 How Gigs actually works

04:24 Success stories

06:12 Smoothing the process

06:58 U.S. operating profile

08:04 What MVNO size is best?

09:07 Specialty MVNO cases

09:29 Gigs named as one of the World's Most Innovative Companies

10:05 Episode wrap-up

Tags:

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

Kellogg, Roger Entner, Hermann Frank, Gigs, MVNO, MVNE, carrier, tech,

product-market fit, Nubank, Twilio, customers, Fast Company

This Week: Crown Castle, Zayo, Grain Management, Recession Fears, and Handset Trends Mar 24, 2025

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner discuss the latest news in telecom, including the

Crown Castle asset sale, spectrum changing hands, and recession indicators and

predictions.

00:26 Crown Castle shifts strategy with asset sale to Zayo

02:50 What's in it for Zayo?

03:58 Elusive network economies of scale

04:59 Grain Management acquires spectrum

07:34 The role of private networks

08:29 Recession, or not?

10:57 Can anything replace device sales?

12:46 Government response to crisis is key

14:10 Episode wrap-up

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

Kellogg, Roger Entner, Crown Castle, towers, fiber, carriers, Zayo, AT&T,

Verizon, Dish, multi-tenant, economies of scale, Ericcson, Sprint, T-Mobile,

spectrum, Grain Management, private networks, Nextel, recession, cable,

economy, handsets, devices, AI, retail, government

This Week: Connecting First Responders with FirstNet President Scott Agnew Mar 17, 2025

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner are joined by Scott Agnew, President of AT&T

FirstNet, to discuss their ongoing commitment to public safety and what first

responders can expect next.

00:24 FirstNet overview

03:58 Partnership with state-level public safety

05:10 How deployables work in emergencies

07:27 FirstNet's all-band approach to spectrum

08:38 What's next for FirstNet?

11:28 Public-private partnership relations

12:28 Episode wrap-up

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

Kellogg, Roger Entner, Scott Agnew, AT&T, FirstNet, first responders,

government, 4G, 5G, public safety, deployables, Band 14, MegaRange, AST,

satellite, connectivity, public-private partnership

This Week: T-Priority & the BEAD Program Mar 10, 2025

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner discuss their respective disagreements on two key

telecom topics: T-Priority and BEAD.

00:24 T-Priority launches for first responders in NYC

03:26 Speed floor promises

04:08 Will this be adapted for business?

06:12 Slicing vs. private networks

06:48 BEAD qualifications are changing

07:56 Connection costs are very inefficient

09:16 Starlink vs. FWA

15:12 Episode wrap-up

Tags:

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

Kellogg, Roger Entner. T-Priority, BEAD, T-Mobile, New York City, network

slicing, AT&T, FirstNet, first responders, AI, private networks, fiber,

Howard Lutnick, NTIA, spectrum, ARPU, FWA, satellite, Starlink, NPS, cable,

DSL, rural, C band

This Week: The Future of Large-Scale Data Infrastructure with Zayo's Bill Long Mar 03, 2025

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner are joined by Bill Long, Chief Product and

Strategy Officer for Zayo, to discuss both the current and future states of

large-scale data infrastructure.

00:25 Zayo as a major data infrastructure provider

01:47 AI's massive impact on fiber demand

04:03 Demand calculations

06:03 Will compute efficiency increase?

07:57 Video's impact on bandwidth

08:53 Pricing trends

10:15 Future data delivery trends

12:09 Episode wrap-up

Tags:

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

Kellogg, Roger Entner, Bill Long, Zayo, infrastructure, fiber, data centers,

cable, AI, chips, TSMC, power, hard disks, storage, FLOPS, neural processing,

synthetic data, bandwidth, price, last mile, edge computing, Nvidia

This Week: Origins of Prepaid and Lessons from Former Tracfone CMO, Robert Dandrea Feb 24, 2025

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner are joined by Robert Dandrea, former CMO at

Tracfone, to discuss the origins of prepaid and the lessons learned that are

still relevant today.

00:27 Developing prepaid from scratch

04:16 Scaling prepaid into Walmart

05:20 Robert's sudden elevation to CMO

07:12 Early learnings from prepaid operations

09:03 Keeping churn in check

11:15 Straight Talk as a customer-focused brand

15:11 The customer experience still matters

16:08 Episode wrap-up

Tags:

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

Kellogg, Roger Entner, Robert Dandrea, Tracfone, FJ Pollak, ARPU, retail,

Walmart, SafeLink, churn, N-1, Apple, Straight Talk, Verizon, customer

experience

This Week: The Video Conferencing "Eye Contact Problem" with Casablanca.ai Founder Carsten Kraus Feb 18, 2025

Show notes

Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner are joined by Carsten Kraus, founder and CEO of

Casablanca AI, to discuss the company's solution to the “eye contact problem”

that plagues modern video conferencing.

00:23 Casablanca aims to solve a nagging video conferencing issue

03:00 Casablanca's origins

04:22 Technical requirements and operation

05:55 Implications for sales-oriented industries

06:26 Studies on and importance of eye contact

08:07 Competing with Nvidia

09:30 Environmental implications vs. productivity

10:40 Core technologies evolution and network requirements

12:00 Episode wrap-up

Try Casablanca: https://www.casablanca.ai

Tags:

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

Kellogg, Roger Entner, Carsten Kraus, Casablanca, AI, video conferencing, eye

contact, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Apple, sales, insurance, Nvidia, CO2, carbon

footprint, productivity, Germany, Edge, 3G

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