JL Valente

Wholesale isn’t the back office of telecom. It’s the engine of digital economies. Every fiber route we connect and every interconnection we enable strengthens not just networks but the economies and industries they power. From cross-border connectivity to cloud enablement, wholesale is where infrastructure turns into impact and where regional collaboration creates real value. As leaders, our role isn’t just to build. It’s to connect. To align. To make sure every step forward in telecom opens a door for the next generation of innovators, platforms, and economies. This is how we move from infrastructure to lasting outcomes ✌️ #TelecomLeadership #WholesaleStrategy #RegionalConnectivity #DigitalInfrastructure

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Sometimes you come across a solution that’s so good, you can’t stop talking about it - or in our case, you buy it. I’m thrilled to share that NNNCo (National Narrowband Network Co), an nxzen company, now owns PowerPilot, an AI-enabled network monitoring and visibility solution we’ve been working with for a while. We’ve seen first-hand how it helps Distribution Network Providers improve safety, reliability and performance in a really cost-effective way. PowerPilot joins the NNNCo Smart Energy portfolio so that we can take this proven technology to utilities around the world and scale its impact. After years in IoT, it’s still inspiring to see how far we’ve come, and how solutions like PowerPilot continue to show the power of LoRaWAN and its ability to solve real-world challenges. Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/gF_2uHAB

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🎙️ Part 2 We’re continuing our kickoff to 2026 with Part 2 of our special two-part series of Beyond the Network — hosted by Jeanne Duca, Chief Marketing Officer at BCN. In this episode, Jeanne sits down with Jake Jacoby, Founder & CEO of TELCLOUD, to dive deeper into one of the biggest shifts happening in our industry: the rapid shutdown of copper phone lines and what it means for the future of enterprise connectivity. In Part 1, we explored the impact of this transition. In Part 2, we look ahead. Jake shares his perspective on: 🔹 What businesses should be doing right now 🔹 Where connectivity technology is headed next 🔹 How leaders can stay ahead of industry disruption If you’re navigating POTS replacement, digital transformation, or long-term connectivity strategy, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss. 🎧 Listen to Part 2 below. #BeyondTheNetwork #PodcastLaunch #EnterpriseConnectivity #Telecom #TechnologyLeadership #DigitalTransformation #BCN #TELCLOUD #POTS #Partnerships

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📈 280% revenue growth. 53% more partners. In just 4 years. That’s what happens when you digitize how you participate in the connectivity ecosystem. As Brad Botts, VP of Carrier & Wholesale at Vyve, shared: "Vyve joined the Connectbase platform in 2021 to expand awareness of our network and grow our partner ecosystem. Since joining Connectbase, we have maximized our network exposure and increased our wholesale partnerships by 53%, growing from 100 partners in 2021 to 190 partners today. As a result, our Carrier & Wholesale revenue has grown by 280% since 2021, and we look forward to building even more successful partnerships in the future." That’s the power of BeFound in The Connected World combined with an amazing network, people and the desire to embed how your customers need. 🔑 4 Levers to Digitize & Grow 1️⃣ BeFound – make your network visible where the market is searching 2️⃣ BeConnected – build real-time bridges with buyers and partners #Linkbase 3️⃣ BeQuoting – turn visibility into actionable opportunities 4️⃣ BeOrderable – convert opportunities into revenue seamlessly without friction of missing data or unknown costs #nomorefallout ✅ 7 Best Practices to Maximize Success Data Quality – maintain clean, accurate data Automation – streamline quoting & ordering Catalog Maxmization – speak ecosystem across all capabilities Ecosystem Alignment – connect to demand where and how they need with purpose Buyer Diversity – engage carriers, MSPs, TSDs, VARs, SIs : practice Sell To, Sell Through and Sell With Response Optimization – architect for user experience like a CDN Continuous Participation – unify APIs, portals, and publishing to stay engaged 👉 The takeaway: wholesale and channel are not stuck in low single-digit growth in the Connected World. With the right digital mindset and platform, they can be a 3x, 5x, even 10x growth driver above market. Connectivity is the foundation of every digital transformation — and it’s more exciting than ever. It’s time to rethink how you participate. It’s time to challenge the old beliefs. It’s time to amplify your growth through the ecosystem. 📩 Reach out today — What’s the biggest untapped growth lever in your connectivity ecosystem, and do you want insight into that question, just ask, globally? #EcosystemLedGrowth #Connectivity #BeFound #WholesaleGrowth #ConnectedWorld

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The IBM/Confluent acquisition is a clear signal that real-time streaming is now foundational to enterprise AI. But it also raises a tough question: what happens when openness and independence become absorbed into a single vendor’s stack? If you're concerned about how this impacts you, I recommend this resource from Cloudera that explains the benefits of an independent, managed, containerized alternative: https://shorturl.at/LYcwD

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Too many LLMs in the room, not enough RAG!!    A colleague recently narrated a classic meeting moment:  The room was packed. Ideas flying everywhere. Wild theories. Bold visions. A few borderline sci-fi pitches.  All we needed. One grounded SME.   I couldn’t help but compare it to AI:  Everyone was acting like a Large Language Model—creative, verbose, occasionally hallucinating.  What we really needed was RAG.  Not the textile kind.  The Retrieval-Augmented Generation kind.  The one that quietly brings facts to the party and makes everything make sense.   Because in AI—and in meetings—what truly drives impact isn’t just the volume of ideas.  It’s the grounding:  🔍 Domain and industry knowledge  ���� Clear identification of the business problem  🧠 And the ability to connect the dots between data, context, and execution   Without that, even the smartest models (or minds) risk solving the wrong problem beautifully. #AI #ArtificalIntelligence #Leadership

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Breaking News: Vconic has launched — taking vCons from an idea into the real world 🚀 We talked about it with Thomas McCarthy-Howe, new CTO at #Vconic and long time vCon visionary. So what’s a #vCon? Think of it like a JPEG for conversations. 📁 A universal file that can hold everything from a customer call — the audio, transcript, participants, compliance details, even the context and sentiment. 🔒 Why does that matter? Because in 2025, #compliance and #AI are reshaping how enterprises, telcos, and service providers work. vCons give us the structured, portable data we need to prove compliance and unlock AI-driven insights. And just like #SIP defined the last 20 years of voice, vCons (as an IETF standard) could define the next 20 years of AI-powered communications! This isn’t happening in isolation. The vCon Foundation is building the ecosystem to make it a standard. And under the umbrella of the CPaaS Acceleration Alliance, we’re giving it the traction and community it needs to scale. That’s why at #CASA25 in Amsterdam (Sept 22–24), vCons take center stage: ✅ Vconic keynote from Thomas Howe ✅ Dedicated sessions on compliance and AI use cases ✅ Workshop for those who want to dive deeper ✅ The vCon Foundation as a proud Silver Sponsor Ecosystems turn standards into industries. That’s what’s starting right now. 👉 Full story and video here: https://lnkd.in/eatpW5Vr #CASA25 #CPaaS #AI #Compliance #NetworkAPIs #ProgrammableCommunications #Ecosystem #Innovation #vCons

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I’ve been experimenting with ways to bring AI into the everyday work of telco — not as an abstract idea, but as something our teams and customers can use. On a recent build, I created a live chat agent I put together in about 30 minutes using n8n, the open-source workflow automation tool. No code, no complex dev cycle — just practical integration. The result is an agent that handles real-time queries, pulls live data, and remembers context across conversations. We’ve already embedded it into our support ecosystem, and it’s cut tickets by almost 30% in early trials. Here’s how I approached it: Step 1: Environment I used n8n Cloud for simplicity (self-hosting via Docker or npm is also an option). Make sure you have API keys handy for a chat model — OpenAI’s GPT-4o-mini, Google Gemini, or even Grok if you want xAI flair. Step 2: Workflow In n8n, I created a new workflow. Think of it as a flowchart — each “node” is a building block. Step 3: Chat Trigger Added the Chat Trigger node to listen for incoming messages. At first, I kept it local for testing, but you can later expose it via webhook to deploy publicly. Step 4: AI Agent Connected the trigger to an AI Agent node. Here you can customise prompts — for example: “You are a helpful support agent for ViewQwest, specialising in broadband queries – always reply professionally and empathetically.” Step 5: Model Integration Attached a Chat Model node, plugged in API credentials, and tuned settings like temperature and max tokens. This is where the “human-like” responses start to come alive. Step 6: Memory Added a Window Buffer Memory node to keep track of context across 5–10 messages. Enough to remember a customer’s earlier question about plan upgrades, without driving up costs. Step 7: Tools Integrated extras like SerpAPI for live web searches, a calculator for bill estimates, and even CRM access (e.g., Postgres). The AI Agent decides when to use them depending on the query. Step 8: Deploy Tested with the built-in chat window (“What’s the best fiber plan for gaming?”). Debugged in the logs, then activated and shared the public URL. From there, embedding in a website, Slack, or WhatsApp is just another node away. The result is a responsive, contextual AI chat agent that scales effortlessly — and it didn’t take a dev team to get there. Tools like n8n are lowering the barrier to AI adoption, making it accessible for anyone willing to experiment. If you’re building in this space—what’s your go-to AI tool right now?

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