My thanks go out to everyone who watched the first episode of our new discussion program, The Communications Risk Show, which featured Joseph Nderitu and Sossina Tafari discussing corruption and regulation. Over 1,700 viewers have watched the episode since it was broadcast on March 15. The initial indications are that episode 2, which was streamed yesterday, is on course to reach an even larger audience. For example, there were far too many comments and questions submitted by viewers of the live stream to read them all out during the show. Perhaps that should have been predicted, given the nature of the topic we discussed. Cathal Mc Daid, Chief of Technology at Enea AdaptiveMobile Security, joined us for a conversation about the impact of the war in Ukraine on communications services in the region. Cathal has distinguished himself with his impartial articles about the work done to keep Ukrainian networks up and running in extremely dangerous and desperate times, and about the rapid deployment of rogue Russian networks in occupied regions.
Our revamped format saw us dedicating the first half of yesterday’s show to conversation about a range of topical matters. My fellow co-presenters, Ed Finegold and Lee Scargall, engaged in spirited debate about all of the following.
- The use of defamation law to challenge criticism of a telco that says carriers have refused to handle its traffic after it was falsely accused of profiting from illegal robocalls
- Western regulators relying on hearsay to determine who are the bad actors in the communications ecosystem because they are unwilling to spend even modest amounts on gathering hard evidence, in stark contrast to the approach taken by regulators in other countries
- If a fall in complaints indicates American consumers are receiving fewer illegal robocalls or if it just means consumers have grown tired of complaining to authorities that have failed to adequately respond
- The purchase of Huawei networking equipment by Deutsche Telekom and if Germany is failing to treat network security as a matter of national security
- Whether women or men spend more time on the phone
That may seem like an odd array of subjects to discuss during a single program. However, the greater the variety of risk subjects we cover, the more we see the connections between them. If you have not watched it already, then see those connections for yourself by enjoying the recording of episode 2 that is embedded below.