I’ve been a guest on the Telecoms.com podcast three times, and the dynamic never changes: hosts Scott Bicheno and Iain Morris see doom, I see upside. This year, Scott admitted he’s bored of his own dystopia and wanted someone to argue the other side. So he brought me in to talk AI.
We get into why one number can mean two completely different things inside the same telco, why the SaaSpocalypse is real and Salesforce should be nervous, and why I think the Totogi Ontology is the fix for telco’s AI problem. Three rounds in, we still don’t agree on everything, and that’s what makes it so fun!
Listen now to hear:
- Why telcos shouldn’t wait to clean their data before starting with AI [16:08];
- How Scott could vibe-code his way off Salesforce [26:03];
- What changes with 6G—the first G with AI in the room [43:53]; and
- How the Totogi Ontology keeps AI from running amok [1:02:24].
Links and Resources:
- Listen to the full two-hour-plus version of our conversation on the Telecoms.com podcast. The complete version has every tangent, from 6G to rogue AI to bourbon.
- Watch my keynote from the AI-Native Telco Summit on why 6G is the first G you can decide with revenue in view, and how one Bolivian operator already sees the profit on every tower.
- Read my latest blogs on the data layer and the 6G decision:
- Explore TelecomTV’s AI-Native Telco Accelerator (ANTA), the community built to push operators from AI pilots to deployments that scale, and the AI-Native Telco Index, the first evidence-based read on how 56 operator groups are actually doing AI.
- Dig into the OpenAI statement Scott kept quoting—its account of “the Hugging Face incident,” where internal models slipped their controls during a July 2026 safety test.
- Brush up on Huang’s Law, the idea that AI chips leap ahead faster than the old Moore’s Law clock—the reason I keep warning operators that GPUs have roughly 18-month shelf lives, not the five years they’re used to.
- Ever been handed an annual list of which towers are profitable, on a consultant’s stale slide? Learn more about how the Totogi Ontology builds a P&L for every cell.
- The Totogi Ontology is already live at VIVA Bolivia, the operator I couldn’t yet name during this interview. Read how it’s deciding network investment by revenue, not capacity.
- Meet the women behind NVIDIA’s chip names—Grace Hopper, credited with popularizing the computer “bug,” and astronomer Vera Rubin—in this Business Insider piece.
- See the physical-AI moment everyone’s chasing: the imploding, kickboxing stars of China’s Humanoid Robot Olympics and the Tesla Optimus that I’m ready to move into my house and name C-3PO.
- Raise a glass to the Pappy Van Winkle I brought along and to the legend behind it. In 2013, someone stole more than 200 bottles from the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Kentucky, a caper the press dubbed “Pappygate.” Investigators estimated its black market value was worth $100,000. The ringleader received a 15-year prison sentence but walked out after only 30 days. The sensational theft became the focus of international headlines and the subject of Netflix’s true-crime docuseries, Heist.
- Check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
- You can find the episode transcript here.
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On the podcast:
The Telecoms.com Podcast is a weekly show hosted by industry experts Scott Bicheno and Iain Morris. The format centers on irreverent and engaging discussions about current trends, controversies, and major news in the global telecommunications sector, often featuring special guests from telecom operators, vendors, and analysts.
As the editorial director of Telecoms.com, Scott Bicheno has been covering the mobile phone and broader technology industries for over 20 years. Prior to Telecoms.com, Scott was the primary smartphone specialist at industry analyst Strategy Analytics.
Iain Morris is the international editor at Light Reading. Prior to boosting Light Reading’s UK-based editorial team numbers, he was a successful freelance writer and editor covering the telecom sector. He was previously the lead telecom analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit.
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
