Real-time meets real world: Use case discussions — Data-Driven Telco Summit 2026, Panel Discussion 3 video

The Data-Driven Telco Summit 2026, Panel Discussion 3 
— Real-time meets real world: Use case discussions

• Moderator: Matt Leary, TelcoTitans.
• Panelists: Eduardo Ázara (ARQIA), Bob Dietrich (Wavelo), Sandro Tavares (Dell).

Panel overview

ARQIA: An MVNO built entirely on other people’s networks

Eduardo Ázara introduced ARQIA as a full Brazilian MVNO carrying around four million IoT and M2M customers without owning any radio access network [00:02:06]. To navigate Brazil’s strict roaming rules, ARQIA uses a “profile donation” model — provisioning its own network access onto standard SIM cards rather than roaming in the traditional sense [00:03:02]. Founded in 1996 as a VoIP business, ARQIA moved into IoT/M2M in 2013 and was acquired by Wireless Logic in 2025 — bringing it into a group with close to 20 million IoT SIMs.

Ázara also demonstrated “Kiran”, a low-code IoT dashboard platform (shown live using ARQIA’s own office sensors) that can plug into any environment — hotels, cars, shopping centres, parking — with anonymised data made available for monetisation or AI-driven querying [00:05:01].

Wavelo’s drone fleet Catalyst

Bob Dietrich described a live TM Forum Catalyst project on “IoMT — the internet of moving things”: managing large fleets of security drones around international ports, with a sustainability angle around drone energy use [00:07:59]. The project has scaled through three phases — from a handful of drones to thousands — with Wavelo’s EDA layer handling service orders, 5G network slice orchestration for HD video, usage-based monetisation, and drone-failure assurance [00:09:56].

Dell’s traffic lights in Bellevue

Sandro Tavares described Dell’s Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab, where more than 80 companies — including Wavelo, Nokia and Ericsson — have been certified [00:12:09]. The standout example: working with AT&T and Chasm Labs in Bellevue, Washington, to process terabytes of daily traffic-camera data in real time, feeding an AI application that adjusts signal timing to prevent pedestrian accidents [00:13:32].

“Secrets of success”

Asked what actually accelerates these projects, the panel converged on a shared discipline: Dietrich on designing each data stream around what each specific consumer needs, so they “didn’t have to do the work” themselves [00:20:48]; Tavares on relentless pragmatism — “we’re not really in the business of running science fairs” [00:21:55]; Ázara on keeping scope simple and actually using the data collected, rather than just storing it “for someday” [00:23:32]. Ázara also cited a period of severe flooding in Brazil where sensor and cellular location data directly supported rescue efforts [00:18:00].

From the floor

TelcoTitans’ Alex Birkhead asked Dietrich whether the inventory and orchestration layer built for the drone Catalyst was a standard construct or something Wavelo-specific. Dietrich’s answer: Wavelo layers an orchestration and control level on top of the EDA and ontology to guarantee delivery across the event stream — not just publish-and-hope, but tracked, dashboarded delivery [00:27:14].