AurorA guests on RAG-TV

Timo appearing on RAGTV S2E1
Timo on RAGTV S2E1 with hosts Eric Priezkalns and Lee Scargall

On Wednesday, June 17, 2020 I had the honour of appearing on the opening episode of Season 2 of RAG-TV, the online streaming show of the Risk and Assurance Group. Their virtual conference in May was seen by over 2,000 telecom industry pros in over 93 countries ! Read more about that here and here.

RAG ia an association for telco professionals involved in all aspects of Revenue Assurance; fraud management, enterprise risk management, law enforcement liaison, credit risk, market assurance, capex analysis and security. Actually, association sounds too stuffy, a club is a better description. A club of like minded telecom fraud and risk managers wanting to get better and improve.

Commsrisk described the episode like this
“Telcos come in all shapes and sizes, from the hundreds of millions of customers served by an Indian mobile network like Jio, and the extensive multi-country operations and carrier function of a group like Vodafone, to telcos that serve tiny island nations and small, focused international carriers like AurorA International Telecom, based in Waterloo, Canada. They all need to work together in order to connect phone users whilst fighting the rouge elements that plague our industry.”

“AurorA’s Timo Vainionpää and LATRO Services’ Donald Reinhart were the guests for the first episode of the new season of RAG Television, giving me the opportunity to ask them about the factors that encourage bypass fraud and what can be done to identify and compete with gray routing. Watch the replay of the show below.”

Watch here !

2019 Canadian ISP Summit – Day 4

Day 4 ? But the conference only ran from Nov 4 to 6 ? How could there be a Day 4 ?

Well when you are self-employed like I am it takes a full day AFTER the conference just to try to get caught up. There is the large backlog in the email inbox, phone calls to return, meetings to attend.

There is the followup from all the social media posts. I made the commitment to blog each day of the Summit, and really appreciate that you readers took the time to follow along on my website and left great comments on my Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter feeds.

Finally, there is the followup from the pile of business cards that I came home with. I will connect with you all on LinkedIn and Twitter, and send you some details on AurorA and Amitel to remind you that when you need something “International”, contact me, “Your Friend in Telecom”.

Looking forward to next year’s Canadian ISP Summit, Nov 2 to 4, 2020, the 10th anniversary edition.

Clearcable Technology Summit 2019

Clearcable Technology Summit Poster

I was lucky enough to score an invite to Clearcable’s 14th Annual Technology Summit 2019 held at the fabulous WhiteOaks Conference Resort and Spa at Niagara-on-the-Lake on June27th.

Statues welcoming you to the lobby of White Oaks

Clearcable Networks is a specialized telecommunications technical consulting firm focused on the needs of Service Providers by developing of new business revenue streams, maintaining existing infrastructure and proposing new advancements in telecommunications sector globally.

The Summit is a chance for the experts at Clearcable to bring in customers and partners and deliver to them up-to-date information on topics of interest to telecom service providers.

The topics covered included overviews of our connected future, the promise of 5G, Challenges with IoT data and security and Next Get PON (Passive Optical Networking). And that was just before lunch ! The afternoon covered Metered learning, Distributed Architecture and Remote Phy, LoRaWan for IoT, Evolution of cable networks, Routing Security and the Connected Home.

The amount of information presented made for a very full day of learning. It was also a chance to network with high level people from across the country in different industries all dealing with providing telecom solutions. It was a pleasant change for me to meet people from outside of my usual circle of contacts, (as well as discuss basketball with some new friends from the USA).

So thank you to my friends at Clearcable for inviting me and I already look forward to next years Summit !

Spring is here !

Spring time, what a lovely time of the year.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the days are getting longer. The sunshine is warming up the ground and we are seeing the first signs of new growth, as the crocuses and tulips start to poke their way out of the ground.

The Easter holiday is done, Passover is almost complete and today marks the first working day of Q2. A quarter of the year is now done and in the books. Did you accomplish everything you wanted to this last quarter ? Meet your goals for revenue, for adding customers ? Or did those three months just pass by in a blur before you could even set your goals ?

Well, Amitel can help.

This Spring, Amitel would like to help you with growth. It is the natural time of year to be considering growing, and for a telecom business that means the top line; revenue. Amitel can help you look at your strategies and tactics, how to position your offerings against Big Telco and against Silicon Valley and their apps. Amitel can also advise on gaining new revenue sources internationally, from outside of Canada.

It can be as simple as a one-off brain-storming session. Or a longer term project commitment. Mentorship opportunities or perhaps a retainer for periodic telephone consulting. However you need assistance and counsel, Amitel can provide it in a customized manner.

Your Friend in Telecom is here for you. Call me.