Ever wondered how a court ruling could reshape the landscape of technology in education? Join me, Drew Lentz, the Wireless Nerd, as I unpack the recent Fifth Circuit Court decision that shakes the foundations of the Universal Service Fund. This isn't just a legal matter—it's a critical issue for K-12 schools and libraries nationwide who depend on affordable tech access through the E-rate program. We reflect on the wider implications this ruling could have on educational institutions already stretched thin, and consider the potential impact on tech procurement and maintenance.
But it's not all challenges and uncertainties. Celebrate with us as we mark one year of the Waves podcast and the exciting acquisition of ISP Supplies by Wav, a move that underscores the camaraderie and innovation within the wireless industry. Get a front-row seat to the industry buzz and insights into what's on the horizon, from Mobility Field Day 12 in San Jose to the rising tech trends for 2025. Amidst industry insights, I share a personal career update following my layoff from Cisco, navigating through the ever-evolving wireless landscape. Tune in for a mix of industry insights, personal stories, and reflections on what lies ahead.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good afternoon, good morning, good evening.
Everybody.
It's Drew Lentz, the WirelessNerd, and we are celebrating one
year of the Waves podcast.
This is episode, I believe,number 51 or 52.
Either way, it's been one yearand we're so excited.
Cue the applause yay, it's beenfantastic.
It's been such a cool year ofgrowth, getting this thing off
(00:22):
the ground and working with itday in, day out, week in, week
out.
Missed a couple of weeks hereand there.
It's been a hectic couple ofweeks.
I'm a little under the weatherso I've been a little hesitant
to record, but I figured there'sso much happening right now
that it was worth jumping onreal quick and having a couple
of conversations about.
So if you're joining us onYouTube or on X or on LinkedIn
(00:43):
or on Instagram, please feelfree to drop a comment, say
hello, etc.
Etc.
What a week, man.
Lots of stuff.
The last two weeks have beenkind of crazy.
So if you don't know me too well, then you don't know that
politics are like my sports.
I'm not really.
I follow the Astros.
Try not to follow the Cowboys,because they just break my heart
(01:04):
over and over and over again.
So what I do like is I likepolitics and regardless of the
outcome of the politics.
I enjoy what's going on.
So I've spent the last coupledays really trying to understand
(01:36):
what's going to happen over thenext four years and what that
means for us, what that meansfor me and what that means for
you, and what that means for ourcustomers and what that means
for people that are in thisindustry doing something.
And I guess we can lead offwith that.
There's one thing that'saffecting us here in Texas, I
think a little bit more thansome of the other states, and
it's kind of like a second layeron top of what's already going
on.
So let me pull up an articlereal quick here so that we can
see, so I can show you what I'mtalking about.
And if you're watching on thevideo, I've moved my lighting
(01:58):
from here into the studio.
We've redone the studio.
My wife and I have redone ourpodcast studio.
We've got some new gear goingin there.
It's going to look spectacular.
My wife and I have a podcastthat we do, so we're revamping
that thing.
So I apologize if the lightingis a little bit harsh.
Maybe I don't look best, butwhatever, you know I'm not here.
I've got a face for radio.
(02:18):
They say a face for radio.
So what I was going to talkabout, though, is E-rate, and
what happened a couple of weeks,months ago, is something that I
covered on the show, and that'sthat the Fifth Circuit Court
rules that the USF fund, theUniversal Service Fund, is
unconstitutional, and so that'swhy I got up on the screen.
(02:39):
Right, this is July 25th.
So seven six months ago, fivemonths ago, right, this is July
25th, so you know seven sixmonths ago.
Five months ago, they said thatthe FCC and everything that
they were doing to put moneyinto the Universal Service Fund
is unconstitutional.
Now there hasn't been an exactruling on it yet, so everything
is business as usual for K-12and for education in the United
(03:01):
States, but everyone was kind ofon pins and needles, trying to
understand what was going tohappen with the election and
what the outcome of the electionand the race for Congress, for
Congress people look like, forthe Senate, everything
everything came into play here,so if you don't know what the
USF is and you're unaware, I'mgoing to try and break this down
(03:25):
real simply and you canresearch it, because I might be
wrong, but I'm going to getpretty close.
I've been doing this for awhile, so hopefully I don't get
it too wrong.
Basically, the USF is a kitty, afund that's put together and
it's raised from a fee that'sattached to your mobile devices
and your phone lines andwhenever you pay this fee it
(03:48):
goes into this pool and that feeis then used for E-Rate all
across school districts andlibraries across the United
States.
And essentially what happens isE-Rate, which is this discount
program for hardware.
It's not necessarily a discountprogram, but what it does is it
provides an offset cost forschools and libraries and
(04:09):
educational institutions toprocure telecommunications and
telecommunications and internetand network connectivity
equipment.
Long story short, all of theWi-Fi and the network devices
that are in any K-12 school inthe United States that's a
public school are more thanlikely paid for by E-rate 80% or
so 90% paid for by E-rate.
(04:30):
So what this means is that ifthis goes away, if E-rate goes
away, that is going to severelyimpact the amount of technology
that school districts can buy.
If your city is anything like mycity in the United States, here
in South Texas, we already havea budget problem.
We already have issues withschool facilities and with
(04:51):
paying teachers what theydeserve and paying
administrators what they deserve.
We already have issues.
If you remove E-rate, thentechnology will be so
drastically expensive that itwill be almost impossible for
educational entities to keep upwith regular technology cycles,
not to mention just procuringnew stuff and opening up new
(05:14):
schools, so on and so forth.
So there's pros and cons of bothsides.
I don't see any other pros.
I'm not going to lie.
I'll let politics seep intothis one a little bit.
I like that this happens.
I like that there is agovernment program that helps
offset the cost of technologyfor school districts.
Now, whether it's E-rate or not, I like the idea that the
(05:35):
government at large helps outlocal school districts.
So I'm sure that there issomething there for a
replacement for it if and whenit goes away.
But the issue is that if it'sjust pulled out of the hands of
the educational institutions now, would they have to go spend
millions of dollars to refreshtheir network equipment?
Or they have to supply iPads orChromebooks or tablets or
(05:57):
whatever it is, to students sothat they can continue to learn?
E-rate is a significant part ofthat, not to mention the
internet access that actuallyconnects the schools to the
network.
So if E-rate goes away, it'sgoing to create an issue.
Technology refresh cycles willdwindle.
Technology sales might beaffected and when you think
about the impact that that hasat a student level or at a
(06:20):
classroom level, the number oneplace where people cut costs in
schools is they get rid ofpeople.
That's like HR is the numberone thing.
So if E-rate goes away, whatimpact is that going to have on
teachers?
Because less teachers, largerclassroom sizes, less technology
going into the campuses it's abig deal, and the reason that
it's important specifically inthis election is because of this
(06:43):
guy, ted Cruz from Texas, tedCancun Cruz as we call him down
here in South Texas.
If he ends up running theSenate Commerce Committee, ted
Cruz is the guy that is not afan of E-rate.
If you go back and you look atwhat he did in the past and this
(07:04):
is from the Benton Institute,if you can see it on my screen
here if you go and you look andyou see what he did, he's the
guy that said, hey, usac's rolehas shielded the FCC from
accountability.
Usac's transparency and tooloversight is increasing overhead
costs and the USAC has ahistory of poor performance.
So Ted Cruz has asked toexamine the following questions
(07:27):
Does the FCC current designationof USAC as a permanent USF
administrator, comply withfederal law?
What is the USAC budget andplanning process?
What are they doing with USF?
What are they doing with E-rate?
Cruz was reelected in the stateof Texas.
There was a gentleman namedColin Allred that was running
against him.
(07:47):
That did not succeed, so Cruzhas now been reestablished.
Cruz is from the state of Texas.
That AT&T is also part of thestate of Texas, so we could go
look at lobbying dollars if wewant to, but essentially this
creates an issue from an E-rateperspective and that's why I
wanted to bring it up, not totalk politics Again.
It's not important what partyhe's a part of.
(08:09):
What's important is that thisis a person who is critical of
USAC, usf and E-rate funding.
And now that it's been broughtin front of the Court of Appeals
and it's been you know that'swhat this other article says.
It says that it has been deemedas unconstitutional.
(08:30):
For now, what does it mean?
It's unclear.
We're fairly certain this willnot jeopardize E-rate funds for
the 2024 to 2025 school year.
This is from theSuperintendents Association.
In July they said this.
There are three scenarios thedecision could be applied
nationally, meaning all USFprograms would be halted.
The decision could be appliedonly to the Fifth Circuit, which
is Texas, louisiana andMississippi, and the decision is
(08:54):
stayed depending upon appealprocess to the Supreme Court.
But that all assumes that ourgovernment stayed the way that
it was.
The government is not going tostay the way that it was.
The government is not going tostay the way that it is today.
Come January, a couple thingsare going to change, and one of
those might be that Cruise getsput in front of that.
(09:15):
This is an issue y'all.
This is seriously an issue foranybody in technology, for all
of you that work in educationand technology I know you
already know about this, so Iappreciate you just listening to
this part but for anybody whodoesn't know anyone who's on the
equipment manufacturer side,who's not paying attention to
what's going on, this is goingto severely impact the number of
shipments that go intoeducational entities, should
(09:38):
something like this come up.
So be aware, keep your eye onit.
It's not the best scenario.
And then in Texas there's awhole other system that our
governor is trying to push orpromote, which is the school
voucher program in the state ofTexas.
And if school vouchers do infact succeed in the state of
Texas.
That's even more money that'sgoing to be taken out of the
(09:58):
public school districts in theform of vouchers giving people
the ability to choose where theyspend their money, which you
know hey, it's again notpolitical, that's entirely up to
you.
We can vote for it, we can notvote for it.
But the idea is that you get avoucher.
So all the tax money, all thetax dollars that you pay into
the school district, theyusually just stay within the
school district.
In the state of Texas, thegovernor is saying well, if I
(10:19):
want my kid in private school, Ishould be able to take that
money that I'm spending and geta voucher for it and take it
down the street to the privateschool and say here, let me
offset the cost of privateschool so I can get a different
type of education than I get atregular public school.
So if that indeed happens andthe rise and prominence of
charter schools in the state ofTexas, those two things combined
are one of those perfect stormscenarios where we're already
(10:41):
going to be losing fundingbecause of E-rate hopefully not.
And second, if school voucherscome through, we're going to be
losing even more funding in ourpublic school systems, which is
tough.
So I talk about this again, notpolitically, but from the
perspective of technology.
What does this mean for thefuture of technology in schools,
in K-12, in higher ed, inlibraries?
It's something to be aware ofwhen you're making purchasing
(11:03):
decisions.
It's something to be aware ofwhen you're looking at renewing
contracts and when you'relooking at what your support
structure is going to look likeover the course of the next
couple of years.
Again, the American Associationof Superintendents says it's
not something to worry about for24-25, but come
September-October of this nextE-rate cycle, it's something
(11:24):
that everyone in that space isdefinitely going to be watching.
So I thought it was worthmentioning because that's
happening, man, that's reallyhappening.
There's a few articles that havepopped up and let me see if I
have one of them open, but itwas essentially.
It was what a Trumpadministration means for
(11:45):
wireless, and there's a lotthere.
I don't want to unpack that oneright now, but there's a lot
there.
Regarding the FCC, openspectrum or reuse of spectrum,
allocation of spectrum.
There's a lot that's happeningthere.
We're not even going to talknet neutrality or any of that
stuff, but just know thatthere's a lot that's going on.
This election is going to havesome impact overall.
(12:06):
So, that being said, let's moveon to something else.
There have been some reallycool acquisitions in the last
two, three weeks, and it'sreally cool because it's not
just acquisition, it'sconsolidation.
The first one that I want togive a shout out to is Motive
Companies has announced theacquisition of GXC.
(12:27):
Now, gxc is somebody that youmight not have heard of, but
someone that I've been followingfor the past two years or so,
because they're doing somereally cool stuff in private 5G
and private 4G spaces,specifically for renewable
energy and IoT replacementinside factories and industrial
spaces, and to see them getgobbled up so early was kind of
(12:50):
cool.
So GXC has reached an agreementto be a part of Motive Company
as a leading provider ofrenewable energy and
infrastructure solutions, andthat's really cool.
That's great for them.
Bob Istwan, ceo of Motive, saysmany of us on the leadership
team, myself included, have beenpersonally invested in GXC
since its early days, witnessingfirsthand its growth and
innovation.
(13:10):
So GXC is based out of Austin,texas, got some good friends
that work over there and they dosome really neat stuff.
They provide the orchestrationsoftware on the back end.
Usually it's a piece of Bicel'sequipment on the front end
that's doing all the radio stuff, but there's some really neat
things that they're involved in.
So kudos and congratulations tothe team over at gxc and motive
on the acquisition.
That's really cool.
(13:30):
You know what's even coolerthan that texas company from
college station texas?
One of my, one of my favoritecompanies to do business with in
the entire industry ispsupplies has just been acquired
by absolutely one of my favoritedistributors in the wireless
industry.
Wave has acquired ISP Supplies.
(13:52):
There's a personal story that Ihave here about Wave and about
Norm and about everybody that'sover there and what they were
able to do for me when I wasjust getting my first business
started and what they were ableto do for me when I was just
getting my first businessstarted.
As the story goes, I neededsome credit to purchase the
equipment to do my firstdeployment when I decided to
(14:12):
kick off my own company and Normwent to bat for me and he
helped me.
If it wasn't for Norm Iwouldn't have been able to kick
off my consulting company.
I've told everybody that story.
Norm is such a good dude andISP Supplies the team at ISP
Supplies have been Johnny on thespot with getting equipment in
my hands specifically for thedeployments that I've done and I
(14:33):
know that for years Steve andthe team at ISP Supplies have
been that same way witheverybody else.
These are absolutely twowonderful organizations.
I'm so happy for them.
I'm so happy that the industryis going to reap the benefits of
this.
So it's just really really,really cool.
You know the whole team.
Shout out to the whole teamover there Cousins, zach and, of
(14:57):
course, norm man.
I'm so happy for you guys.
So kudos to Wave for picking upjust an incredible group in ISP
Supplies.
It's so neat, so happy for them.
It's always more fulfillingwhen you see two people that you
really like coming together.
Right, that's pretty neat andit's a great.
I mean that whole entireindustry, wireless and it's a
great.
I mean that whole entireindustry.
(15:17):
Wireless distribution is justso great.
I mean there's such a goodgroup of people there.
Wincom, scansource, you knowworldwide.
You know it's funny, notworldwide, but I was talking to
someone about the WirelessWithout Limits cruise the other
day.
I don't know.
Does anybody remember that?
Does anybody remember WirelessWithout Limits?
Let's see if I can bring it up.
It was a cruise that the Wispsand all the people that would.
(15:41):
It was from Double Radius, theywould do it.
They would put together thiscruise called Wireless Without
Limits and it would take a bunchof wireless nerds and stick
them on a cruise ship and theseguys did the independence of the
seas Five nights cruising fromFort Lauderdale to Haiti, to
Jamaica, networking with otherWISPs.
It was just a really coolconference.
(16:01):
I never got the chance to goand this is back from God.
I don't even know the domains Ihaven't registered anymore.
This was back from 2016.
But Wireless Without Limits wasjust such a neat thing that
Double Radius did that wholegroup of wireless distributors,
tesco included and old HuttonCommunications shout out to the
old team at Hutton.
(16:22):
Just such a fun group of peopleall together fighting over that
market space Not even fighting.
It's such a friendly group, man.
So to see ISP Supplies and Wavecoming together, that's pretty
awesome.
Let's see what else we got goingon this week.
There's so much man.
I've not even talked about anycrazy stuff yet.
Also, if you are thinking aboutattending WLPC in Phoenix, make
(16:45):
sure that you go online, let'ssee.
I think it's still available.
You can vote for the sessionsthat you want to see.
Let me see if I've got the linkhere, and this is the best part
about this.
Let's see, voting is open from.
I don't know if it's listed onhere, but voting is open 6th
(17:09):
November to 21 November.
Okay, so check this out.
There has got to be a link heresomewhere.
Let me see if I can find it.
Check this out, there has gotto be a link here somewhere.
Let me see if I can find it.
Let's see if I can look up WLPCPhoenix Voting.
No, it's not.
There's no.
Oh, hold on, here we go.
Look, we'll just jump on X withMr Parsons here and the survey
(17:30):
is right here.
If you follow Keith R Parsons,go to at Keith R Parsons or look
for the WLPC hashtag on X.
You can see this.
And so the presentations forconsideration.
There's 111 of them, which ispretty awesome.
Okay, here we go 111presentations for consideration
and you can cycle through these.
(17:51):
You can look and see the onesthat you're interested in.
And then, once you see the onesthat you're interested in, then
there's a link also where youcan go complete the survey.
I've already done mine, but ifyou go in and you look at it,
you can fill out that survey andthis is where you get to vote
on what you want to see at WLPC.
This is absolutely the mostimportant part of WLPC, in my
(18:14):
opinion.
This is the part where everyonegot a chance to submit an
article or to submit an abstract, and now people get to vote on
it.
Does it matter what AP you buy?
The 2025 edition by Wes Purvis.
How about?
Don't Wait Automate.
How about?
Let's see Jennifer ManellaDragonblood Revisited why your
(18:35):
Wi-Fi Network is StillVulnerable, but then you have
all kinds of stuff like HackRFPort.
Jennifer Manella DragonbloodRevisited why your Wi-Fi Network
is Still Vulnerable.
But then you have all kinds ofstuff Hack RF, portapak for
Wi-Fi Expert.
Come on, these are great ones.
Take a look at that.
Go see what's happening withWLPC 25 in Phoenix.
Go get your votes out there.
Get your voice and your votesheard.
All right, what else we gotgoing on?
(18:55):
Top Tech Trend trends for 2025.
This is a pretty cool article.
So there's a lot happening andobviously everyone's saying AI,
ai, ai, ai seems to be the bigone, but there's also some
pretty interesting things downhere.
As you scroll down, 24% saidrobotics, and then, if you
scroll down here even a littlebit further, this was
(19:18):
fascinating to me.
It talked about 37% oftechnology leaders are
considering implementinghumanoid robots into operation,
while 35% expect to haveimplementation of humanoid
robots started and 18% have themfully implemented into
operations in 2025.
Okay, I haven't thought aboutthis at all until I was watching
(19:40):
the new video from BostonDynamics.
Oh, my God, did you guys seethis, the Atlas video?
Let's see if we can load it up.
This dude, this Atlas robot,does some pretty neat stuff and
I hadn't thought about it untilI saw his little antenna
sticking out of his head.
So if you look at the screenhere, you can see it's an Atlas
(20:03):
robot working fully autonomousand it's taking out sections of
metal and it's moving it fromone location to another.
And basically they told therobot hey, here's the location
of all the stuff, you go overthere and you figure it out and
it's doing it.
I wonder what type of latencyand what type of connection
these robots are gonna need.
(20:24):
How much data are theyprocessing?
Real-time visual data,real-time telemetry data?
How much of that is happeningon the robot itself and how much
of that is being validated orchecked or used via a wireless
connection?
And if you're asking this robotto do something, what does that
connection look like?
So if anyone has any experiencein this, let me know, because
(20:44):
this was fascinating to me,really trying to understand what
the wireless connectivity ofthese robots is going to look
like.
Are they 5G driven?
Are they 6G driven?
Are they Wi-Fi driven?
Are they LoRaWAN driven, Iwonder.
So I thought I would share thatwith you.
That new Atlas robot's prettyneat, but when you look at the
(21:07):
statistics of the number ofpeople that are looking at these
humanoid robots, 37% oftechnology leaders are
considering implementing therobots and 18% expect to have
them fully implemented.
Wow, I mean, what do we needfrom a Wi-Fi perspective?
Granted, the other top techtrends are, as you can imagine,
ai and AI and AI and securityfor AI.
There's lots to take in there,but this is a great little
(21:30):
breakdown.
Rcr Wireless News covers it,but it's the IEEE's annual
survey.
If you just Google IEEE globalsurvey, twice as many
technologists expect AI to bethe most important tech of 2025
compared to other areas.
So 58% say AI, 26% cloudcomputing, and then there's that
24% robotics down there.
So lots of things are happeningin the AI space.
(21:53):
Speaking of the AI space, let'sclick on the article, let's
click on the blog.
There it is.
Cisco is introducing the newWi-Fi 7 access point AI, ai, ai
all the stuff behind the scenesyou know I was lucky enough to
get to work with the teams overthere for a little while last
year and really see what theywere doing, and to see a lot of
(22:14):
that come to fruition is so cool.
The 9176 and 9178 APs arepretty beefy man, if you look at
what they're doing.
They're implementing some ofthe work that was done, not just
the AIRM stuff, but thewireless health component and
the backend AI that's happeningon the Meraki dashboard is
(22:35):
really, really cool.
So now also, I saw that theseWi-Fi 7 APs have Cisco Spaces
included of every wirelesssubscription.
So, out of the box, it saysyou'll have access to rich AI,
3d mapping, dynamic IoT services, precise asset tracking and
more.
So one of the things that Ciscodoes is you can identify where
the APs are.
(22:56):
The APs can identify where eachof the other APs are, but that
was only a feature available inSpaces.
Well, now that Spaces is partof this, that's pretty cool, not
to mention all the other bellsand whistles that they've loaded
in to these devices.
There's Mr Lawrence Wang downthere on the bottom, senior VP
and General Manager, there aresome really cool tech specs to
(23:17):
these APs that are out there, sotake a look at them If Cisco is
your thing.
These new Wi-Fi 7 APs arepretty substantial and they've
got some really coolfunctionality If you want to
learn more about it.
Next week they're going to bepresenting at Mobility Field Day
12.
Mobility Field Day 12 is takingplace in San Jose Sorry man, my
(23:41):
nose is just going today.
Let me see if I can bring upthe page here.
Mobility Field Day 12 happeningnext week Wednesday the 20th
and Thursday the 21st.
Niall and Cisco are presentingmyself.
Daryl Deroja, cheryl Connell,Kerry Culp, kerry from Velespan
what a cool.
I love Velespan.
Lee Badman, mark Houts, ronWestfall good old Ron Ron, the
(24:04):
Analyst man I love listening tothat dude talk.
Scott McDermott, troy Martinall of us are going to be either
there or virtually there, butreally expect Cisco to talk
about what this new device is,some of the benefits of it and
what it means.
So if you're looking for moreinformation on that, please tune
in next week for Mobility FieldDay.
It's going to be interesting tosee what Niall has to say too,
(24:26):
especially now that the heat'sbeen turned up, with Meter doing
all the things that Meter does.
Is Niall going to step up andcompete with Meter?
Are they stopping where theyare?
Are they moving in a differentdirection?
Are they going to deploy CBRSthe same way that Meter is?
We don't know, but we will findout next week.
That should be pretty cool.
What else?
What else?
Boost Mobile says it's ready torumble.
(24:47):
That's an interesting story.
Basically, boost Mobile startedas this MVNO Mobile Virtual
Network Operator, usingequipment from other companies,
using towers from othercompanies Verizon, at&t,
t-mobile, whoever it is and nowthey've started to build out
their own 5G network.
But what's different about whatthey did is they built their
entire 5G network on O-RAN orOpen RAN infrastructure, and
(25:08):
because they built it on openinfrastructure, that allowed
them to move faster than thepeople that were on these closed
architectures.
And so now they've beendeploying so much 5G that
they're saying well, look, westarted as an MVO, but now we're
achieving incredible speeds andwe're going to start cranking
out these service plans that are25 bucks a month for the life
of the service plan.
Going to start cranking outthese service plans that are 25
(25:30):
bucks a month for the life ofthe service plan, and so they've
got a marketing campaign thatkicked off in july.
It is pretty cool to watch.
Fierce wireless did a greatlittle write-up here about boost
mobile and then being ready torumble if I could get rid of
that big advertisement.
Let's see where's their, theirprepaid ban, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.
A new class study talking abouthow great they are.
(25:50):
Let's see second quarter 7.3million subscribers Crazy, right
, that's a lot.
Anyway, they have anadvertising campaign.
That's pretty awesome.
But if you want to take a lookat what Boost Mobile is doing,
it's crazy to think that therecould all of a sudden be another
carrier in that carrier space,because it seems like it's
(26:11):
already a little bit crowded.
But I mean, then again, we onlyhave three options.
Right, in the States you've gotthree main carriers, so having
Boost Mobile come in is going tobe pretty great.
Oh, let's see what else we gotgoing on.
Voting for WLPC, we talkedabout that.
Tech Trends we talked aboutthat Standing desks don't do
squat, according to a new study,and TechCrunch picked up this
(26:34):
article, as have another coupleof ones where, over the years,
startups have gained traction bydesigning, making and selling
standing desks.
Where Apple CEO Tim Cook calledsitting the new cancer, but a
Washington Post study of morethan 83,000 adults found that
standing for more than two hoursa day not only doesn't protect
against cardiovascular risk, butit also heightens an
(26:55):
individual's risks ofcirculatory problems, including
varicose veins, abnormally lowblood pressure and blood clots.
Standing only burns nine extracalories per hour.
They said.
Sitting too much is problematic, so the idea is to get up every
30 minutes and make sure youmove your body.
But overall, standing desks, itlooks like they might go the
way of the open office plan orthe remote worker plan, I don't
(27:19):
know.
It seems like we're goingthrough these cycles of
everything.
Oh, that's a great idea, maybenot.
Let's go ahead and bring thatback in.
So standing sitting might notbe the new cancer.
Sorry, tim Cook.
Oh, what else we got?
I think that's about it.
Wave is quiet and all the otherthings you know.
I was slipping through the news.
Let's see what I have.
Look, let's go crazy here.
(27:40):
Let's see what I have open onmy tabs.
You guys want to scroll throughmy tabs?
Ieee study, gxc Ah, look, it'sme on Instagram.
Fifth Circuit Court of AppealsWireless Without Limits.
No, that was about it, man.
I think that's all I got forthis week.
It's been a crazy week.
There's some personal stuffthat I have going on that I have
alluded to online, but I'm notgoing to give up the goods just
(28:04):
yet.
But Monday I am starting a newgig.
I'm very excited about this.
This is the part that I'll talkabout.
I've spent the last nine monthsor so.
I got the layoff notice fromCisco in January and they kept
us on board till March and theygave us a really cool package
and I've spent that time reallystarting to look at what's
(28:26):
happening in the industry andanalyze what's going on and
really see where I think thisindustry is going and then
combine it with my personalgoals and what I want to do.
And there's been some goodopportunities that have popped
up and I've seen some of themthrough.
I've jumped on planes, I'veflown out, I've interviewed with
people, I've sat through reallylong meetings.
I've sat through pitches andpresentations from every level
(28:48):
you can imagine, from littlestartups who are trying to make
their name to people who couldjust give me a whole bunch of
equity and they just really wantmy help get a business going,
and big companies that aretrying to make dynamic shifts in
the market or dramatic dynamicshifts in the marketplace.
And after going through all that, I would say that I've learned
a couple of different things.
One is I would jump on LinkedInand I would find things that I
(29:13):
thought, oh man, that'sinteresting.
And I would crank that applybutton and send out a resume and
say, hey, if you're interested,let's at least have a
conversation, keep my optionsopen, right, dude?
I don't know what's on myresume and I'm probably not a
really good resume writer.
I don't know what's on myresume and I'm probably not a
really good resume writer, butthere were so many times that I
(29:36):
would get a notification twohours later or 24 hours later
saying sorry, we don't thinkthat you're qualified for this
position.
And I'm sitting here scratchingmy head because I'm like I've
done exactly what you're askingme to do the whole AI thing in
human resources and I want tohave a chat with a recruiter
that I was talking to becausehis insight on this was really,
really interesting.
He's been doing corporaterecruiting for a long time.
(29:57):
I said, dude, there must besomething going on with my
resume, because if I don't havea personal connection to the
company he's like, well, show itto me.
I showed him my resume.
He's like yeah, he's likethere's probably three or four
different things here that areimmediately flagging you through
AI and I thought that kind ofsucks, because it's a bad
feeling.
It's a shitty feeling whenyou're like, oh, I think I can
(30:17):
do this, and you hit the applybutton and they turn around.
They're like no, and then yourealize that it's not them,
quote, unquote.
It's not the man, it's thecomputer that's kicking you back
.
And what I learned is that theart of personal skills and soft
skills and personal connectionwill absolutely always take you
further than just beingqualified for the job.
I found a lot of jobs that Iwas way more qualified for than
(30:42):
they were asking for and I wasstill getting kicked back.
If you're looking for a jobright now and I know a lot of
you are just because all thelayoffs just stick with it, but
more importantly, start talkingto people in the industry.
If you can make your way out toevents that are happening near
you, go out to WICO if it'shappening close to you and
you're in wireless.
Try and make it out to WLPC andsee if you can at least get a
(31:06):
show pass to show you don't haveto sit through the boot camps.
Go network with people and getto know people, because what I
learned firsthand was that evenme, a seasoned veteran, you tell
by my that's what people withgray hair say a seasoned veteran
I was getting my resume kickedback for jobs that I knew I
could do in my sleep and it waslike, wow, that was concerning.
(31:27):
So I would tell you, if you'relooking for a job, just stick
with it and reach out to thepeople that you know, because
ultimately, that will probablyyield a much better result than
just blindly submitting the easyapply button on LinkedIn or
seeing what's out there.
And I did my share of it.
Man, I don't even know how manyjobs I applied to.
I'm not ashamed to say it.
There were some fun ones.
I was like, oh, that would becool.
(31:48):
I got a call back.
I got a call back from one ofthem that was so awesome that I
couldn't fulfill because theywanted me to move to Miami.
But I will tell you, if you'relooking to be a senior telecoms
analyst for FIFA 2026, if you'relooking for a gig, they have
got a really cool package andthey are recruiting right now.
They're still recruiting forthe position.
(32:09):
Very cool position supportingthe World Cup in 2026.
Get on LinkedIn and find it.
If you need to be pointed at it, let me know and I'll be happy
to point you in the rightdirection.
If you want me to introduce youto a recruiter, I'll be happy
to do that as well.
That was a really, really funone that I had to turn down, but
there's some really cool thingsthat are happening in the
industry, so don't getfrustrated with lack of people
(32:32):
returning your calls orreturning your resumes.
Anyway, that being said, as Iwas being choosy and going back
and forth and trying to figureout what it is I wanted to do,
and getting shot down by somepeople that I wasn't expecting,
and then getting asked by otherpeople that I totally wasn't
expecting, I have finally made adecision to move into a space
that I think is going to beincredible.
I think it's going to do some.
(32:54):
I think it has a really, reallybright future and it plays off
of my past and my history ofwhat I've been doing for almost
my whole career and, in a way,that's a little bit different,
and I will tell you that themove is about simplicity and
it's about user experience andit's about delivering a product
(33:16):
that is easy to use, easy tounderstand and gets the job done
when you need it done, whereyou need it done, and what has
to happen in order for that totake place is substantial.
It's incredibly substantial andI believe that this is a
company that has the ability todo that and deliver that product
(33:37):
.
And it might not be foreverybody.
It would be for a lot of people.
I'll tell you that I sat downand in my head I thought how
many people would actually usethis.
Lot of people.
I'll tell you that.
I sat down and in my head Ithought how many people would
actually use this, and it was awhole lot of people.
So I'm very interested to seewhere it goes.
I'm so incredibly excited to bepart of this team.
It's just a bang up group ofpeople.
(33:59):
My first day is Monday.
I've got my new monitor sittingright behind me on the floor
ready to rock and roll, so wishme luck as I launch off into
this next chapter of my career.
The good news is they'veassured me that I can keep the
podcast.
That's pretty cool, and notonly that.
They're going to send me to abunch of different trade shows
where I get to see you guys andtalk to everybody and be out
there and have fun and beinvolved in the industry as much
(34:22):
as I like.
I would not have taken aposition that didn't allow me to
be me.
So don't compromise who you are.
When you're thinking about anew job, think about who you are
and what you want to do andwhere you want to go and what
you want your brand to be, andfind someone that will invest in
you, someone that wants you foryou.
And I think I found thatcompany.
(34:42):
It's really cool.
I'm very excited, anyway.
That being said, I'll let youknow next week who it is.
I'll be changing my LinkedInand I think I'm going to try to
make a cool little funny videojust to say hello.
Anyway, yeah, I hope you allhave a wonderful week.
Pay attention to what's going on, whether it's politically,
whether it's with jobs, whetherit's with the tariffs oh God, we
(35:04):
even talk about the tariffs.
On the tariff front, y'all.
I don't want to increase theprice of Wi-Fi stand, but if
these tariffs hit, I'm going tohave to increase the Wi-Fi stand
price.
So I'm just giving you theheads up right now.
Politics yo.
Anyway, I hope y'all have awonderful week.
Thanks again for listening tothe Waves Podcast.
If you want anything or needanything from me, or if you
haven't subscribed, pleasesubscribe.
Send me a message, get at meonline.
Good afternoon, good morning, good evening.
Everybody.
It's Drew Lentz, the WirelessNerd, and we are celebrating one
year of the Waves podcast.
This is episode, I believe,number 51 or 52.
Either way, it's been one yearand we're so excited.
Cue the applause yay, it's beenfantastic.
It's been such a cool year ofgrowth, getting this thing off
(00:22):
the ground and working with itday in, day out, week in, week
out.
Missed a couple of weeks hereand there.
It's been a hectic couple ofweeks.
I'm a little under the weatherso I've been a little hesitant
to record, but I figured there'sso much happening right now
that it was worth jumping onreal quick and having a couple
of conversations about.
So if you're joining us onYouTube or on X or on LinkedIn
(00:43):
or on Instagram, please feelfree to drop a comment, say
hello, etc.
Etc.
What a week, man.
Lots of stuff.
The last two weeks have beenkind of crazy.
So if you don't know me too well, then you don't know that
politics are like my sports.
I'm not really.
I follow the Astros.
Try not to follow the Cowboys,because they just break my heart
(01:04):
over and over and over again.
So what I do like is I likepolitics and regardless of the
outcome of the politics.
I enjoy what's going on.
So I've spent the last coupledays really trying to understand
(01:36):
what's going to happen over thenext four years and what that
means for us, what that meansfor me and what that means for
you, and what that means for ourcustomers and what that means
for people that are in thisindustry doing something.
And I guess we can lead offwith that.
There's one thing that'saffecting us here in Texas, I
think a little bit more thansome of the other states, and
it's kind of like a second layeron top of what's already going
on.
So let me pull up an articlereal quick here so that we can
see, so I can show you what I'mtalking about.
And if you're watching on thevideo, I've moved my lighting
(01:58):
from here into the studio.
We've redone the studio.
My wife and I have redone ourpodcast studio.
We've got some new gear goingin there.
It's going to look spectacular.
My wife and I have a podcastthat we do, so we're revamping
that thing.
So I apologize if the lightingis a little bit harsh.
Maybe I don't look best, butwhatever, you know I'm not here.
I've got a face for radio.
(02:18):
They say a face for radio.
So what I was going to talkabout, though, is E-rate, and
what happened a couple of weeks,months ago, is something that I
covered on the show, and that'sthat the Fifth Circuit Court
rules that the USF fund, theUniversal Service Fund, is
unconstitutional, and so that'swhy I got up on the screen.
(02:39):
Right, this is July 25th.
So seven six months ago, fivemonths ago, right, this is July
25th, so you know seven sixmonths ago.
Five months ago, they said thatthe FCC and everything that
they were doing to put moneyinto the Universal Service Fund
is unconstitutional.
Now there hasn't been an exactruling on it yet, so everything
is business as usual for K-12and for education in the United
(03:01):
States, but everyone was kind ofon pins and needles, trying to
understand what was going tohappen with the election and
what the outcome of the electionand the race for Congress, for
Congress people look like, forthe Senate, everything
everything came into play here,so if you don't know what the
USF is and you're unaware, I'mgoing to try and break this down
(03:25):
real simply and you canresearch it, because I might be
wrong, but I'm going to getpretty close.
I've been doing this for awhile, so hopefully I don't get
it too wrong.
Basically, the USF is a kitty, afund that's put together and
it's raised from a fee that'sattached to your mobile devices
and your phone lines andwhenever you pay this fee it
(03:48):
goes into this pool and that feeis then used for E-Rate all
across school districts andlibraries across the United
States.
And essentially what happens isE-Rate, which is this discount
program for hardware.
It's not necessarily a discountprogram, but what it does is it
provides an offset cost forschools and libraries and
(04:09):
educational institutions toprocure telecommunications and
telecommunications and internetand network connectivity
equipment.
Long story short, all of theWi-Fi and the network devices
that are in any K-12 school inthe United States that's a
public school are more thanlikely paid for by E-rate 80% or
so 90% paid for by E-rate.
(04:30):
So what this means is that ifthis goes away, if E-rate goes
away, that is going to severelyimpact the amount of technology
that school districts can buy.
If your city is anything like mycity in the United States, here
in South Texas, we already havea budget problem.
We already have issues withschool facilities and with
(04:51):
paying teachers what theydeserve and paying
administrators what they deserve.
We already have issues.
If you remove E-rate, thentechnology will be so
drastically expensive that itwill be almost impossible for
educational entities to keep upwith regular technology cycles,
not to mention just procuringnew stuff and opening up new
(05:14):
schools, so on and so forth.
So there's pros and cons of bothsides.
I don't see any other pros.
I'm not going to lie.
I'll let politics seep intothis one a little bit.
I like that this happens.
I like that there is agovernment program that helps
offset the cost of technologyfor school districts.
Now, whether it's E-rate or not, I like the idea that the
(05:35):
government at large helps outlocal school districts.
So I'm sure that there issomething there for a
replacement for it if and whenit goes away.
But the issue is that if it'sjust pulled out of the hands of
the educational institutions now, would they have to go spend
millions of dollars to refreshtheir network equipment?
Or they have to supply iPads orChromebooks or tablets or
(05:57):
whatever it is, to students sothat they can continue to learn?
E-rate is a significant part ofthat, not to mention the
internet access that actuallyconnects the schools to the
network.
So if E-rate goes away, it'sgoing to create an issue.
Technology refresh cycles willdwindle.
Technology sales might beaffected and when you think
about the impact that that hasat a student level or at a
(06:20):
classroom level, the number oneplace where people cut costs in
schools is they get rid ofpeople.
That's like HR is the numberone thing.
So if E-rate goes away, whatimpact is that going to have on
teachers?
Because less teachers, largerclassroom sizes, less technology
going into the campuses it's abig deal, and the reason that
it's important specifically inthis election is because of this
(06:43):
guy, ted Cruz from Texas, tedCancun Cruz as we call him down
here in South Texas.
If he ends up running theSenate Commerce Committee, ted
Cruz is the guy that is not afan of E-rate.
If you go back and you look atwhat he did in the past and this
(07:04):
is from the Benton Institute,if you can see it on my screen
here if you go and you look andyou see what he did, he's the
guy that said, hey, usac's rolehas shielded the FCC from
accountability.
Usac's transparency and tooloversight is increasing overhead
costs and the USAC has ahistory of poor performance.
So Ted Cruz has asked toexamine the following questions
(07:27):
Does the FCC current designationof USAC as a permanent USF
administrator, comply withfederal law?
What is the USAC budget andplanning process?
What are they doing with USF?
What are they doing with E-rate?
Cruz was reelected in the stateof Texas.
There was a gentleman namedColin Allred that was running
against him.
(07:47):
That did not succeed, so Cruzhas now been reestablished.
Cruz is from the state of Texas.
That AT&T is also part of thestate of Texas, so we could go
look at lobbying dollars if wewant to, but essentially this
creates an issue from an E-rateperspective and that's why I
wanted to bring it up, not totalk politics Again.
It's not important what partyhe's a part of.
(08:09):
What's important is that thisis a person who is critical of
USAC, usf and E-rate funding.
And now that it's been broughtin front of the Court of Appeals
and it's been you know that'swhat this other article says.
It says that it has been deemedas unconstitutional.
(08:30):
For now, what does it mean?
It's unclear.
We're fairly certain this willnot jeopardize E-rate funds for
the 2024 to 2025 school year.
This is from theSuperintendents Association.
In July they said this.
There are three scenarios thedecision could be applied
nationally, meaning all USFprograms would be halted.
The decision could be appliedonly to the Fifth Circuit, which
is Texas, louisiana andMississippi, and the decision is
(08:54):
stayed depending upon appealprocess to the Supreme Court.
But that all assumes that ourgovernment stayed the way that
it was.
The government is not going tostay the way that it was.
The government is not going tostay the way that it is today.
Come January, a couple thingsare going to change, and one of
those might be that Cruise getsput in front of that.
(09:15):
This is an issue y'all.
This is seriously an issue foranybody in technology, for all
of you that work in educationand technology I know you
already know about this, so Iappreciate you just listening to
this part but for anybody whodoesn't know anyone who's on the
equipment manufacturer side,who's not paying attention to
what's going on, this is goingto severely impact the number of
shipments that go intoeducational entities, should
(09:38):
something like this come up.
So be aware, keep your eye onit.
It's not the best scenario.
And then in Texas there's awhole other system that our
governor is trying to push orpromote, which is the school
voucher program in the state ofTexas.
And if school vouchers do infact succeed in the state of
Texas.
That's even more money that'sgoing to be taken out of the
(09:58):
public school districts in theform of vouchers giving people
the ability to choose where theyspend their money, which you
know hey, it's again notpolitical, that's entirely up to
you.
We can vote for it, we can notvote for it.
But the idea is that you get avoucher.
So all the tax money, all thetax dollars that you pay into
the school district, theyusually just stay within the
school district.
In the state of Texas, thegovernor is saying well, if I
(10:19):
want my kid in private school, Ishould be able to take that
money that I'm spending and geta voucher for it and take it
down the street to the privateschool and say here, let me
offset the cost of privateschool so I can get a different
type of education than I get atregular public school.
So if that indeed happens andthe rise and prominence of
charter schools in the state ofTexas, those two things combined
are one of those perfect stormscenarios where we're already
(10:41):
going to be losing fundingbecause of E-rate hopefully not.
And second, if school voucherscome through, we're going to be
losing even more funding in ourpublic school systems, which is
tough.
So I talk about this again, notpolitically, but from the
perspective of technology.
What does this mean for thefuture of technology in schools,
in K-12, in higher ed, inlibraries?
It's something to be aware ofwhen you're making purchasing
(11:03):
decisions.
It's something to be aware ofwhen you're looking at renewing
contracts and when you'relooking at what your support
structure is going to look likeover the course of the next
couple of years.
Again, the American Associationof Superintendents says it's
not something to worry about for24-25, but come
September-October of this nextE-rate cycle, it's something
(11:24):
that everyone in that space isdefinitely going to be watching.
So I thought it was worthmentioning because that's
happening, man, that's reallyhappening.
There's a few articles that havepopped up and let me see if I
have one of them open, but itwas essentially.
It was what a Trumpadministration means for
(11:45):
wireless, and there's a lotthere.
I don't want to unpack that oneright now, but there's a lot
there.
Regarding the FCC, openspectrum or reuse of spectrum,
allocation of spectrum.
There's a lot that's happeningthere.
We're not even going to talknet neutrality or any of that
stuff, but just know thatthere's a lot that's going on.
This election is going to havesome impact overall.
(12:06):
So, that being said, let's moveon to something else.
There have been some reallycool acquisitions in the last
two, three weeks, and it'sreally cool because it's not
just acquisition, it'sconsolidation.
The first one that I want togive a shout out to is Motive
Companies has announced theacquisition of GXC.
(12:27):
Now, gxc is somebody that youmight not have heard of, but
someone that I've been followingfor the past two years or so,
because they're doing somereally cool stuff in private 5G
and private 4G spaces,specifically for renewable
energy and IoT replacementinside factories and industrial
spaces, and to see them getgobbled up so early was kind of
(12:50):
cool.
So GXC has reached an agreementto be a part of Motive Company
as a leading provider ofrenewable energy and
infrastructure solutions, andthat's really cool.
That's great for them.
Bob Istwan, ceo of Motive, saysmany of us on the leadership
team, myself included, have beenpersonally invested in GXC
since its early days, witnessingfirsthand its growth and
innovation.
(13:10):
So GXC is based out of Austin,texas, got some good friends
that work over there and they dosome really neat stuff.
They provide the orchestrationsoftware on the back end.
Usually it's a piece of Bicel'sequipment on the front end
that's doing all the radio stuff, but there's some really neat
things that they're involved in.
So kudos and congratulations tothe team over at gxc and motive
on the acquisition.
That's really cool.
(13:30):
You know what's even coolerthan that texas company from
college station texas?
One of my, one of my favoritecompanies to do business with in
the entire industry ispsupplies has just been acquired
by absolutely one of my favoritedistributors in the wireless
industry.
Wave has acquired ISP Supplies.
(13:52):
There's a personal story that Ihave here about Wave and about
Norm and about everybody that'sover there and what they were
able to do for me when I wasjust getting my first business
started and what they were ableto do for me when I was just
getting my first businessstarted.
As the story goes, I neededsome credit to purchase the
equipment to do my firstdeployment when I decided to
(14:12):
kick off my own company and Normwent to bat for me and he
helped me.
If it wasn't for Norm Iwouldn't have been able to kick
off my consulting company.
I've told everybody that story.
Norm is such a good dude andISP Supplies the team at ISP
Supplies have been Johnny on thespot with getting equipment in
my hands specifically for thedeployments that I've done and I
(14:33):
know that for years Steve andthe team at ISP Supplies have
been that same way witheverybody else.
These are absolutely twowonderful organizations.
I'm so happy for them.
I'm so happy that the industryis going to reap the benefits of
this.
So it's just really really,really cool.
You know the whole team.
Shout out to the whole teamover there Cousins, zach and, of
(14:57):
course, norm man.
I'm so happy for you guys.
So kudos to Wave for picking upjust an incredible group in ISP
Supplies.
It's so neat, so happy for them.
It's always more fulfillingwhen you see two people that you
really like coming together.
Right, that's pretty neat andit's a great.
I mean that whole entireindustry, wireless and it's a
great.
I mean that whole entireindustry.
(15:17):
Wireless distribution is justso great.
I mean there's such a goodgroup of people there.
Wincom, scansource, you knowworldwide.
You know it's funny, notworldwide, but I was talking to
someone about the WirelessWithout Limits cruise the other
day.
I don't know.
Does anybody remember that?
Does anybody remember WirelessWithout Limits?
Let's see if I can bring it up.
It was a cruise that the Wispsand all the people that would.
(15:41):
It was from Double Radius, theywould do it.
They would put together thiscruise called Wireless Without
Limits and it would take a bunchof wireless nerds and stick
them on a cruise ship and theseguys did the independence of the
seas Five nights cruising fromFort Lauderdale to Haiti, to
Jamaica, networking with otherWISPs.
It was just a really coolconference.
(16:01):
I never got the chance to goand this is back from God.
I don't even know the domains Ihaven't registered anymore.
This was back from 2016.
But Wireless Without Limits wasjust such a neat thing that
Double Radius did that wholegroup of wireless distributors,
tesco included and old HuttonCommunications shout out to the
old team at Hutton.
(16:22):
Just such a fun group of peopleall together fighting over that
market space Not even fighting.
It's such a friendly group, man.
So to see ISP Supplies and Wavecoming together, that's pretty
awesome.
Let's see what else we got goingon this week.
There's so much man.
I've not even talked about anycrazy stuff yet.
Also, if you are thinking aboutattending WLPC in Phoenix, make
(16:45):
sure that you go online, let'ssee.
I think it's still available.
You can vote for the sessionsthat you want to see.
Let me see if I've got the linkhere, and this is the best part
about this.
Let's see, voting is open from.
I don't know if it's listed onhere, but voting is open 6th
(17:09):
November to 21 November.
Okay, so check this out.
There has got to be a link heresomewhere.
Let me see if I can find it.
Check this out, there has gotto be a link here somewhere.
Let me see if I can find it.
Let's see if I can look up WLPCPhoenix Voting.
No, it's not.
There's no.
Oh, hold on, here we go.
Look, we'll just jump on X withMr Parsons here and the survey
(17:30):
is right here.
If you follow Keith R Parsons,go to at Keith R Parsons or look
for the WLPC hashtag on X.
You can see this.
And so the presentations forconsideration.
There's 111 of them, which ispretty awesome.
Okay, here we go 111presentations for consideration
and you can cycle through these.
(17:51):
You can look and see the onesthat you're interested in.
And then, once you see the onesthat you're interested in, then
there's a link also where youcan go complete the survey.
I've already done mine, but ifyou go in and you look at it,
you can fill out that survey andthis is where you get to vote
on what you want to see at WLPC.
This is absolutely the mostimportant part of WLPC, in my
(18:14):
opinion.
This is the part where everyonegot a chance to submit an
article or to submit an abstract, and now people get to vote on
it.
Does it matter what AP you buy?
The 2025 edition by Wes Purvis.
How about?
Don't Wait Automate.
How about?
Let's see Jennifer ManellaDragonblood Revisited why your
(18:35):
Wi-Fi Network is StillVulnerable, but then you have
all kinds of stuff like HackRFPort.
Jennifer Manella DragonbloodRevisited why your Wi-Fi Network
is Still Vulnerable.
But then you have all kinds ofstuff Hack RF, portapak for
Wi-Fi Expert.
Come on, these are great ones.
Take a look at that.
Go see what's happening withWLPC 25 in Phoenix.
Go get your votes out there.
Get your voice and your votesheard.
All right, what else we gotgoing on?
(18:55):
Top Tech Trend trends for 2025.
This is a pretty cool article.
So there's a lot happening andobviously everyone's saying AI,
ai, ai, ai seems to be the bigone, but there's also some
pretty interesting things downhere.
As you scroll down, 24% saidrobotics, and then, if you
scroll down here even a littlebit further, this was
(19:18):
fascinating to me.
It talked about 37% oftechnology leaders are
considering implementinghumanoid robots into operation,
while 35% expect to haveimplementation of humanoid
robots started and 18% have themfully implemented into
operations in 2025.
Okay, I haven't thought aboutthis at all until I was watching
(19:40):
the new video from BostonDynamics.
Oh, my God, did you guys seethis, the Atlas video?
Let's see if we can load it up.
This dude, this Atlas robot,does some pretty neat stuff and
I hadn't thought about it untilI saw his little antenna
sticking out of his head.
So if you look at the screenhere, you can see it's an Atlas
(20:03):
robot working fully autonomousand it's taking out sections of
metal and it's moving it fromone location to another.
And basically they told therobot hey, here's the location
of all the stuff, you go overthere and you figure it out and
it's doing it.
I wonder what type of latencyand what type of connection
these robots are gonna need.
(20:24):
How much data are theyprocessing?
Real-time visual data,real-time telemetry data?
How much of that is happeningon the robot itself and how much
of that is being validated orchecked or used via a wireless
connection?
And if you're asking this robotto do something, what does that
connection look like?
So if anyone has any experiencein this, let me know, because
(20:44):
this was fascinating to me,really trying to understand what
the wireless connectivity ofthese robots is going to look
like.
Are they 5G driven?
Are they 6G driven?
Are they Wi-Fi driven?
Are they LoRaWAN driven, Iwonder.
So I thought I would share thatwith you.
That new Atlas robot's prettyneat, but when you look at the
(21:07):
statistics of the number ofpeople that are looking at these
humanoid robots, 37% oftechnology leaders are
considering implementing therobots and 18% expect to have
them fully implemented.
Wow, I mean, what do we needfrom a Wi-Fi perspective?
Granted, the other top techtrends are, as you can imagine,
ai and AI and AI and securityfor AI.
There's lots to take in there,but this is a great little
(21:30):
breakdown.
Rcr Wireless News covers it,but it's the IEEE's annual
survey.
If you just Google IEEE globalsurvey, twice as many
technologists expect AI to bethe most important tech of 2025
compared to other areas.
So 58% say AI, 26% cloudcomputing, and then there's that
24% robotics down there.
So lots of things are happeningin the AI space.
(21:53):
Speaking of the AI space, let'sclick on the article, let's
click on the blog.
There it is.
Cisco is introducing the newWi-Fi 7 access point AI, ai, ai
all the stuff behind the scenesyou know I was lucky enough to
get to work with the teams overthere for a little while last
year and really see what theywere doing, and to see a lot of
(22:14):
that come to fruition is so cool.
The 9176 and 9178 APs arepretty beefy man, if you look at
what they're doing.
They're implementing some ofthe work that was done, not just
the AIRM stuff, but thewireless health component and
the backend AI that's happeningon the Meraki dashboard is
(22:35):
really, really cool.
So now also, I saw that theseWi-Fi 7 APs have Cisco Spaces
included of every wirelesssubscription.
So, out of the box, it saysyou'll have access to rich AI,
3d mapping, dynamic IoT services, precise asset tracking and
more.
So one of the things that Ciscodoes is you can identify where
the APs are.
(22:56):
The APs can identify where eachof the other APs are, but that
was only a feature available inSpaces.
Well, now that Spaces is partof this, that's pretty cool, not
to mention all the other bellsand whistles that they've loaded
in to these devices.
There's Mr Lawrence Wang downthere on the bottom, senior VP
and General Manager, there aresome really cool tech specs to
(23:17):
these APs that are out there, sotake a look at them If Cisco is
your thing.
These new Wi-Fi 7 APs arepretty substantial and they've
got some really coolfunctionality If you want to
learn more about it.
Next week they're going to bepresenting at Mobility Field Day
12.
Mobility Field Day 12 is takingplace in San Jose Sorry man, my
(23:41):
nose is just going today.
Let me see if I can bring upthe page here.
Mobility Field Day 12 happeningnext week Wednesday the 20th
and Thursday the 21st.
Niall and Cisco are presentingmyself.
Daryl Deroja, cheryl Connell,Kerry Culp, kerry from Velespan
what a cool.
I love Velespan.
Lee Badman, mark Houts, ronWestfall good old Ron Ron, the
(24:04):
Analyst man I love listening tothat dude talk.
Scott McDermott, troy Martinall of us are going to be either
there or virtually there, butreally expect Cisco to talk
about what this new device is,some of the benefits of it and
what it means.
So if you're looking for moreinformation on that, please tune
in next week for Mobility FieldDay.
It's going to be interesting tosee what Niall has to say too,
(24:26):
especially now that the heat'sbeen turned up, with Meter doing
all the things that Meter does.
Is Niall going to step up andcompete with Meter?
Are they stopping where theyare?
Are they moving in a differentdirection?
Are they going to deploy CBRSthe same way that Meter is?
We don't know, but we will findout next week.
That should be pretty cool.
What else?
What else?
Boost Mobile says it's ready torumble.
(24:47):
That's an interesting story.
Basically, boost Mobile startedas this MVNO Mobile Virtual
Network Operator, usingequipment from other companies,
using towers from othercompanies Verizon, at&t,
t-mobile, whoever it is and nowthey've started to build out
their own 5G network.
But what's different about whatthey did is they built their
entire 5G network on O-RAN orOpen RAN infrastructure, and
(25:08):
because they built it on openinfrastructure, that allowed
them to move faster than thepeople that were on these closed
architectures.
And so now they've beendeploying so much 5G that
they're saying well, look, westarted as an MVO, but now we're
achieving incredible speeds andwe're going to start cranking
out these service plans that are25 bucks a month for the life
of the service plan.
Going to start cranking outthese service plans that are 25
(25:30):
bucks a month for the life ofthe service plan, and so they've
got a marketing campaign thatkicked off in july.
It is pretty cool to watch.
Fierce wireless did a greatlittle write-up here about boost
mobile and then being ready torumble if I could get rid of
that big advertisement.
Let's see where's their, theirprepaid ban, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.
A new class study talking abouthow great they are.
(25:50):
Let's see second quarter 7.3million subscribers Crazy, right
, that's a lot.
Anyway, they have anadvertising campaign.
That's pretty awesome.
But if you want to take a lookat what Boost Mobile is doing,
it's crazy to think that therecould all of a sudden be another
carrier in that carrier space,because it seems like it's
(26:11):
already a little bit crowded.
But I mean, then again, we onlyhave three options.
Right, in the States you've gotthree main carriers, so having
Boost Mobile come in is going tobe pretty great.
Oh, let's see what else we gotgoing on.
Voting for WLPC, we talkedabout that.
Tech Trends we talked aboutthat Standing desks don't do
squat, according to a new study,and TechCrunch picked up this
(26:34):
article, as have another coupleof ones where, over the years,
startups have gained traction bydesigning, making and selling
standing desks.
Where Apple CEO Tim Cook calledsitting the new cancer, but a
Washington Post study of morethan 83,000 adults found that
standing for more than two hoursa day not only doesn't protect
against cardiovascular risk, butit also heightens an
(26:55):
individual's risks ofcirculatory problems, including
varicose veins, abnormally lowblood pressure and blood clots.
Standing only burns nine extracalories per hour.
They said.
Sitting too much is problematic, so the idea is to get up every
30 minutes and make sure youmove your body.
But overall, standing desks, itlooks like they might go the
way of the open office plan orthe remote worker plan, I don't
(27:19):
know.
It seems like we're goingthrough these cycles of
everything.
Oh, that's a great idea, maybenot.
Let's go ahead and bring thatback in.
So standing sitting might notbe the new cancer.
Sorry, tim Cook.
Oh, what else we got?
I think that's about it.
Wave is quiet and all the otherthings you know.
I was slipping through the news.
Let's see what I have.
Look, let's go crazy here.
(27:40):
Let's see what I have open onmy tabs.
You guys want to scroll throughmy tabs?
Ieee study, gxc Ah, look, it'sme on Instagram.
Fifth Circuit Court of AppealsWireless Without Limits.
No, that was about it, man.
I think that's all I got forthis week.
It's been a crazy week.
There's some personal stuffthat I have going on that I have
alluded to online, but I'm notgoing to give up the goods just
(28:04):
yet.
But Monday I am starting a newgig.
I'm very excited about this.
This is the part that I'll talkabout.
I've spent the last nine monthsor so.
I got the layoff notice fromCisco in January and they kept
us on board till March and theygave us a really cool package
and I've spent that time reallystarting to look at what's
(28:26):
happening in the industry andanalyze what's going on and
really see where I think thisindustry is going and then
combine it with my personalgoals and what I want to do.
And there's been some goodopportunities that have popped
up and I've seen some of themthrough.
I've jumped on planes, I'veflown out, I've interviewed with
people, I've sat through reallylong meetings.
I've sat through pitches andpresentations from every level
(28:48):
you can imagine, from littlestartups who are trying to make
their name to people who couldjust give me a whole bunch of
equity and they just really wantmy help get a business going,
and big companies that aretrying to make dynamic shifts in
the market or dramatic dynamicshifts in the marketplace.
And after going through all that, I would say that I've learned
a couple of different things.
One is I would jump on LinkedInand I would find things that I
(29:13):
thought, oh man, that'sinteresting.
And I would crank that applybutton and send out a resume and
say, hey, if you're interested,let's at least have a
conversation, keep my optionsopen, right, dude?
I don't know what's on myresume and I'm probably not a
really good resume writer.
I don't know what's on myresume and I'm probably not a
really good resume writer, butthere were so many times that I
(29:36):
would get a notification twohours later or 24 hours later
saying sorry, we don't thinkthat you're qualified for this
position.
And I'm sitting here scratchingmy head because I'm like I've
done exactly what you're askingme to do the whole AI thing in
human resources and I want tohave a chat with a recruiter
that I was talking to becausehis insight on this was really,
really interesting.
He's been doing corporaterecruiting for a long time.
(29:57):
I said, dude, there must besomething going on with my
resume, because if I don't havea personal connection to the
company he's like, well, show itto me.
I showed him my resume.
He's like yeah, he's likethere's probably three or four
different things here that areimmediately flagging you through
AI and I thought that kind ofsucks, because it's a bad
feeling.
It's a shitty feeling whenyou're like, oh, I think I can
(30:17):
do this, and you hit the applybutton and they turn around.
They're like no, and then yourealize that it's not them,
quote, unquote.
It's not the man, it's thecomputer that's kicking you back
.
And what I learned is that theart of personal skills and soft
skills and personal connectionwill absolutely always take you
further than just beingqualified for the job.
I found a lot of jobs that Iwas way more qualified for than
(30:42):
they were asking for and I wasstill getting kicked back.
If you're looking for a jobright now and I know a lot of
you are just because all thelayoffs just stick with it, but
more importantly, start talkingto people in the industry.
If you can make your way out toevents that are happening near
you, go out to WICO if it'shappening close to you and
you're in wireless.
Try and make it out to WLPC andsee if you can at least get a
(31:06):
show pass to show you don't haveto sit through the boot camps.
Go network with people and getto know people, because what I
learned firsthand was that evenme, a seasoned veteran, you tell
by my that's what people withgray hair say a seasoned veteran
I was getting my resume kickedback for jobs that I knew I
could do in my sleep and it waslike, wow, that was concerning.
(31:27):
So I would tell you, if you'relooking for a job, just stick
with it and reach out to thepeople that you know, because
ultimately, that will probablyyield a much better result than
just blindly submitting the easyapply button on LinkedIn or
seeing what's out there.
And I did my share of it.
Man, I don't even know how manyjobs I applied to.
I'm not ashamed to say it.
There were some fun ones.
I was like, oh, that would becool.
(31:48):
I got a call back.
I got a call back from one ofthem that was so awesome that I
couldn't fulfill because theywanted me to move to Miami.
But I will tell you, if you'relooking to be a senior telecoms
analyst for FIFA 2026, if you'relooking for a gig, they have
got a really cool package andthey are recruiting right now.
They're still recruiting forthe position.
(32:09):
Very cool position supportingthe World Cup in 2026.
Get on LinkedIn and find it.
If you need to be pointed at it, let me know and I'll be happy
to point you in the rightdirection.
If you want me to introduce youto a recruiter, I'll be happy
to do that as well.
That was a really, really funone that I had to turn down, but
there's some really cool thingsthat are happening in the
industry, so don't getfrustrated with lack of people
(32:32):
returning your calls orreturning your resumes.
Anyway, that being said, as Iwas being choosy and going back
and forth and trying to figureout what it is I wanted to do,
and getting shot down by somepeople that I wasn't expecting,
and then getting asked by otherpeople that I totally wasn't
expecting, I have finally made adecision to move into a space
that I think is going to beincredible.
I think it's going to do some.
(32:54):
I think it has a really, reallybright future and it plays off
of my past and my history ofwhat I've been doing for almost
my whole career and, in a way,that's a little bit different,
and I will tell you that themove is about simplicity and
it's about user experience andit's about delivering a product
(33:16):
that is easy to use, easy tounderstand and gets the job done
when you need it done, whereyou need it done, and what has
to happen in order for that totake place is substantial.
It's incredibly substantial andI believe that this is a
company that has the ability todo that and deliver that product
(33:37):
.
And it might not be foreverybody.
It would be for a lot of people.
I'll tell you that I sat downand in my head I thought how
many people would actually usethis.
Lot of people.
I'll tell you that.
I sat down and in my head Ithought how many people would
actually use this, and it was awhole lot of people.
So I'm very interested to seewhere it goes.
I'm so incredibly excited to bepart of this team.
It's just a bang up group ofpeople.
(33:59):
My first day is Monday.
I've got my new monitor sittingright behind me on the floor
ready to rock and roll, so wishme luck as I launch off into
this next chapter of my career.
The good news is they'veassured me that I can keep the
podcast.
That's pretty cool, and notonly that.
They're going to send me to abunch of different trade shows
where I get to see you guys andtalk to everybody and be out
there and have fun and beinvolved in the industry as much
(34:22):
as I like.
I would not have taken aposition that didn't allow me to
be me.
So don't compromise who you are.
When you're thinking about anew job, think about who you are
and what you want to do andwhere you want to go and what
you want your brand to be, andfind someone that will invest in
you, someone that wants you foryou.
And I think I found thatcompany.
(34:42):
It's really cool.
I'm very excited, anyway.
That being said, I'll let youknow next week who it is.
I'll be changing my LinkedInand I think I'm going to try to
make a cool little funny videojust to say hello.
Anyway, yeah, I hope you allhave a wonderful week.
Pay attention to what's going on, whether it's politically,
whether it's with jobs, whetherit's with the tariffs oh God, we
(35:04):
even talk about the tariffs.
On the tariff front, y'all.
I don't want to increase theprice of Wi-Fi stand, but if
these tariffs hit, I'm going tohave to increase the Wi-Fi stand
price.
So I'm just giving you theheads up right now.
Politics yo.
Anyway, I hope y'all have awonderful week.
Thanks again for listening tothe Waves Podcast.
If you want anything or needanything from me, or if you
haven't subscribed, pleasesubscribe.
Send me a message, get at meonline.
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