<script src="https://fast.wistia.com/player.js" async></script><script src="https://fast.wistia.com/embed/2iv9vmp4y1.js" async type="module"></script><style>wistia-player[media-id='2iv9vmp4y1']:not(:defined) { background: center / contain no-repeat url('https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/2iv9vmp4y1/swatch'); display: block; filter: blur(5px); padding-top:56.25%; }</style> <wistia-player media-id="2iv9vmp4y1" aspect="1.7777777777777777"><div class="wistia_preload_transcript_outer_wrapper" style="width: 100%; height: 100%; display:flex; justify-content:center; align-items: center; margin-top:-56.25%;"><div class="wistia_preload_transcript_inner_wrapper" style=" overflow: auto;"><p class="wistia_preload_transcript_text" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" style="text-align: justify; font-size: 5px !important;">So welcome back to the great indoors at Barcelona MWC twenty twenty six. Season twelve even continues. We're gonna get into a great discussion now. I'm joined by Andy Hopkins, who's the CTO of MBNX Link, and also mister Mark Prudeau from Amdocs. Yep. Thanks. Welcome. Welcome. Yeah. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. Now, we're gonna get into it. But before we do, let's do some introductions. So, you wanna join us first? And picture. My name is Andy Hopkins. Pleasure being the CTO for Amdocs' Like. We are a partner with Amdocs' help bring billing and transaction systems to life for MVNOs and MVNEs. Okay. It's excellent. And you're based in Boston. Right? Live in Boston. We're gonna get into that in a little while. And, Mark, maybe you wanna this is your first time in Yes. This is first time. Behind the wheel. Maybe you wanna give a quick introduction of yourself. Sure. Sure. So my name is Mark. I'm responsible for the business development of our SaaS based solutions in the US. That's ConnectX Mark Vaughan and East End. So it's great to be here. Cool. We'll edit that out in post. Don't worry. So let's get into it. So tell me a little bit about being excellent, Andy. What what's the the essence of the business? What makes it different? What's the differentiating factor? Sure. I'm actually we entered into the business to provide financing solutions into this space, but what we quickly found out was that the customer journey is so incredibly important to the success for anybody that participates in it. And so a collection of us got together and we pulled our collective experiences and said, we're gonna make a system that allows customers to have a pleasant journey in what seems like an easy thing, but as you get into the detail of it, it has hundreds of steps to be successful. And it's the steps in financing the venture. It's all the way through. Right? It's stuff. Know, whether you're a brand new customer walking in and signing up for service for the first time, going through that experience, or whether you're a customer that wants to upgrade or top up if you're in the prepaid space Yeah. Or switching between prepaid and postpaid. There's just so much complexity that people take for granted. And we're trying to make those journeys better. Okay. Cool. Cool. And how does Amdocs play a part in that in that journey with Valve? Well, it's actually quite an interesting story. So initially, I might hand you through another MVNO that we have on our platform, which is like, it's our mobile. Yes, sir. And what we've actually found was Yeah. I've heard of there was so much synergy because if we go on MVNO, you have the ConnectX technology, which is a SaaS multi tenant platform. Actually, if do it for yourself, you could do it for others. And that's where m v n x link came in. They realized that they could fill this space by bringing all of the capabilities that they needed, make them enabled for other providers, so the MDNOs, and that's kinda how we got together. So we became partners in that respect, which is great for us because they have connectivity to all three networks in the US. Yeah. Wow. And talk about the customization layer that you put on top, Amdocs. Talk a little about what that means and on what problem you were trying to address there. Sure. The challenge that everyone has, everybody wants to ruin everything. Reality is that's almost impossible for any organization. So our look at the industry is, Amdocs does a certain number of things outstanding. So again, to not try to change those things, we need to focus on where are the gaps or how do we take that experience and then take it to the end state. And so our focus has been on things like interconnectivity to other partners Thank you. Or focusing on gaps in the journey that Amdocs hasn't focused on yet. The other thing that that a lot of customers don't think about when they do it is, Amdocs comes with hundreds and hundreds of features. And when they launch, it's an overwhelming thing for many of the people to launch. So trying to simplify the system such that people can get buys, get revenue flowing, that's the key. And once they get revenue flowing, then they can start working on other parts of the solution. Okay. That's awesome. That's awesome. Now Hey, Dave. No conversation is complete Okay. These days in any walk of life without talking about AI. How's AI playing into your thinking and how you're operating on even the end proposition that that you're offering in? The truth. So it starts with the foundation. Right? Amdocs is committed to an AI form or platform. So we take that leverage that we can have. We built a universal bus completely out of AI, methodology, our development methodology, our testing methodology, our compliance. And that universal bus creates the tools that we need to do the interconnectivity. And then with those two foundations, we can then tack specific problems, whether it be an AI chatbot for customer service, or there'd be something in marketing Yeah. Or RCS, tech stakeholders. They're coming on the market. So it's really trying to build it in as a foundation block, but then apply it in ways that are actually usable today. I think that's the mistake a lot of people make with AI today. They wanna be AI, but they don't know what business case they're solving. Yes. That's it. And do you wanna add to that, Mark, in in in regards to the Amdocs portfolio and services? Yeah. Absolutely. I think Andy said the key word, which is foundation. One of the things that we realized, yes, you can have great experiences like, know, agentic agents are gonna handle things with customers. But what we felt initially we should focus on is that foundation, like, enabling our customers, like our MDNOs or MDNEs first. Like, for example, we've got an agentic agent that will actually create your tenant. It will spin up your MDNO. It will create the initial brand of your mobile app, initial brand of your your web self care. With, like, cookie cutter products, okay, you'd still have to put your branded products on there. But can you imagine that experience from the first sales conversation and they're an m v n e, so then they're the m v n o's. Yeah. You can actually provide them with a working flat platform. The only missing piece is the connectivity agreement, which they also have. So it complements it then to add it. Yeah. Awesome. Now and how long has this partnership been in existence, sort of, family? We're going on our second year. We're going on second year. It's great. I mean, there are so many new learnings. I tell them one of the things I look forward to every month is the new release package Yeah. That comes from Amdocs. It just opens up more more possibilities. Oh, that's cool. So I wanna say something that's okay. Right? Yeah. What we've done in connect with connect x, because like I say, what true SaaS is a it's a product. Right? We don't really have customizations. We roll out features every thirty days. So what we've done is we've created like a community where we invite our customers. I think we did a call last week, hundred and three people on a call. And they're giving us feedback, like, why is that feature work that way? Maybe you should improve this, that, and that. And we listen, and we roll that into the product. We really are customer and product led. We've even might end up getting through the talk. Now and where do you think that we would still look at the partnership a year from now? What would be your perfect, vista of that still there? Yeah. Think there's three fronts. Yeah. Mark and I have been spending a lot of time here at this show talking about the need to simplify launch to get Amdocs up quicker and for less of money. Right? Because those are two scarce commodities, time and money. So I think that's one focus. We'll continue to do that, to open up Amdocs to a broader range of customers. I think the second area is scaling. Right? With AI tools and all, we have the ability to scale almost infinite right now. And so it's trying to help people push through those barriers to be confident that they have the foundation block. Yeah. And then the third one is the robust feature set. I think what separates is is Amdoc continues to develop at the speed they're developing. The number and richness of those feature sets. Now we have to get the adoption to be able to absorb the Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's a global partnership. Right? That's correct. And, you know, the MVNO world has really taken off the last couple of years, and it's been something at this show. We've had various m b and o partners or or customers of ours come on, and we've talked about what makes them unique, the target market that they're after. Where do you see that market heading now? What are the big trends? Is it still firing on all cylinders? Where are you seeing, even geographically, a lot of the things happen? And maybe I'd tell a little bit about the story of Catal, and it's a good example of Of course. How it works. So Catal is a Spanish first MVNO. Their target market was in the south and most eastern side of the United States to provide solutions, especially people who had relatives abroad that they wanted to converse with. But what quickly happens there is then what about the other side? Now you have their relatives that wanna have a solution. Right. And actually, because of the Spanish connection, you start getting the foreign interests and all. Yeah. So with most Amdocs, they start with a very narrow niche, but their customers start to drag those edges out. Yeah. We wanna enable those edges so that they're not as painful to break through. If you wanna go international, that's not a hard thing. And we do that by connecting additional partners. That's already been sold. That's already been sold. Now oh, catch this. Here we are at MWC again. We're already into day two. What have you seen so far that has interest you or surprised you at how could that have an effect on on your business or business model? Yeah. So first, I first and foremost, AI is everything. Right? Everything here is AI based. And, you know, I think people need to strip off the layer of what they're gonna use AI for and not just buy it because it is a thing where everyone says I have to have it. Right? What's it actually solving for you? I think you're also gonna see the breakdown of the device that we carry with us and our life blending more. So whether it's content, we have a number of meetings to talk about content providers, robots, IOT devices mixing in with our life. If you look at the average household from the United States, to the average household in the United States, they probably have ten to fifteen connected devices. So it's no longer just about enabling that cell phone anywhere. It's a much broader application. No. I had the CMO of twelve twelve, John McQuire, on yesterday. They just launched their six g story yesterday. And I said, well, tell me the story. And it was very much in line with that as far as the manifestation of physical AI now. Six two was the first AI, native iteration of of, evolution. And therefore, what we discussed was there's gonna be even more, not just connected devices, which were promised by five g, but more connected AI infused devices, whether it's, to your point, robotics, which we've seen tons of. I think there's an AI hairdryer over there on on on a stand. But it was almost we came to the conclusion that, you know, MWC used to be about handsets. But then it was we came to the conclusion that it's gone full hardware could be coming back, you know, because of this next step. I know it was just something interesting I wanted to share with you. What what are your thoughts, Mark? Like Andy said, and you said yourself also, the time, AI is changing everything. So to me, it's about what you experience that breaks in. I could tell you a bit personally, you know, about myself. I do a lot of meditation. I try to kind of, like, balance my life. And one of the things that I've kind of discovered through that process is there is AI technology that actually, like, can help you with that. Imagine monitoring your brain wave Yeah. And being able to react to that. You imagine if you did that from a telco perspective Yeah. By listening to the customer, by being able to read, use AI their emotion. Yeah. Maybe it's not the right time to offer something, or maybe it's the right time to ask, are you okay? All these different cultural things that will, I think, allow us to tap into Yeah. Which are new use cases we haven't thought of yet. That's what excites me. Yeah. Where's the new use case and where it's gonna take us? And and to echo your point, what Don said to me, because he had his Ray Ban glasses. He said, so the next iteration of these glasses, they will automatically use AI adjust to my prescription. The video was sent. So it's Oh, wow. That's great. That's amazing. Right? So you don't even have to go to the optometrist anymore. You buy buy your AI glasses and it will adapt to to your eye condition. And then you see they're they're working on that right now. That's one of the use cases for us. Anyway, it's been it's been really great. Before we go, and I've really enjoyed you having you on the the the show, Andy and Mark, we we finished with our quick fire TGI to to go around. And this is just a nice way to end. It's a bit of fun, and it kept it so our listeners could get to know you a little bit better. So I'm gonna give you two choices. You give me your choice your preference, and then we'll we'll find out that's why that's the case. So TGI to go. Here we go. So question number one first, Andy. Cats or dogs? What would be dogs? Do you have a dog? Stimax. I've asked this question so far. We're only in day two ten times. Every single person has said dog, which is good. Mine's best friend. Yeah? So you're a you're a dog dad? I'm a dog person. I have both, and I still muck dog. Yeah. There you go. So we're the dogs are winning right this week quite clearly. Now you're going out for a drink tonight. We're in Barcelona. Would you choose Carver or Sangria? Carver. Yeah. Sangria without a doubt. Have you had any sangria? Yeah. Not so far, no. Maybe tonight. In the not in the last hour. You saw me at the bar. Right? So first question, bats them up. Cricket or fitness? Football. Absolutely. No no doubt. Soccer, I guess. Yeah. Soccer. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I know what your soccer team is. Have a guess. You? Sunderland. Oh, no. You can edit that out. Where's your come on. Where's your sound effects? No. I I don't think that question's fair to you because they're neither American sports. We were talking about the Boston sports team before, there's I'll say hockey or baseball. I have to go hockey. Yeah. Bruins. Bruins all the way. Yeah. And I told you the story before. My son plays in a house hockey league. His team is the Brewers, and that has bled through to his NHL following now. So he's a bit boon. It's above branding, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. But going back to connecting it now to the soccer, I'm a Liverpool supporter. And How is Isaac doing? I don't know. Well, he's doing alright, I think. But I think the the interesting connection here is you could see Liverpool as the Boston soccer team in the Premier League because of the Fenway Sports Group and John Henry. Alright. Should I tell you an interest to talk about Liverpool? Yeah. My name is Mark Prudeau. Right? Yeah. My cousin played for Liverpool as a goalkeeper. His name is Mark Prudeau. Oh, really? Yeah. It's my cousin. Yeah. What? What what happened is he? What in what year is he from? Oh, this was in the eighties, I think. I think he has the world record for the most transfers in one year. Oh, really? Police. Where did he end up then? I think Darlington at the end. Alright. You said we'll talk about that more, aren't you? That's pretty good. First question, one to Andy. Are you an Instagram guy or a TikTok guy? Insta. Yeah. Yeah. Instagram. Again, that's winning massively, this is. Maybe it's the demographic. But, yeah, it's definitely the demographic because my daughter tells me Instagram is just three month old TikTok. That's that's what's happening. Okay. And then the final one today before we close it out, we'll start with Mark. If you could go somewhere for a vacation right now and your choices were Iceland or Alaska, where would you choose? I'll go to Alaska. Have you been before? Never. I mean, one of my dreams to see the Northern Lights, so I I guess I could see in both places to go see. But Alaska. Alaska. You know why? Prudhoe Bay. Prudhoe Bay is in Alaska. I'd like to go see it. There you go. I'd pick Iceland. Just That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Country, not populist. I you know what? I haven't been to either of this. And I'm just looking at it now thinking that is that? But, yeah. I said, I think I'd go Iceland. Alright. I need I know not. I know me. Anyway, gentlemen, thank you for joining me today. I really enjoyed the conversation. We had a bit of fun there at the end, which is always nice, and a break from the hustle and bustle of the business that we have to go through. Before we close today, let's get some last remarks. Mark, anything you'd like to leave the listeners with before we shut it down for them? Yeah. I would just like to say, you know, one of the things which we wanted to do is to make our platform accessible. You know? So I'm inviting anyone listening if they wanna understand how we've adopted AI to help, like, personalize and enhance the experience for everybody in the ecosystem from the sales agent right down to the business implementer. Let's, let's meet. Let's have a conversation. The more you tell us, the more we can enhance the platform. And where can people find you? You what? Keep like in MWC? No. In the bar. No. You can find that online. Mark Yeah. Mark dot pro at amdocs dot com. And I just don't want people to get confused with the goalkeeper. I've been sending requests later. So mine is twofold. One, don't be afraid of change. Right? I think a lot of people are overwhelmed when they talk about something of the magnitude of of Amdocs' platforms. It's not as scary as people think. But the second thing is as as the world changes to this AI world, you have to remember not to leave behind all those great customers we established to have asked. Yeah. These shiny objects are quick to be adopted by new companies, but companies that are well established struggle more with compliance and risk and and how to blend the two together. So we have to really figure out how to bring these products to our existing great customers. Well said. Well said. So thank you both gentlemen. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week. I look forward to seeing you again maybe next year, and we can have a look at everything again and see what's changed. Absolutely. Thank you. I I know where Newcastle will be a year from now, so we don't need to replace that up again. And the charm is leaving. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Bye.</p></div></div></wistia-player>
