A new VX Fiber video series where people in fiber say what they actually think, and then have to defend it. First up: our CEO, Peo Lehto.
The fiber industry has no shortage of opinions. You hear them over coffee at Connected Britain, in the queue for the bar at Fiber Connect, in the five minutes after a panel ends and before the next one starts. They're sharp, a bit provocative, and usually far more interesting than anything said on stage.
Then they disappear. What reaches LinkedIn, the whitepapers and the conference slides is the polished version: careful, balanced, and agreed with by everyone in the room.
We want to capture the other version. So we started Hot Takes.
If you've spent any time on social media in the past couple of years, you've probably seen SubwayTakes. Comedian Kareem Rahma sits next to a guest on a New York subway car, holds out a microphone clipped to a MetroCard, and asks one question: "So, what's your take?" The guest delivers an opinion, defends it for a minute or two, and the host tells them whether he agrees 100% or disagrees 100%.
That's it. No set, no slides, no fifteen-minute intro. The format went from a low-budget experiment to an Emmy-nominated series, and it works because it's built around one thing: a person with a real opinion who's willing to stand behind it.
We loved it. And we kept thinking: our industry is full of people like that. They just never get asked the question.
But there is a catch. Every acquired network brings its own operational playbook. The PON vendor and the OSS itself may be different. The inventory systems, workflows, service definitions, field processes and support models will all be from different playbooks.
Unifying the operational processes under the common umbrella of the acquirer’s customer-facing brand or digital retail layer is a challenge. The operations playbook needs to be common.
And if the thesis of the acquisition was time to market and better use of capital, then operational integration cannot burn through that time and capital advantage.
Because the best thinking in fiber happens off the record. Most of what we learn at events doesn't come from the keynote. It comes from someone saying "honestly, I think most operators are doing this wrong" over a coffee. Hot Takes puts those conversations on camera.
Because agreement is boring, and it doesn't move anything forward. Fiber is going through real change: consolidation, open access, wholesale models, the push to make networks pay back on the investment. These are questions where smart people disagree. We'd rather put the disagreement in the open than pretend there's one right answer.
Because the industry is made of people, not press releases. Behind every network, platform and fund there are people with experience, frustrations and strong views. We want to show who they are, starting with our own team.
Because short and honest beats long and polished. Nobody needs another 45-minute webinar. A Hot Take is a few minutes long, says one thing clearly, and gives you something to react to.
The format is simple on purpose.
We'll start with people from inside VX Fiber, then open the series up to operators, investors, partners and anyone else in the industry with a take worth hearing.
Who better to go first than the person who signs off on the series? In the first episode, our CEO Peo Lehto sits down with Jerry O’Leary and shares something he brought home from Vienna. It’s a statement he admits is “a little bit bold”:
"Fiber operators really have to ask themselves the question: are they really the best ones selling the service that they provide on their network?"
Peo argues that take-up in many networks is far too slow. Operators can’t make money from their networks or fill them with users fast enough. He also sees very few of them using open access and wholesale aggressively to get there. Jerry pushes back: rollouts have been strong, penetration is rising, and operators are doing the best they can with what they have. Peo isn’t convinced. He points to what MVNOs did for mobile network owners and asks why fiber shouldn’t do the same.
Do you agree? Watch the episode and let us know.
This series only works if the takes keep coming. If you work in fiber and have an opinion you think the rest of the industry needs to hear, the kind you'd say at the bar but not on a panel, we want to hear it.
So, what's your take?