The new blueprint for building broadband networks

On this special episode of Connected Nation, we talk to leadership from the broadband program office at Cisco Systems. 

Learn about the new blueprint they're taking for building the networks that power your connectivity. Plus, we talk about AI, AI pods, and the company's broadband innovation centers. 

Recommended links:
Robin Olds' LinkedIn
Cisco webpage

Transcript

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Jessica Denson (00:08):

On this episode of Connected Nation, I talk to leadership from the broadband program office at Cisco Systems, learn about the new blueprint they're taking for building the networks that power your connectivity. Plus we talk about ai, AI pods, and the broadband innovation centers that the company is building. I'm Jessica Denson, and this is Connected Nation. 

I'm at the Broadband Nation expo taking place in Orlando, Florida, and I've been sitting in my booth talking to people as they walk by, and Heather Gate told me I had to meet and talk to Robin Olds, who's with Cisco Systems. He's a senior business development manager for the broadband program office. Did I get that all right?

Robin Olds (00:55):

That is right, Jessica. That is right.

Jessica Denson (00:57):

Oh, you have a nice, good, deep voice for, uh, a podcast. It's good. <laugh>. Thanks. Thank you. <laugh>. You're also another tall one. Oh,

Robin Olds (01:04):

Yeah.

Jessica Denson (01:05):

Uh, how tall are you?

Robin Olds (01:06):

I am six four, but I think I'm shrinking <laugh>, so Gravity is working its way on shortening me. So <laugh>,

Jessica Denson (01:11):

I think I'm getting, I'm getting smaller too because, or shorter or something, because I was five six when I got here, but I feel five, four now, <laugh>. Anyway, uh, let's get to the serious stuff. Sure. So, talk about what Cisco Systems does.

Robin Olds (01:23):

So we are a, a manufacturer of, uh, multiple products that a lot of people know. Everything from collaborations such as video conferencing, WebEx, uh, to security products, to, uh, I OT products, which is something we talked about on the panel today, a little bit about uhhuh, <affirmative>, uh, to even, um, networking. 

Uh, and, and really when you think about what we're doing from Cisco's perspective is really trying to bridge that digital divide and how do we address like AI and compute and making sure it's like doing quantum security around that. And so a lot of what I talk about to search providers is how do they architect their network and build that out.

Jessica Denson (01:59):

Yeah. So how do you do that <laugh>?

Robin Olds (02:01):

Well, it starts at the access layer,

(02:03):

Uhhuh, <affirmative>, you know, and goes all the way into the aggregation and into the core. I think what's interesting now is with the emergence of AI, is how you really have to look at latency and figure out how do you put that into a service writer's network that, or take it outta the service writer's network so that they can deliver the last mile, right? They're trying to bridge the digital divide and make sure everybody's connected in the us and then the challenge for them is the amount of their subscribers, their home users mm-hmm <affirmative>. 

That are actually using things like chatt, OpenAI, um, even deep seek, and the bandwidth of that consumes on their backbone. And we're trying to help them with the latency, whether it's doing network slicing or really pushing compute down to the edge, the edge cloud. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And we, we have a new framework or blueprint called Cisco Agile Services Networking, and it really helps a drive, um, or show them how they can build that out.

Jessica Denson (02:58):

And pe do people, I think, you know, the average person, we think of AI as just arrived, but for Cisco and other companies like yours, do you think this has been a long time coming?

Robin Olds (03:09):

Uh, you know, it's funny you say that. Uh, so in talking to service providers right now, they're seeing about 30% of their backbone being consumed by AI apps that I was mentioning before, like open AI

Jessica Denson (03:18):

And mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Robin Olds (03:18):

Uh, soa, and even deep seek. Uh, you know, two years ago we really didn't hear much about it. Mm-hmm

Jessica Denson (03:23):

<affirmative>.

Robin Olds (03:23):

Uh, we knew it was coming. Uh, and it's just really ramped up. And the service providers I talked to across the US that are customers of ours are telling us 30% of their backbone is being consumed by that. And additionally

Jessica Denson (03:34):

That's wild.

Robin Olds (03:35):

Yeah. Now the 30% are being consumed by security issues. So 60% of their backbone, you know, and this is like bandwidth is being consumed by things that they have little to no control over, potentially. Now there's things that we can do and, uh, that we can help them remedy some of their security issues. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And then really, as I mentioned, is get focused on the latency issue. And, you know, I think, um,

Jessica Denson (03:59):

Define that for someone. What do you mean when you say that?

Robin Olds (04:02):

The, the latency aspect of it or Uhhuh. <affirmative>. Okay. So a great example of that is there's a, a, a trend right now where you can take an image and upload it into chay, bt,

Jessica Denson (04:10):

Right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Like,

Robin Olds (04:11):

I wanna see myself as a cardboard action figure.

Jessica Denson (04:13):

<laugh>. Yeah. I've I've only done that once or twice. Yeah. Yeah. <laugh>

Robin Olds (04:17):

Or, or, or something else. Uhhuh, you wanna see something kind of funny about yourself and you load it up, but you notice it takes a long time. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so we have the internet today where it's immediate instant gratification, but with AI and degenerative AI aspect of it, it takes a long time to produce that image. 

And so how do we get that latency, that delay and, and help them deliver that faster, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so really that's some of the things that we're looking at. Um, there's a number of things, you know, and then how do you do deal with, uh, data efficacy and make sure that there's no sovereign issues with your own data from a corporate perspective.

Jessica Denson (04:53):

Mm-hmm

Robin Olds (04:53):

<affirmative>. So then we get into the security realm. I'm probably still talking in the weeds.

Jessica Denson (04:57):

No, no. It, it, it's interesting. I promise you we have people from all kinds of backgrounds that listen to this and, um, and we, we talk all things broadband and technology. So you're right at, you're right where we need to be. What, what's also, I think you, you haven't said specifically, you may have alluded to some, is the need for AI in business

Robin Olds (05:16):

Yeah.

Jessica Denson (05:16):

Outside business, not just me or you uploading that funny picture, but the need for businesses to be powered by ai. How does that draining the system?

Robin Olds (05:26):

So that's funny you bring that up, <laugh>. So that's kind of comes in the data, data sovereignty issue when you're dealing with things that's intellectual property, and you wanna be really careful about what you put out there on chat, GBT mm-hmm <affirmative>. 

Or even Deep Seek, which is a, you know, a Chinese paid software, uh, and make sure that, 'cause once it's out there, it's out there. And so, uh, a lot of companies we're talking to are building, potentially building their own, you know, chat boxes internally

Jessica Denson (05:53):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. It's like their own kind of AI agent.

Robin Olds (05:56):

We have our own. Yeah. We have our own. So, you know, if, uh, if you wanna look up something from a Cisco perspective or how to program something, uh, you can actually do it internally. And it's not actually going out there on like a chat GPT mm-hmm <affirmative>. Format. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, what's interesting though, if you wanted to program a, a Cisco N CS five 40, which is the service writer, uh, platform, it will actually tell you the everything on chat GPT that's out there publicly available, which is fine, and that's great. 

Uhhuh that's more of an education aspect of it. But, you know, internally, you wouldn't want things getting out about like, proprietary information around your products or solutions, or even maybe it's customer data,

Jessica Denson (06:35):

Right? Uhhuh,

Robin Olds (06:35):

<affirmative>, like what somebody's faced with. Think of healthcare and um, you know, HIPAA type, you know, issues with that. Or think of CCP and I with service providers, you know, they have to be really careful about their customer data that gets out there.

Jessica Denson (06:49):

So how do you combat the I or at least inform your customers or your, your clients about the ways to use AI safely, ethically, all the questions that are surrounding it. Some things that we haven't even answered yet. How do you really inform your clients the, the way to go? Like when there's a lot that we still don't know, right? Because there's a lot of things still emerging from that. Yeah.

Robin Olds (07:14):

Right. It, it's interesting, you know, again, it's moving fast. Yeah. It's working with our partner channel, you know, having our partners come in and talk to customers, whether you're a commercial account or a global enterprise account, or even a public sector account or service writer as having one of our partner customers, uh, partners come in and kind of consult with you, uh, and then bring us in as well. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. 

Um, you can certainly attend, uh, our Cisco Live, which is our biggest users conference that we have. Um, I also run, um, kind of a quasi, uh, podcast slash videocast. Oh,

Jessica Denson (07:50):

Really? Let's, what is that called? How do we see that?

Robin Olds (07:52):

Right. That's called the Big Tech Talk, the Broadband Innovation Center Tech Talk series. We're changing the name next year. Uhhuh <affirmative>. I'm doing this presentation tomorrow, uh, where we're, uh, going to beyond the fiber, and we're gonna talk about

Jessica Denson (08:02):

That. Oh, that's, that's, I like it.

Robin Olds (08:03):

And we're gonna talk to customers, bring customers in, actually tell their story around what they're facing from uhhuh, you know, their own problems mm-hmm <affirmative>. That they're encountering in their networks. So

Jessica Denson (08:12):

That's a great idea. Great idea. I'm a, I'm a fan of p podcasts. <laugh>. Yeah. No, I don't. If you want any tips, lemme know. Listen, I'm here for you.

Robin Olds (08:21):

I could have used them 'cause I had to go research the microphone and everything.

Jessica Denson (08:24):

You've got right here. It's a lot. The Zoom six is awesome. H six is awesome for in the field. That's great. I can tell you about that. But anyway, um, so talk about your role specifically as broadband program officer and podcast host. I'm

Robin Olds (08:38):

Teasing you about the podcast as a promotion.

Jessica Denson (08:40):

Yeah. But the, the, the role of your broadband program officer, what is it that you do and help your customers do?

Robin Olds (08:46):

Yeah, so our broadband program office does a number of things. One is our team gets with service providers and helps them understand the funding. So

Jessica Denson (08:52):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Robin Olds (08:53):

Um, most of the tier ones and large MSOs cable operators out there kind of understand what the funding programs are available to 'em. But when we get into the tier three and four, the smaller mom and pop telcos mm-hmm <affirmative>. They don't understand that. 

So then we educate them on some of the funding that's out there and available to 'em and say, Hey, look, have you considered USDA where you can act, uh, for we're helping you bridge that digital divide? Have you considered, um, uh, you know, back when the capital project funds were still around?

Jessica Denson (09:19):

Yeah.

Robin Olds (09:19):

They're kind of ending now. Um, but those were things that we'd go and talk to 'em about, Hey, make sure you're going after bridging the digital divide within these states.

Jessica Denson (09:27):

Mm-hmm

Robin Olds (09:27):

<affirmative>. Make sure you apply for bead. Right. Go after some of the bead bidding blocks that were out there.

Jessica Denson (09:31):

Mm-hmm

Robin Olds (09:31):

<affirmative>. Uh, and then really making sure that they understand some of the requirements around it. So every, I think you probably heard about, uh, Baba, Baba, depending on who's saying it. Yeah.

Jessica Denson (09:41):

<laugh>, uh,

Robin Olds (09:41):

That's the Build America, buy America, making sure the solutions that you're procuring are, uh, Baba compliant. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And we have that of course, as well too.

Jessica Denson (09:51):

So bead, obviously a lot of people, I think, had really hoped there would already be shovels in the ground and that we'd be moving forward. You know, it's not always perfect. Whatever. New administrations come in, things change. Uh, how are you advising people on bead right now? Are you just saying, let's wait, let's see what happens next and move forward, or,

Robin Olds (10:09):

Well, so, you know, on, I think the bead is set in motion. The good news is that today the NTIA has approved 18 states news.

Jessica Denson (10:15):

I saw that. Yeah. Big news, big, big days to my

Robin Olds (10:17):

State. I live

Jessica Denson (10:18):

In South Carolina

Robin Olds (10:19):

Yeah. In Gu <laugh>. And yeah, there are six, uh, territories in the US Uhhuh that are getting bead money. Um, you know, and so, um, that they, there was one that actually made it through the NIST approval. Um, and that is, that was Louisiana. So congratulations, Louisiana.

Jessica Denson (10:35):

Congratulations.

Robin Olds (10:36):

Yeah. And so they're the first ones out the gate. Um, so we'll see. The rest probably come in between now and second half of next year, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And while we love to see it move even faster, I think it's a good cadence right now. Um, there's gonna be a lot of shovels in the ground here soon.

Jessica Denson (10:51):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Robin Olds (10:52):

Louisiana obviously has their money.

Jessica Denson (10:54):

Yeah.

Robin Olds (10:54):

Right. So, um, you know, with those service providers that have won those blocks, auction blocks I guess you could call 'em, are getting ready to put in, you know, start digging. So

Jessica Denson (11:03):

Yeah. It's so exciting times. Yeah. It's very

Robin Olds (11:05):

Exciting time.

Jessica Denson (11:05):

I think it is an exciting time too. Finally, in 2026, we're gonna see some movement. I hope I'm hopeful. <laugh>. Yes. So we, it, it's good. So, Robin Olds, let's talk about you. Yeah, sure. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up, how you landed at Cisco and the role you have now.

Robin Olds (11:23):

Well, it's a, it's a long story, but, uh, that's

Jessica Denson (11:25):

Okay. I'm here

Robin Olds (11:26):

27 years in the industry. Uh, uh, I was a US Army veteran,

Jessica Denson (11:31):

Um, and Oh, thanks for your service. My CEO would kill me if I did not say that. He's, he's a big supporter of the military as we all are at Connected Nation, so thank you.

Robin Olds (11:39):

Thank you.

Jessica Denson (11:39):

And how long were you in the Army?

Robin Olds (11:40):

Uh, I did four years active, foreign and active. Uh, and I had a, a blast, um, at the time. It's funny, weird to say that, but, uh, really it was a great experience, uh, and really helping me develop as a, as a person, you

Jessica Denson (11:52):

Know? Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Robin Olds (11:53):

Uh, and then I, I, when I got outta that, I went into as a network engineer, and then I went from there to into sales and worked at Bell South, uh, before we became at t

Jessica Denson (12:02):

Dude. Now some of the skills you learned in the army were tho did those apply?

Robin Olds (12:06):

Uh, not really. What really came down to, if I flash back to <laugh>, probably my, uh, being 10 years old, my, uh, my mom and my dad bought me a Texas Instruments, TI four a

Jessica Denson (12:16):

Computer. Oh, very fancy. Yeah. Yeah.

Robin Olds (12:19):

Very old school if you wanted to play a video game. Yeah. I actually had to program it.

Jessica Denson (12:23):

Oh,

Robin Olds (12:23):

Cool. Uh, something a lot I wish my son would learn how to do instead of instant gratification of, you know, just downloading a game, Uhhuh. Uh, so, uh, and you know, and if the power turned off, you had to reprogram everything. There was no way to save

Jessica Denson (12:35):

Oh, really? At the time until the

Robin Olds (12:37):

Canal cassette tapes, Uhhuh, then of course cd, uh, or

Jessica Denson (12:40):

If they're anybody younger than 30, no one knows what we're talking about at this point. Exactly. We're like, what's a T nine nine? What's a cd? <laugh>

Robin Olds (12:48):

Actually fired it up not too long ago. It

Jessica Denson (12:50):

Still works. Oh, really? You still have it? Yeah,

Robin Olds (12:52):

Of course.

Jessica Denson (12:52):

That's awesome.

Robin Olds (12:53):

Yeah. But, um, you know, it's, uh, that really I think, opened me up into understanding, like, I really loved it and getting into it.

Jessica Denson (13:01):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Robin Olds (13:01):

Um, I love to mentor people and help 'em understand the technology. Like I said, I've been in the industry long enough and around the block I've been with some of my own company's competitors, uh, really learning their technologies. And then how do we help service riders? I love the service rider space. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. That's, I think the, it all starts with service riders. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. 

I mean, you would think, you know, uh, public, uh, safety, uh, would be the number one place for, you know, like that's the most important customer, um, or healthcare like with hospitals. But, um, when you realize service providers actually provide the technology to all of those, like if the service fighter,

Jessica Denson (13:38):

Then your impact is,

Robin Olds (13:40):

It's massive. Yeah. It's a massive impact. That's exactly right. And so I think over here we're really, um, preparing the enterprise, the public sector, um, and the smaller like banks and financial manufacturers for what the next step is in the future.

Jessica Denson (13:56):

So Cisco, does it have a global footprint or is it national only?

Robin Olds (14:00):

It's global.

Jessica Denson (14:00):

Uhhuh <affirmative>.

Robin Olds (14:01):

Um, what I do is, uh, national, it's US National uhhuh, <affirmative>. Um, there are other funding programs, um, ins outside of, uh, you know, A PJ and AMEA that we cover as well. But I fo tend to focus just on the US 'cause it covers

Jessica Denson (14:14):

Model. And where are you based out of?

Robin Olds (14:15):

I'm based South, South Carolina. So

Jessica Denson (14:17):

Charlotte,

Robin Olds (14:18):

Uh, Columbia, all places out. No, you're close. That's, uh,

Jessica Denson (14:22):

I'm gonna guess your city

Robin Olds (14:24):

<laugh>. It's like, we call that the capital of the Carolinas

Jessica Denson (14:26):

Uhhuh

Robin Olds (14:27):

Charlotte. But, uh, I do go to Raleigh quite a bit 'cause we have a broadband innovation center there that I help run with. Um, one of my counterparts.

Jessica Denson (14:34):

Oh, what is Broadband Innovation Center?

Robin Olds (14:35):

So it's where customer service fires can come in and see firsthand the technology. Cisco has

Jessica Denson (14:39):

Office. Oh, what a fantastic idea. Yeah. Yeah. So they actually get hands on. They don't have to wait for a conference necessarily. That's correct. Yeah.

Robin Olds (14:45):

And I'm super excited because we just launched our first AI pod in there and it's up and operational and we're adding what's called Unified Edge, which is a new product from Cisco. But it's, it's very interesting. It's a three ru without getting in the weeds, Uhhuh <affirmative>, a three RU platform, uh, that has compute, uh, storage, DPU, it's and uh, GPU. 

And it doesn't matter if it's Nvidia, Intel or a MD or if the storage is pure <laugh> or Nutanix. We're agnostic. Uh, and where I see that fitting is, like in this, when we talk about the metro edge, I was mentioning earlier,

Jessica Denson (15:20):

Uhhuh, <affirmative>,

Robin Olds (15:20):

This really remote side of the edge of the network, so you can get into the cloud, networking on the edge,

Jessica Denson (15:26):

Uhhuh, <affirmative>,

Robin Olds (15:26):

Um, and that can be something that helps with that latency issue we're talking about from an AI perspective. So we're actually getting ready to put two of those in our BroadB innovation center, uh, and be able to demo that to cus service riders. That's

Jessica Denson (15:37):

Cool. Yeah. So your service providers, do they range from small to the massive ones? Oh, is it all over the, the

Robin Olds (15:44):

All it's, yeah. So it's tier ones, the tier fours, and then, uh, you know, and I, you know, listen, I'll talk to, you know, the very small ones that have less than a thousand subscribers mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, you know, that are trying to figure out what to do. 

Um, we're really trying to help surge fighters out, you know, from that perspective, or municipalities or tribal nations mm-hmm <affirmative>. Because that's important. Having them understand the technology that's available to 'em and have 'em come up through our innovation center as well.

Jessica Denson (16:11):

Is there anything that you're excited about coming up in the next year, five years looking ahead?

Robin Olds (16:16):

I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, well a number of things, right? It's, it's seeing broadband really develop and get and bridge that digital divide. Um, your counterpart, Heather said it best, <laugh>, we have a new digital divide that's getting ready to, uh, start off. And that's really that latency I talk about mm-hmm <affirmative>. From an AI perspective.

And I think that's the most interesting thing from an AI perspective and from a service provider perspective, is how do we reduce the latency down across these broadband networks?

Jessica Denson (16:43):

Yeah. That's the big thing. I wonder what, and it's hard to think when you think about ai, what AI could come up with, with the next emerging technology. Not just, you know, we're no longer limited. 

We're, we've got these companion <laugh>, right? These artificial intelligence companions. Uh, anything that you would really want people to take away about Cisco and what you guys do with the broadband program?

Robin Olds (17:06):

Yeah. So if anybody's interested, they could go to cisco.com/go/broadband.

Jessica Denson (17:11):

I'll include a link and a description of this podcast and

Robin Olds (17:13):

You can go there and you can learn about our broadband technologies. Ais in there, uh, Cisco Agile Services Network, everything I've kind of talked about, mentioned are in there. Uh, and then the other thing just to take away from, uh, even for service providers or people that are out there just listening to your podcasts, you can go to our, uh, net CAD site where you can actually learn our technology or just let's say, you know, responsible use with the internet, right? 

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Like, we do a lot of free training where, uh, we don't see a lot of people doing that. And, you know, when you think about all these new, uh, users coming onto the new economy, like right now, we're providing

Jessica Denson (17:49):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Robin Olds (17:49):

Uh, the digital literacy to them, and we're providing them the ability to have more economic impact in the us uh, from an education, from a work perspective. They, you know, they might need that training, right? 

They might need that. How do I, you know, responsible use internet, how do I not click on the link that might be a phishing attack, you know? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Uh, things of that nature. So that training's out there on our Net Academy site, uh,

Jessica Denson (18:10):

Free. Oh, I'll put a link as well for that. Yeah. And to your podcast.

Robin Olds (18:14):

Yeah, that'd be great.

Jessica Denson (18:14):

I'll cross promote <laugh>. Yes. I appreciate that. And we'll do the same. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Robin Olds with Cisco Systems. You are the Senior Biz Development Manager for the broadband program office. I got it all in. You got

Robin Olds (18:26):

It.

Jessica Denson (18:26):

Thanks Jessica. Thank you. We'll continue our coverage from the Broadband Nation Expo on future episodes of Connected Nation. Until then, I'm Jessica Denson, and this is Connected Nation.