The Cabling Podcast

IP security and access control focus with Alcatraz AI’s Tina D’Agostin

For this episode of The Cabling Podcast, senior editor Matt Vincent interviews Alcatraz AI CEO Tina D'Agostin to discuss the company's flagship "hardware as a service" platform incorporating its facial biometrics access control technology, the Rock.

The platform aims to transform building security by leveraging robust artificial intelligence and analytics capabilities. The company says the Rock enables building networks to make powerful decisions at "the edge," where an individual's face becomes the key security credential. During the podcast, the proprietary hardware technology is discussed by D'Agostin, previously an executive at Johnson Controls, in the context of the larger physical access control technology market for smart buildings.

In a recent article for CI&M's sibling publication, Smart Buildings Technology, D'Agostin noted:

"Almost all physical access control companies are now working to either create or integrate touchless authentication into their systems. Technology once seen as a 'nice-to-have' or complementary feature for a security system is now viewed as a 'must-have' in extraordinarily high demand. This is a technology that’s connected to everything from confirming access based on employment records, to serving as a way to permit or deny access based on vaccine requirements to enter a premise."

This discussion originally appeared in a recent edition of Endeavor Business Media's Smart Buildings Technology Podcast.

USGBC LEED expert talks ESG essentials for smart buildings

For this episode, we bring you a topically relevant recent interview from The Cabling Podcast's sibling in Endeavor Business Media, the Smart Buildings Technology Podcast. For the interview, senior editor Matt Vincent sits down with Tommy Linstroth, founder and CEO of Green Badger, a provider of a SaaS with comprehensive data analytics capabilities used to automate and easily report LEED compliance and ESG metrics for smart building construction and integration projects.

As stated in his biography page on the USGBC website: "Tommy Linstroth’s career has spanned the private, academic, and non-profit sectors in the Midwest, West and now East coast, where he is the Principal of Trident Sustainability Group – a triple bottom line consultancy firm and CEO of Green Badger [a provider of ESG LEED sustainability reporting software]."

"To date, Linstroth has personally been involved with over 60 projects achieving LEED certification, with another two dozen underway. These projects include the first building in the Southeast to be both LEED certified and in the National Register of Historic places, the first all-retail LEED shopping center in the nation, the first LEED McDonald’s restaurant, and Sustainable Fellwood, one of the largest green affordable housing developments – part of the LEED for ND pilot program and LEED for Homes program – in the nation."

"Green Badger is the direct output of his experience with LEED. Green Badger provides a mobile solution to LEED construction documentation and allows for easy management of construction waste, sustainable materials tracking, erosion and indoor air quality reporting, and managing low-VOC [volatile organic compounds] products – including a bar code scanner that gives real time VOC information."

The following re-posted interview seeks to pinpoint Linstroth' s perspective on a specific set of question related to matters of ESG, i.e. Environmental, Social and Governance, compliance. 

Questions included: For contractors and for property owners/managers, what does ESG really mean? How can gathering stats and data on ESG be used to inform change for different types of organizations? What are the most important ESG metrics, and how can they help propel positive outcomes? What is the value of tracking ESG metrics, in terms of asking probing questions that can lead companies to new processes, automations, use-cases, and efficiencies? And finally, what are your predictions for ESG developments in the smart buildings arena this year?

Peter Jones and Sam Johnson, Ethernet Alliance - Part 2

Earlier this month, Cabling Installation & Maintenance's Cabling Podcast sat down with Cisco's Peter Jones, Ethernet Alliance chair, and Intel's Sam Johnson, the consortium's High Speed Networking (HSN) subcommittee co-chair for a discussion of the latest industry trends and technology advancements emanating from the Ethernet Alliance (EA) -- of which there's been no shortage.

With all the high-speed fiber applications being developed, it's tempting to think that copper could eventually become a forgotten medium in the Ethernet landscape. From CI&M’s perspective, it looks like Power over Ethernet (PoE), and single pair applications might keep the market for copper cabling afloat for the near- to mid-term. CI&M chief editor and editorial director Patrick McLaughlin kicks off the questioning to ask if EA sees the case similarly.

Later in the podcast, the editors ask for a recap of the latest buzz heard within EA surrounding the expansion of Single Pair Ethernet for smart buildings and industrial sites. The discussion also takes time to go around the most recent iteration of EA's Ethernet technology roadmap, and inquires for a recap of in-progress Ethernet standards work for each segment.

On the High Speed Networking front, CI&M asks about major Ethernet cabling and connectivity upgrades that co-location, cloud, and hyperscale, as well as service provider data centers might be implementing this year, and probes for implications regarding deployed and imminent 800G and coherent terabit technologies for data center networks. Regarding HPC connectivity deployments, we find out during the course of the interview how perennial DAC and AOC technologies are co-existing, and much more.

Peter Jones and Sam Johnson, Ethernet Alliance - Part 1

Earlier this month, Cabling Installation & Maintenance's Cabling Podcast sat down with Cisco's Peter Jones, Ethernet Alliance chair, and Intel's Sam Johnson, the consortium's High Speed Networking (HSN) subcommittee co-chair for a discussion of the latest industry trends and technology advancements emanating from the Ethernet Alliance (EA) -- of which there's been no shortage.

Ethernet Chair since 2020, Peter Jones is a Distinguished Engineer in the Cisco Networking H/W team. As stated in his Ethernet Alliance biography, he works on system architecture and standards strategy across the company's networking hardware portfolio. While at Cisco, Jones has been a major contributor to the Catalyst switching product line, including the Catalyst 9000 series and the UADP ASIC family. He has been active in IEEE 802.3 for several years, mostly working on BASE-T projects. He was the initial chair of the Ethernet Alliance Single Pair Ethernet technical subcommittee. He was Chair of the NBASE-T Alliance from its inception until its merger with the Ethernet Alliance. His stated core focus is working on the evolution of technology to add value to physical infrastructure and make technology consumable.

EA HSN Subcommittee Co-Chair Sam Johnson is the manager of the Link Applications Engineering team within Intel’s Cloud Networking Group. As stated by his EA profile, Johnson started at Intel in 2010 with a focus on 10G Ethernet PHY debug and has built a career based on High Speed Serial Ethernet PHY and pluggable media behavior, configuration and interoperability. After working to architect and develop the infrastructure that controls the Ethernet hardware in Intel’s current generation of NCNG products and IP, he went on to build the LAE team to support the link and PHY layer in these same products. The team’s responsibilities now span the NCNG portfolio and range from multi-vendor interoperability testing to electrical conformance testing to delivering customized Ethernet solutions for customers. Johnson’s role is focused on defining new features and implementation details for link behavior in current and future NCNG products while supporting debug and interoperability testing.

2023 was always going to be a banner year for EA, given the association's concurrent 50th anniversary, but the recent announcement of a prestigious ACT Turing Award honoring Ethernet technology inventor Bob Metcalfe put a definite exclamation point on the celebration. Reflections upon Ethernet technology's many OFC 2023 event highlights, not least the Alliance's ground-breaking live interoperability demo, are contained in the podcast.

Gigawatt data center fiber with Quantum Loophole’s Josh Snowhorn

Josh Snowhorn is founder and CEO at Quantum Loophole, an operator of data center campuses in the gigawatt scale. A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Snowhorn's key founding and executive positions include time at Terremark, Verizon (NYSE: VZ), Cincinnati Bell, and CyrusOne (NASDAQ: CONE). Snowhorn founded the Global Peering Forum, the annual meeting for the Internet interconnection and peering community, where he serves on the board of directors. He also serves on the advisory board of Telescent, a maker of automated data center interconnection machines. 

 Last August, Cabling Installation & Maintenance (CI&M) reported on the ground breaking of the QLoop, the 43-mile hyperscale fiber ring connecting Quantum Loophole's 2,100+ acre Quantum Frederick data center development site in Maryland to the Ashburn, Virginia connectivity ecosystem. To kick off the interview, CI&M senior editor Matt Vincent asked Snowhorn for an update on construction of data center and fiber conduit infrastructure at the sites from the perspective of half a year gone by, in terms of deployment and installation progress. 

Snowhorn said that Quantum Loophole is building the largest medium haul fiber backbone that’s ever been created. The QLoop network ring network ring offers capacity for more than 200,000 strands of fiber connecting to the Ashburn ecosystem in under one half millisecond Round Trip Time (RTT). "And we are bolstering that with some pretty amazing cross-connect capabilities," he added. "Each property will have access to conduits and thousands of strands of fiber directly into the QLoop system to enable seamless, private and secure connectivity for all of our campus-wide customers.”  

Snowhorn continued, "We have completed our south Potomac river boring, which was over 3000 ft., and it goes 91 feet below the bedrock of the Potomac. That was a huge, 26-in. HDPE sleeve that was pulled through, and then 34 two-inch ducts inside of that. That's been completed and approved and vaults have been put in place. Terrestrial construction has started with multiple crews working laying in the 34 ducts, buried deeply to accommodate the most extreme security standards."

Later in the podcast, Snowhorn further explains that the QLoop fiber ring interconnects "literally hundreds of sites, hundreds of data centers, but we don't actually touch those other data centers once we get into Loudon County."

He continues, "We cross the Potomac, which is insanely hard to do: I now know why nobody tries to do it, because it's that hard. It's just been nothing but a struggle to get it done, but we're doing it. I don't think anybody's going to try and do it again for a long time. Machines blowing up, costs, the approvals -- going 9 stories below the bedrock of the Potomac is insane. The costs are through the roof -- I cannot think of a single thing that was easy about what we've done. We drop down [and] have over 500 vaults on the 43-mile ring, and those vaults are designed to create a massive intersection of splice points, so that people can tie into the system. We're a wholesaler to the wholesalers, so our goal was not to go build throughout the entire Ashburn corridor and interconnect every building and be another competitive carrier. We wanted to be a support mechanism to create an expansion of that ecosystem."

Read the full article about the podcast at Cabling Installation & Maintenance.

Broadband industry talk with Dell’Oro Group VP Jeff Heynen

Last month, CI&M's co-publication in Endeavor Business Media, Broadband Technology Report, sat down for a Zoom interview with Dell'Oro Group vice president Jeff Heynen, renowned market analyst for the broadband access and home networking industries. This episode of The Cabling Podcast delivers the audio from that talk, as we seek to give our audience of information and communications technology (ICT) vendors, contractors, and installers the benefit of Heynen's view into the current broadband access market, particularly in the areas of HFC and pure fiber-optic connectivity deployments. 

Heynen joined Dell'Oro Group in 2018, and is responsible for the technology market research firm's Broadband Access and Home Networking program. Prior to Dell’Oro Group, he spent over 12 years in broadband and video industry analysis, working with S&P Global Market Intelligence, Infonetics Research and IHS Markit as a research director focused on the broadband access and video segments. Heynen’s research and analysis have been cited in leading trade and business publications including the Wall Street Journal, SDxCentral, Multi-Channel News, New York Times, Light Reading, Los Angeles Times, Investor’s Business Daily, FierceWireless, and Barron’s. He has also appeared as a perennial invited speaker at numerous telecom industry conferences.

Our interview is based on information from Heynen's blog published by Dell'Oro this winter, where he forthrightly predicts that the broadband access and home networking market will remain resilient in 2023. As stated by Heynen in the blog: 

"For mature markets, is rare to see consecutive years of double-digit revenue growth. But that is indeed what has occurred, as 2021 revenue growth was 16% and 2022 growth over 2021 is currently expected to be around 12%, reaching just over $18 billion worldwide ... In 2023, albeit nowhere near the double-digit percentage growth we have seen over the last two years...at this point, it is safe to [forecast] 5-7% revenue growth ... Though slower, the revenue growth this year shows the continued emphasis on expanding and improving broadband network capacity by operators, as well as state and national governments."

To begin our interview, Heynen (00:46) is asked by senior editor Matt Vincent to recap his assessment of 2022 in the context of cable MSOs’ broadband initiatives. "There's been a clear focus on fiber investments," he says. "When you talk specifically about [traditional] cable operators, they too are making their own investments in fiber infrastructure, albeit quietly. We're seeing a very steady rise in the purchase of remote OLT modules to be placed in existing optical node locations to start peeling off fiber subscribers in competitive areas and in markets where it makes sense to begin offering fiber services, particularly in new build scenarios. "

Asked about expectations regarding what cable MSOs will do this year (02:42), Heynen adds, "They're going to start preparing their outside plants to support the DOCSIS 4.0 upgrade cycle. The DOCSIS 3.1 mid-split and high-split initiatives to allocate more upstream bandwidth to subscribers, that's certainly going to occupy most of their time this year. We also have smaller cable operators that are converting and cutting over to fiber, in addition to also doing mid-splits and high-splits where it makes sense."

In terms of what challenges cable MSOs and BSPs may face as they attempt to reach these goals (04:11), Heynen remarks, "I think for emerging fiber providers and those that are still in the midst of rolling out fiber, labor shortages are still going to be a challenge, as are supply chain issues."

Whereas his blog indicated that there’s a feeling among some on Wall Street that fiber technology is obviating traditional HFC (06:20), when asked what cable operators might do to shift such a perception, Heynen notes, "Just because a competitor comes in with a supposedly better technological option, doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to provide you with the same level of reliability that the cable operators have demonstrated for years, so that's something they're going to have to highlight. They're going to have to expand into home networking offerings, managed home Wi-Fi, really highlighting parental controls, cybersecurity -- all the things that are going to differentiate their service to you as a subscriber."

Next, we ask Heynen to address service provider Wi-Fi 6 technology dominance, and burgeoning 6E uptake vs. Wi-Fi 7 technology emergence (07:52). "We're just now starting to see the 6E gateways, specifically from cable operators, hit the market, and being made available to select subscribers as an option," he notes. "There's still a way to go. Wi-Fi 6 is now the dominant technology in terms of gateways and routers that are sold by service providers or leased by [them], as well as retail units purchased by consumers. 6E still has a bit of time to ramp; the challenge of course, is we just had CES a couple of weeks ago, and all the buzz was around Wi-Fi 7."

When asked for his fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband technology market predictions (10:24), Heynen remarks, "I think again this year is going to be a tale (at least in markets outside of China) of two technologies. GPON still is providing kind of the foundation for most FTTH deployments, but we're seeing an increasing deployment of XGS-PON for multi-gigabit services to subscribers, and that's the way things are going to look for the rest of the year. We'll probably get to the first half the year and GPON will still largely be the dominant CPE technology of choice. And then by the second half of the year, in some markets, particularly in North America, we'll likely see XGS-PON ONT's sort of take over."

Meanwhile, with a new Congress in place this year, and some members calling for increased oversight of broadband funding programs, when asked for perspective (11:35) on this issue, Heynen asserts, "I'm not sure that the changes in the makeup of the House are going to have an impact on the programs that are already out there. By nature, government programs are going to take a long time anyway [...] The delays that we've seen historically in these massive subsidization programs like CAF, CAF2, even going back to BIP and BITOP in the broadband stimulus days of '08 and '09 -- some of those funding mechanisms haven't even wrapped up yet. We're already starting to see some arguments around the BEAD program and whether unlicensed fixed wireless should be included or not. There's a lot of heavy lobbying on both sides by the Fiber Broadband Association and WISPA -- logically. "

Speculatively, the talk then turns (13:11) to how, if the goal of all such funding programs is to make broadband access ubiquitous, what might happen to the broadband market in the event this goal is achieved? Heynen is realistic in responding, "At least in the North American market, we're still many years away from actually achieving that goal of truly bridging the digital divide. And that's not just a question of availability, it's also going to be a question of affordability."

To wrap up the interview, we note how Heynen's blog states that subscriber growth slowing, which will bring ONT growth down to flat or single-digit growth. Given that growth will slow overall for the broadband market, we asked Heynen if he believes the industry will see reduced growth “across the board,” or if certain segments—such ONTs— might dip more than others? 

In his detailed response (15:04), Heynen begins, "There are a couple of answers to your question. The first is that new housing starts and movement, people from moving from one state to another, to different locations, that typically drives additional broadband subscriptions. At least through 2022, we've still seen that movement -- but the new housing starts, because of interest rate increases, have certainly slowed."

Allbridge CIO Matt Koch on ICT Connectivity, Proptech Convergence, Pt.2

For the latest episode of The Cabling Podcast, Cabling Installation & Maintenance sat down for a 2-part talk with Matt Koch, chief information officer for Allbridge, a provider of an integrated property technology, i.e. proptech, platform for smart buildings that integrates functions for design and planning, engineering, installation, and managed services and support. Building industry segments served by Allbridge’s proptech platform and services include hospitality, mixed-use, multifamily and senior living.

With a background as an ISP systems engineer and network admin designing and building guest internet solutions for hotels, Koch was also previously a system administrator for Geneva OnLine, a regional ISP specializing in wireless broadband internet access, and he worked as a system and network administrator consultant in the Silicon Valley for various companies, including Sun Microsystems and Uptilt. “I started my career climbing towers and running cable,” he notes, allowing CI&M to get the benefit of his perspective both as an ICT deployment executive, as well as someone who has worked in the installation field.

Part 2 of the interview (00:10) dives into a discussion of the most cutting-edge IoT trends for buildings, with consideration given to smart cabling and connectivity design. Koch alights on (00:54) the post-pandemic movement toward hybrid working spaces and scalable lighting and other smart building integration ideas driven by Power over Ethernet technology (01:30). CI&M senior editor Matt Vincent at this juncture takes the opportunity to obtain Koch's perspective on the status of Single-Pair Ethernet (SPE) technologies (2:32) in buildings emerging in co-existence, or perhaps competion, with retrofit solutions. 

Koch remarks:

"What has been interesting for us are some of the adaptations to switch SFPs with coax cable. Now there are switch SFPs that you can hook a standard, F- barrel connector onto, and if you have end to end connectivity, suddenly you've got Ethernet over, frankly a cabling plant that you've probably abandoned or are no longer worried about (you know, with the move to IPTV and so on). People are finding new ways to repurpose old coax in some cases."  

CI&M then inquires (03:39) about how, as applications advance and end-user expectations evolve, what some tips might be for planning scalable proptech deployments, the better to foster optimal future customer experiences. Koch says (04:06) the key is to vitally understand particular end-user requirements, while retaining "a wide view of the market," adding that Allbridge "has the advantage of being in many different markets," while noting that he expects deployments to senior living and senior active communities to be a gathering trend.

Talk then turns to smart building standards (05:27), and how a proptech integration firm such as Allbridge parses them (06:24). In his response, Koch observes:

"I think the key driver in smart buildings, certainly there are the bells and whistles, the livability. But when it comes to the things that will be implemented first, they will be generally around sustainability and energy management. Those sorts of applications will drive investor value. Owner-investors love the value of the asset that they have increasing when they deploy a smart building technology like energy-management thermostats, for instance. The USGBC put out a study last year, and the investment side was the number one trigger for smart buildings for investors and owners. But, I found it interesting, the number one trigger for architects and the engineers and integrators was that user experience, the customer demand and livability."

CI&M then (7:51) asks some particular questions about the proliferation of wireless technologies in smart buildings, about which Koch observes there's been "an interesting evolution." He adds, "It was a Wild West of wireless protocols 5 to 8 years ago, but now we're definitely seeing an uptick in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technologies." Due consideration (08:50) is then given to the ongoing viability of Wi-Fi solutions and the reasons for this. Koch also recounts the benefits (09:12) of  potential CBRS and private LTE implementations for building communications, on which he says Allbridge is "keeping a keen eye."

The interview winds up (10:15) with Koch's comments on what CI&M characterizes, from recent industry new observation, as the tendency for the commercial intelligent buildings and residential smart homes markets to intersect.

Allbridge CIO Matt Koch on ICT Connectivity, Proptech Convergence, Pt. 1

For the latest episode of The Cabling Podcast, Cabling Installation & Maintenance sat down for a 2-part talk with Matt Koch, chief information officer for Allbridge, a provider of an integrated property technology, i.e. proptech, platform for smart buildings that integrates functions for design and planning, engineering, installation, and managed services and support. Building industry segments served by Allbridge’s proptech platform and services include hospitality, mixed-use, multifamily and senior living.

With a background as an ISP systems engineer and network admin designing and building guest internet solutions for hotels, Koch was also previously a system administrator for Geneva OnLine, a regional ISP specializing in wireless broadband internet access, and worked as a system and network administrator consultant in Silicon Valley for various companies, including Sun Microsystems and Uptilt. “I started my career climbing towers and running cable,” he notes, allowing CI&M to get the benefit of his perspective both as an ICT deployment executive, as well as someone who has worked in the installation field.

In Part 1 of the interview, CI&M senior editor Matt Vincent starts by asking Koch (1:36) about 2023 prospects regarding what core connectivity elements Allbridge’s ICT system integrators and project managers are considering in terms of Ethernet, fiber-optic, wireless LAN and broadband networking options, and also power, in order to achieve a "full connectivity" smart property. Koch admits that while most of the growth in connectivity he’s seen lately has been in fiber-optics, it’s important for integrators and stakeholders to hold a “well-rounded” perspective, and that he’s feeling some hope for “still young” CBRS and private LTE wireless technologies in the field. 

The discussion then turns to the federal funding and service provider outlook (3:33) and considerations for deploying fiber broadband infrastructure in buildings. “For us, being an ISP is not a core focus,” says Koch. “We really are about integrating, supporting, planning the technology, so it's important that we are well-paired with those last-mile providers.” CI&M then inquires (4:36) about the depth and particulars of Allbridge’s process for converging IT and OT elements of building operation. “As a proptech provider, I like to say we focus on anything that takes power on-property,” says Koch. “And as these technologies become more interconnected, as the building becomes a ‘smart building’, the network at its core become a utility; we refer to it as the Fourth Utility. In terms of ‘when’ in the process, the earlier that we can be involved, the more helpful we can be,” Koch adds (5:22). 

The discussion moves onto the specifics (6:07) of Allbridge’s cabling and connectivity deployment practice. “We find it very important to be vertically integrated,” says Koch. “It helps in revisions and any designs in access point layout, camera placement – all those things are considered carefully.” Part 1 of the interview concludes by probing the topic of sustainability (7:25), in terms of benefits and challenges for building owners and designers.

Kam Patel, CommScope, Part 2: No data center slowdown; Data center fiber reach

In this 2-part episode of the Cabling Podcast, Cabling Installation & Maintenance senior editor Matt Vincent chats with Kam Patel, director of hyperscale and service provider data center solutions for CommScope. Patel has been with CommScope for more than 20 years in a variety of business development, engineering, marketing, operations, product management and strategy roles, and is the author of numerous articles, white papers, and presentations on the design of telecommunications and data networks. He holds more than 20 patents for network equipment.

Part 2 of the podcast kicks off with the following question for Patel from CI&M:

"The world is arriving at what we might call a post-pandemic reality. Every week we hear about technology companies that overstaffed and are now scaling back their workforces as they figure out what their right size is. And even though this is happening in places, we don’t get a sense that the flow of information—through entertainment, commerce, gaming, or business communication—is letting up. So while we hear about a big-tech slowdown, I’m betting there’s no slowing down within the data centers of large-scale tech providers. Is that a correct assessment?"

In response, Patel expands upon how A.I. is driving the expansion of data centers on several fronts, along with other factors that he said should keep the data center deployment market moving. 

CI&M also inquires if and how Industry 4.0 is expected to accelerate design cycles, and how the technology will be used to transform businesses.

Another question from CI&M posed to Patel in Part Two is as follows:

"People may not intuitively connect the United States’ rural broadband access initiatives to data centers. But CI&M believes data centers will play an essential role in rural connectivity over the next several years. Can you paint a picture for us of how data centers fit into the country’s ambitious plans to provide broadband to so many of its homes?" 

In response to this and other questions, Part Two concludes with a discussion about factors driving the need for increased fiber density in the data center, and what user types—hyperscales, telcos, or others—are most likely to need such high-density connections. 

Kam Patel, CommScope, Part 1: Industry 4.0 and AI frontiers; SPE, 5G edge discussion

In this 2-part episode of the Cabling Podcast, Cabling Installation & Maintenance senior editor Matt Vincent chats with Kam Patel, director of hyperscale and service provider data center solutions for CommScope. Patel has been with CommScope for more than 20 years in a variety of business development, engineering, marketing, operations, product management and strategy roles, and is the author of numerous articles, white papers, and presentations on the design of telecommunications and data networks. He holds more than 20 patents for network equipment.

Part 1 of the podcast begins by referencing Patel and CommScope's technology-inclusive vision for Industry 4.0 as laid out in a recent blog, where Patel writes: 

"Whereas the three preceding industry disruptions focused on making the production process faster and more efficient, the fourth Industrial Revolution is about connecting people, information and processes. As such, it has the potential to radically alter not just the business of manufacturing, but how enterprises of all kinds operate....Whereas the third Industrial Revolution was defined by widespread digitalization (the rise of computers, process logic controllers, etc.), the fourth Industrial Revolution is all about fusing digital, physical and virtual resources to create intelligent processes that think, do and respond faster and more accurately than humans alone can. The fourth Industrial Revolution is a way of describing the blurring of boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. It’s a fusion of advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, IoT, 3D printing, genetic engineering, quantum computing, and other technologies."

In the podcast, CI&M asks Patel to address how this thesis expands the outlook for ICT technicians on the ground integrating Industry 4.0 and A.I. systems technologies in plant manufacturing, and also now into commercial enterprises and smart building sites. In response, Patel emphasizes how, "With Industry 4.0, if we combine all the things that we're talking about such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, quantum computing, etc. -- it allows machines to be able to talk to machines." He continued, "Machines talking and A.I., all such things are highly latency dependent. Communications between machines and robotics are highly latency driven."

Later in Part One, Patel discusses what cloud computing does to "enable industry 4.0 in a more meaningful way," and addresses the apportioning of wired technologies such as Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) vs. wireless technolgies such as 5G in Industry 4.0 deployments. "5G has come around, and that's certainly a low latency application," notes Patel, while adding that, "One 5G application is for cell phones [and] it's not the best application. What 5G was really designed for was capacity and latency."