I am joining competitive carriers in New Orleans for the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) annual convention, taking place September 14–16. It’s a great opportunity to catch up on the latest technologies, services, trends, and strategies to grow networks and businesses in this critical market.
However, before some of these carriers can invest in their networks, they may have to cut costs to free up capital or operating funds. It’s a hard decision. Cut too little, and the underlying issues aren’t addressed. Cut too much, and there’s a risk of impacting growth, customer experience, or long-term competitiveness.
Providing insight into cost cutting is another reason I will be at the convention, as I will be part of a panel session titled “What Would You Cut? Real Cost Decisions Carriers Are Facing Right Now.”
The panel will take place on Wednesday, September 16, at 11:00 AM and will be moderated by David Waite, Principal at Fifty Elm. My fellow panelists will include executives from Paul Feldmann at Carolina West Wireless, Josh Lonn at GCI Communication Corp., and Michael Ouellette at Netnumber.
I don’t want to reveal the entire discussion, but I can say that one of the budget items that is driving the need for cost-cutting is AI. So many competitive carriers I speak with feel pressure to increase their AI spend without thoroughly reviewing how it can impact the bottom line. Agentic AI is a good example of a technology that competitive carriers are entering with the right perspective, understanding that it requires a co-pilot and explainability to deliver business value in time saved or better decision-making that justifies tokens, training and processing investments.
A more boring but profitable use case is using AI to improve inventory tracking and the network lifecycle to reduce truck rolls and out-of-service events, and to facilitate intelligence in network operations. Not only can this pay off in right-sizing the inventory by turning excess equipment into cash, but it is also the first step in cleaning up databases that are the foundation for AI-based automation. And that’s where the AI investment really pays off.
If you will be at the CCA Annual Convention on Wednesday, September 16, it would be great if you could come to the cost-cutting panel in Celestin B and connect with us afterward. I will be there with some of my colleagues, and we can arrange a more in-depth discussion with you about how to make impactful AI investments.
I look forward to hearing about your challenges and sharing our experience helping competitive carriers overcome these hurdles. See you in New Orleans!
