Welcome, welcome. We're really excited about today. This is JSA TV and JSA podcast, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Jamie Spada-Kataya and on behalf of my team here at JSA, welcome to our very first JSA virtual roundtable of 2020. It's part of our monthly broadcast. We've been honored to host for several years now, but new for 2020, we are providing the very first 100 registrants with lunch on JSA. And so I'm hoping you guys have received your lunch and you're enjoying it right now. And we're excited to say folks are hungry in our industry. We have nearly 200 registrants tuning in live today. So thanks everyone again for joining. This is exciting. And in true roundtable style, we want to hear from you. We want you to weigh in, have any questions for our panelists. Go ahead and type the question in our chat box. And if we have time at the end, we'll definitely take a question or two. So thanks in advance. And also if you have a speaker suggestion for next time, or to check out our upcoming monthly topics and speakers or to register and score some lunch for next time, please check out our brand new website JSA.net. Let's get started to the topic and hopefully one of our most popular ones is David Center, technology forecast for 2020. And like every January we bring in our predictions King, you haven't checked out his December post on his predictions for the industry. Totally recommend it but of course I'm talking about our all star, Rob Cowell, he's come back to be our guest editor and chief founder and we all know him. We all know him. Our industry loves his top blog. We read it all the time here at JSA for sure. So anyway, Rob, I know we have an all star lineup here from three absolutely innovative companies. The floor is yours, my friends. Thank you, Jamie. Welcome to everyone and thank you Jamie for hosting this ongoing series of roundtables. I always enjoy the chance to moderate one when I can is probably need more than one each year. We are now a few weeks into 2020. There's another 11 months to go. And today's roundtable will explore the trends ahead for the data center all common technology sectors. And with us today we have three distinguished speakers, and I'm going to have them each of them introduce themselves here. Let's start with Frank, Frank McDermott of Karma. Would you introduce yourself please. Hi, I'm Frank McDermott, CEO of and co-founder of Karma. We build a SAS inventory platform that we deliver over Microsoft's cloud of the same name also Karma. And we build all of the outside clean and site biological services so that you can have the entire picture whether it's data center, fiber or say even wireless towers built into one single source of truth. And we have Anish Patel of TBI, Anish. Hi everyone, Anish Patel and VP of emerging technologies. I'm relatively new to TBI about three months but of my background my heritage is kind of in the sales engineering world as a leader architect or an engineer. My role, I have a key role at TBI, and that is to help our, you know, TBI as a master agents to help our 3000 or so agents and partners drive technology solutions to their end customers all the way from telecom to hosting Kolo DR, etc. And so I have an engineering team that really takes a an agnostic approach when when talking to customers. You know, we have a portfolio of 140 different vendors ranging from all the well known telecom providers to security companies, data center companies, managed service providers, etc. And Raul Marcinek of Data Bank. Tell us by yourself. Sure. Good afternoon everyone. I'm Raul Marcinek. I'm the CEO of Data Bank. Data Bank is a US based data center and managed services operator. We own and operate 20 data centers in nine US markets. Our customer base spans from enterprises to network operators to kind of leading cloud and content companies. And we're also part of the digital bridge group of portfolio companies, which includes cell towers, fiber companies, small cell companies and other data center businesses. Thanks. All right, let's just dive right in here and start off with what we're supposed to be talking about right. What what new technology will have the biggest impact you think in 2020 how and where will its effects manifest. Let's start with Frank. Um, you know, I like to weigh in on the technologies that tend to fly under the radar those very infrastructural, you know, change technologies that change how we work and how we operate. And, you know, one of those that I think that's really going to jump out and change the way not just our industry, but everybody in the US and beyond operates is going to be these multi chat platforms that drive video. Just like we're on right now, you know, I think the novelty is ultimately starting to wear off. You've seen Slack. So, I'll hit chats at the platform because Slack beat them out, but then Microsoft teams came in.  And I know with our clients right now, we actually directly interface with most of our clients directly over teams. That's killing email. That's a huge productivity killer. That's the foundation of Slack. If you see, look at that on their webpage. And that in turn is going to drive all sorts of connectivity requirements on, you know, the backhaul fiber connectivity fiber to the home fiber to the business. And it also drives continued densification of for the hyperscalers where all of these cloud resources result. So, you know, I think the big thing that's going to drive there is now video video chat is not going to be a novelty. It's going to be daily requirement a daily way that we do business culturally. It does seem to be cropping up more and more for me as well. Yeah, I'm going to approach it from a little different angle. I mean, when I'm speaking to customers and partners, you know, cybersecurity is kind of top of mind, right? Everyone is concerned about all the threats and sophistication of those threats are out there. A lot of customers really don't understand from SMB to mid enterprise, surprisingly, even some of the enterprise customers don't understand fully what their risk posture is. Yes, they may have done some risk assessments in the past and they may have some controls in place to mitigate some security attacks but I'll tell you, in terms of the biggest impact as far as new technology is AI in my mind because the bad guys are getting better and better, as far as the level of sophistication of attacks, because they're using AI, right? So yes, you could put a block and you could put a rule in there to, you know, identify a signature, but then they're going to morph that into something else, right? So that AI is going to be prevalent and, you know, not only with men's services providers but, you know, unethical hackers, if you will. Right. Sure. So in our case, you know, obviously as a data center operator, you know, we have a wide range of customers, like I mentioned, and ultimately, you know, they're kind of mission critical applications and data live in our data centers. And one of the things I always look for is, you know, what are going to be the, as I call them, the net new workloads, right? What is going to happen in a data center that isn't happening there today, right? A lot of what happens in the data center today is kind of the, you know, the business applications and social applications that you're kind of familiar with, but, you know, what is something new that we see showing up in our data centers and customers consuming? And for us, what we've started to see over the last call at 18 months is kind of the emergence more kind of installations of high performance computing clusters or platforms, right? So ultimately, a little bit of what the other side of what Anish said, it's like, you know, to leverage machine learning or artificial intelligence, you need to have these, you know, very sophisticated platforms. The leader in that space today is NVIDIA, which a lot of people know about as a graphics company, but they're really leading the charge in terms of machine learning. And these platforms then allow customers to actually do data analytics to get kind of those insights that are new, right? I mean, we've heard the adage that, you know, data is the new gold. It's only gold if you can kind of mine insight out of it. So one of the things that I think you're going to see in 2020 is just more and more adoption of HPC and machine learning. And there's a company that I think everyone's going to hear about in 2020 called GraphCorp. It's a well backed UK based company and they've developed a chip that is optimized for AI as opposed to NVIDIA that their chip was optimized for video rendering, then they kind of refactored it to be more about AI. So they're going to be launching in the US in 2020. And we think that's going to draw the adoption of more of these HPC clusters and more of this kind of next phase of the internet in terms of it being much more data driven. Interesting.  I haven't heard of that. Yeah, that's a nice wide range of new technologies to look forward for the year. Let's dive into a little more depth. On what front is our cloud based technologies advancing on the most at the moment? Where are people putting their resources and what do they hope to get out of it? Frank? I think the cloud technologies that I'm seeing are all being driven by the interconnection to get to those. Since we focus on arm focuses in that later one through three piece, we're seeing that the ability to rapidly drive interconnects. First, you have to do that as a glare. That's where we focus. And that's where a lot of that data is challenging. And it seems like we've reached a tipping point in the industry. Everybody's acknowledging that as an out piece of operational friction that they need to deal with. So that once you have that physical interconnection in place, then you can start orchestrating and automating after that. That's what drives direct connects, express routes, any flavor of cloud connection. And that connection is required in order for you to make use of those cloud services. So once again, I go back to those foundational layers of the infrastructure. And that's where I'm seeing a lot of attention being paid at the kind of on the download. Interesting. Yeah, I see a large movement in the voice space for businesses that are trying to move away from legacy traditional phone systems, pbx is to a cloud based, you know, you see time environment and I could tell you from a TBI standpoint, UCAS is extremely hot. We've probably seen a three, four or five X fold increase just last year alone on just, you know, unified communications as a service and we're talking about collaboration rich collaboration features, you know, messaging video texting, etc. Conferencing, etc. You know, and there's valid reasons why, you know, customers of all shapes and sizes are doing it kind of started in the SMB space as a cost effective way to, you know, provide, provide and deliver voice services and messaging and collaboration features. A lot of enterprises were seen adopted quite heavily and they're layering in like a contact center as a service as well to drive that customer experience so that is a huge, huge area that we see in 2020 for sure we're going to continue seeing a lot of growth. There's the market is definitely flooded with, I'd say tons and tons of vendors out there. I mean there's you got the ring centrals and eight by eights of the world and bondages but, you know, there's 30 to 40 different vendors out there that are just offering a, you know, a UCAS type solution. And I think the key is, but you got to find a vendor that not only has a UCAS solution you got to think about the context center side as well and the CPAS side as well. Yeah, I mean it's seeing people like this is my phone right here. Everybody's going to the soft phone route, especially because we actually office out of coworking space. You rarely see an actual physical like, you know, old desk phone on right anyways, I totally agree with the nation. What direction are you seeing technology events? Yeah, so from our perspective, you know, two in two areas, you know, one obviously, you know, the cloud is software, right? And ultimately, you know, I think there's a lot of interest, a lot of movement towards going towards more of these kind of as they call them serverless architectures, you know, things like containers, Docker and, and kind of Kubernetes. So ultimately, you know, people are looking to be able to kind of scale their application with the infrastructure being abstracted from the application so that way it's more resilient. It's, it's more scalable.   I actually met yesterday in one of our markets with a, you know, a major pharmaceutical company and they have a, you know, a chief data officer whose job is really to figure out how to kind of take all these silos of data and be able to, you know, make them accessible with analytics tools that will allow them to get insights into kind of their clinical trials and the results and outcome based medicines and things like that. So I think there's going to be a lot of a lot of data tools that are going to be very, you know, much more adopted and then obviously the is this platform architectures away from infrastructure based to kind of serverless. Right. Big data. The, all of you serve cause many customers who are very interested in getting more out of that data, big data from via, you know, technologies like machine learning, AI, etc. What else do you expect for on that front and what do you think that people will actually get out of those those advances in the coming year. So the foot real looks like this when he's on a roll right now. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, I think ultimately everyone is kind of trying to use these new tools to, you know, advance their business. Right.  Now, people didn't even know how to leverage just basic web technologies, right? It took a bunch of years for people to figure out how to actually leverage, you know, the worldwide web to remember that term again to date myself significantly.  So there needs to be a whole learning from kind of, you know, how do how do you now deal with this unprecedented quantity of data.  I mean, I don't know if you saw that there was an article in the in the times where you can you can you can literally buy, you know, the GPS coordinates of, you know, millions of users that have been quote unquote, anonymized, but it's super easy to figure out kind of, you know, who it is, and they were actually able to do that. So all of a sudden you have these just incredible data sets about human behavior around human interactions around use of phones around use of applications and people are starting to figure out, okay, how do we use this to a commercial advantage. Right. Obviously, there's a lot of the various things that can happen as a result of that too, which, you know, we're starting to see as Frank pointed out in the niche. So I think it's I think everyone's going to just try to figure out how to how to leverage these technologies to further their business and it's just going to, you know, accelerate the pace of technology adoption. Yeah, just go ahead. Oh, good. Well, I was going to say, well, if, you know, if he's seeing the, what kind of investment he's seeing and with his clients on private clouds, you know, I've helped deploy a number of them did not grab in as many headlines I don't think. Lately, obviously the hyperscalers are, but you know, there, there are some definite strong use cases around around private clouds as well. I'm wondering if you're seeing those kind of loads come in, especially. Absolutely. Good. Absolutely. We have, you know, we have dedicated kind of private cloud platforms in about six of our markets, but to give you one, one great data point on, you know, recently it was announced. In one of my, my former partner at Voxel, a hosting business, Zach Smith started a company called packet, which was a premium bare metal product. So bare metal by definition is private, right, because it's your own infrastructure. You decide to put a hyperscalers around there or not, but ultimately they got acquired by Equinex, which is the largest data center company in the world, right. There's a really interesting marriage between co-location where you're kind of agnostic to the workload that's there and now in essence, infrastructure as a service or private cloud, right. So my view is absolutely that, you know, you're going to have a kind of a more heterogeneous adoption of different architectures to solve different types of needs and private cloud is one of the ones where, again, it's being used with all these other monikers, but I think it will become more and more prevalent. But, you know, again, the public cloud continues to, you know, grow dramatically. I mean, this is a, you know, a story of a lot of boats being lifted by this technology trend. And just to add that, I mean, private cloud, in my opinion, is definitely not that. I mean, you certainly have a lot of use cases, i.e., a compliance based workload or a mission critical workload. And a lot of customers think, I'm just going to dump everything into AWS Azure, one of the cloud service providers, and it's going to be cheaper. In fact, in reality, it's not going to, it's not sure. When you get the outs. What's that? No, when you take data out. Exactly. Well, yeah, well, you got, you know, there's tons of issues, even just resource usage, right? You're not optimizing your research, you just do not monitor it. But, you know, at the end of the day, if you got those cyclical workloads and you need a level of agility, then yeah, cloud service providers, great. But if you got a static workload that's relatively consistent throughout the year, a private cloud environment may be the way to go. And, Raul, I just wanted to touch on some of the comments you're making. I think, from a machine learning and AI perspective, the frameworks and the platforms that these big three cloud service providers are building. I think it's getting, you know, I wouldn't say, I think there's a level of ease to adopting it, right? You still need a, you know, big data or data scientists to leverage the platform or someone with somewhat level of knowledge, but you don't have to be a hardcore mathematician or understand the deep algorithms. The platforms that they offer, machine learning as a service, whether it's the Google AI or AWS are pretty good and you can just open the, you know, the FAQs and really start using it. Do you guys think that those machine learning and AI algorithms that people are developing within the industry are at a state where, you know, the various verticals and enterprises are really able to consume them? Or are we still waiting for them to mature? You know, my comment on this would be based on some of the folks that I talked to that are our customers that are installing these systems in our data centers. And what they tell me is that the vast majority of kind of the advanced machine learning that's going on now is still kind of in the development phase.  So, so I think, you know, we're going to, whatever we see today, I think it's just going to be dwarfed by what we see in the future, because it still feels like it's very early in its adoption cycle. Yeah, I would agree. And, you know, on that, we've kind of touched on it a bit on the education and adoption front. I don't know if anybody saw the news that Gal Deny is also based out of Denver here, one of the boot camp educators for, you know, full stack development, including AI stuff was just acquired for $145 million. You know, I think that speaks a lot to where we are kind of future of the industry. I kind of have a, I think, especially if you talk with the data center, the network operators, you know, we're kind of facing a little bit of an Apollo program issue, you know, looking at a lot of retirements, a lot of brain drain, a lot of tribal knowledge and, you know, I think we're going to have to not just keep pace with the, say the software side, like what Gal Deny is taking care of, but we're also going to have to keep pace with the infrastructure and hardware side as well. Interesting. All right, let's let's switch gears here to a different topic. One that everybody is thinking about in the sector. Is 2020 the year 5G breaks out into the wild? Is it the year? If yes, where and in what form? And if not, why not? Let's start with Frank. I think the main thing that we're going to have to see before 5G really takes off is we're going to have to address the fiber infrastructure necessary to survey. I think a lot of people in any kind of major market, they're seeing the precast footers with bulls on top, popping up overnight. And the one thing that I haven't seen as fast as these bulls are going up, I'm not seeing any fiber infrastructure that's going into serve them. And this has been an issue that I've seen in the past during the wireless portion of my career. See people, people are going to be motivated by their metrics. You see people motivated by a metric that says something to the tune of tower construction. And they're not subtly influenced to make sure that that tower is also on air and serving customers. That's going to skew the metrics. I wonder if some of that's happening today. And without that fiber infrastructure, you can't light it and can't start getting revenue on 5G. And that's going to be the big thing that hinders it this year. So I'm going to push, I'm going to punch on 5G and push that out to 21 or 22. Anish. Yeah, I would agree to your comments Frank to a certain extent. I think there are some, you know, interesting use cases where 5G comes into play. And this is just something simple as, you know, you got a customer that's that has a remote locations each location requires, you know, two connections right you got a primary dedicated internet access and maybe a backup right as an example. Backup could be, you know, a 4G LTE or LTE connection where now you could displace that with 5G and you get that high speed and guess what now you could use both connections as active active right and so you could do some pretty cool things with that versus having a secondary circuit idle right. I think about alarm systems, you know, replacing all those pots lines with, you know, 5G back 5G as the primary instead of pots lines. I think about IOT, you know, IOT in my opinion really hasn't taken off. But I think 5G will make make it mainstream and there's lots of cool tech technologies out there like AWS IoT green grass is a platform that essentially, you know, brings AWS to the cloud to the edge devices so you got the software running on your edge devices. That's, you know, running either serverless function lambda, Docker container what now it's collecting data it's monitoring and filtering that data, and it's sending it back to the cloud so there's there's definitely some use cases there where I think, they'll be an immediate impact of 5G. Interesting, bro. Yeah, so I tend to agree with Frank and in my perspective, I mentioned about some of the other digital bridge portfolio companies one of them is vertical bridge which is the largest US tower read in the US and text in that which is the largest private small cell operator in the US. So obviously their their key customers are the four major mobile operators and they're building a lot of the infrastructure that will underpin 5G so you know the state of the play today is obviously that there's more of a same 5G war going on now where everyone's kind of saying that they have 5G but you know even team oval that announced what they did at the end of the year. They're delivering that 5G over their low band 600 megahertz network which means that ultimately just doesn't have a lot of capacity. It doesn't have the latency characteristics that there so one of the big things on the horizon that's coming up in the next months I believe is what's called the C band auction where they're auctioning off a bunch of mid band spectrum this is stuff that's like in the two and a half to three and a half or four and a half megahertz range. Everyone remembers the company Clearwire that's what they tried to do years ago they were just you know too early in that adoption obviously that a lot of that a lot of that spectrum is with T mobile today but they need that spectrum needs to happen and then to Frank's point you just need more of these kind of small cells and that systems because 5G has incredible through when Verizon did their deployment in Minneapolis I mean they were showing devices that were getting 600 megabits to a device but that doesn't scale without more spectrum and without more of this kind of wireless infrastructure to propagate that RF when millions and millions of people are going to be using it so even the carriers if you listen closely on their analyst calls like Verizon or AT&T and they get regularly asked when are you going to start generating revenue meaningful revenue for 5G there's a lot of heaven and hawing and then it ends up being something around 2021 2022 so I think the next couple years. Everyone's going to be here at about 5G but it's not going to it's not going to really be very widespread and it's certainly not going to be kind of delivering the quote unquote promise of 5G in terms of latency and throughput without a lot more infrastructure to Frank's point. And I think the best I think the best argument for 5G at this moment is the IOT when we keep like you both are saying because it's even more so than the bandwidth of the latency I think it's the addressability and how many devices you can serve the density that you can get on on each of those towers. So that's that I think is going to drive it with me for instance even my home security system actually doesn't even come with a wire to this point it goes straight over 4G over LTE right now. And it doesn't be anyone on here right now who uses different for their security system.  There are a number of companies that don't even assume that you will have a wire in your home anymore. Right, so it sounds like they can do a bunch of things for 5G but they can't scale it yet without a bunch more work right. Yeah, I would agree. I definitely agree with that. All right, looking beyond that to a wider thought, you know, beyond the world of cloud data centers and infrastructure itself that we inhabit here. The rest of the world seems like it's going to be a bit of a turbulent place in 2020. Whether you're talking politics, trade, coronaviruses, et cetera. Do you see any outside events on the horizon that could have a big effect on the industry that as a whole, Frank? I'll circle back to, I think it was Anish's comment earlier, not just on data, but data privacy. I think we'd have gone, as a whole, the general population has been pretty complacent because I don't think anybody's really felt a true impact. And to Rell's, I think it was Rell's point on the AI, mix the politics with the data aggregation, breaking down silos and then putting bad actors in. I think this year, particularly this summer is going to be the time where hostile state and non-state actors get really aggressive and let loose all of their plans from the last four years. And that could be perhaps economically or politically or socially crippling. So I'd be very much on the lookout for what's going to happen, data privacy, data breach-wise, and if we see anything in the US as a response similar to GDPR or the California regulations. Interesting. Anish? I think about Brexit and the impact it's going to have in the data center market in the UK, right? I mean it's, you know, I think the date of January 31st where the UK is going to break. Yeah, exactly, right? So yeah, that's right. But they're going to break apart until the end of the year, right? To fully break apart. But, you know, I see kind of two concerns. One, from a data center perspective, is making sure you have affordable electricity. So I'm not sure if you guys know, but some of the electricity that UK buys is from the EU. So with, you know, with changing exchange rates between, you know, the pound and the Euro, that could be a problematic. And then you also got to look at, and Frank touched on this a little bit, is the whole data privacy, data flow side of things as well. I think customers will have to rethink their DR strategy, you know, if they have a multi data center environment, UK and some data centers in Europe as well. So, you know, how do you, how does that DR strategy change? And then how do you get the data back from, you know, the EU data centers into UK as well. So there's still a lot of complexity involved. And I don't think, you know, even if you take the rest of the year, it's still going to be challenging. Well, so in my view, you know, we're, what, 10 years into the longest expansion in US history, or I think, or, you know, we're certainly in recent history. You know, along with that, we obviously know, you know, this is unprecedented time from interest rates perspective and kind of access to capital, right. So everything we've been talking about today, you know, to kind of 5G or the cloud. I mean, this requires just billions and billions of dollars, right. So, in my view, anything that, you know, if we do, you know, there was some recession fears earlier, earlier last year and now it seems to be abated a bit. But ultimately, you know, access to capital is the lifeblood of this industry because, you know, these investments aren't short term investments are very long term investments. I think anything that could kind of derail that could could slow down the pace of some of these options because again, just, you know, going back to 2008. I remember in 2008, I was working for a private equity fund, and we had a term sheet from a soft layer, which at the time people remember was one of the emerging companies that got bought by IBM and became their cloud. But this is a great, great company and, you know, as my boss said at the time, you know, the price of money is infinite so there was no deals going on. So I think that, you know, the continued kind of rosy outlook that we have here from a economic perspective. If that gets real because of some of the events that you mentioned Rob, that would have an impact. Interesting. All right, so it's time to put you all in the spot. Can you give us one concrete prediction of something you will think that will happen in the data center telecom and tech space in 2020.  This has been a trend that I've seen started seeing a couple years ago. And I'm seeing it accelerate I think this is the year where interconnectivity and fiber access and inside data centers becomes the main driver of valuations and deals. You know, typically space and power is has driven the economics on, you know, where to look located data center. But that's fundamentally at odds with latency. So we're going to see connectivity I think drive a lot more the equation. And I think you see this as part of, you know, every, every data center operator out there that is interconnecting their data centers. They're doing everything that they can to get as close to their clients as possible and take on as much of their internal networking as possible. So that's, that's my prediction. Interesting. On this. Yeah, kind of tagging along with with Frank said I totally agree I'm seeing a lot of customers move. First of all, colocation markets going to continue to be hot right we're going to have customers are moving away from internal data centers and dealing with all the headaches and managing that those data centers moving to a cold environment. A public private cloud strategies what I see so that hyperactive strategy. I see a lot of customers as they're transforming their networks and, you know, incorporating SD when into their networks are rethinking how, how and where the data with the applications live and you know what I see a lot kind of a trend with at least our customer bases are creating these regional hubs so let's create a data center stack in Chicago where I live right so let's create a stack here where it's closer to all the I have now I have access to all my cloud providers, the big three Azure AWS Google and others, and that way, you know, low latency my application performed better. I have a single cross connect or you know cloud connect into any one of those providers because you know a lot of sophisticated enterprises they're building their application stack half of it could be an AWS and the back end could be Google for whatever reason. And that's, that's not unheard of so now I got low latency between those two cloud providers, you know, leveraging my, my IT stack, if you will, so I see a lot of that going on those regional hubs, versus kind of a decentralized, you know, or centralized location and you know last thing you want to do is backhaul circuit from AWS all the way to your corporate headquarters. So, I follow obviously the wireless world quite a bit. And one thing that is out there is dish, believe it or not, is has is building a wireless network, right. They have multiple RFPs out there for data center fiber for the core network. And that's is all part of the sprint TMO merger what one of the main kind of arguments why it's not going to reduce competition is because they're going to spin off a bunch of the assets from those two businesses give it the dish and allow dish to become a competitor along with the other three. But I, you know, I think that will what we'll see in in 2020 is the cable guys finally get into the wireless game. You know, they, they all have offerings you obviously seen the commercials on TV but those are all MVNOs, aka resale of the other carriers but I think 2020 is the year that they do something with dish probably and become an actual wireless to the big three. Do you think sprint TMO will go through first before that happens or what it's 50 50. So if it doesn't go through then you anticipate that you can flip a coin and and that's probably how best to, you know, lay the odds on that. Right. Well, yeah, I don't know either. But wait to find out. All right, well that that's all the prepared questions that we have here but we might have some from the audience possibly. Anybody. We do we have a question in. It's on 5G you guys started the boards up when you start talking 5G here. And one of our one of our viewers to render genetic asks how do you think the politics national security concerns will affect 5G in particular. Yeah, I mean in the US, I don't think it's going to make much of an impact because obviously for a while now Hawaii has has been banned from the big carriers obviously now they're trying to ban them from all the network so we continue to supply the equipment for 5G networks. So I don't think it has any impact here in the US. I mean there's a broader impact in terms of, obviously, if this bifurcates technology and we end up with kind of, you know, a Chinese version of 5G and Western version of 5G and what that does for standards and handsets and, you know, lowering the cost of production and things like that but I think the, you know, the practical impact in the US will be muted. Frank or an issue on a way in. I was going to see me go there all did so you covered it well. And any other questions go ahead and type them into that question box guys but we are wrapping it up it is been an insightful 40 minutes here as Oh, sorry, no mean just came in. You are a very diverse group, I agree. Where do you see the revenue increases in the next 24 months mobile data AI AR or still in carrier spaces. Well, I mean a lot of those are somewhat mutually or different categories right, you know, in the wireless, obviously, you know, one of the big challenges for the big three or four is that you know, revenues just aren't really growing that much for an 18 team Verizon has been doing very well in terms of getting new subscribers so that's why I think you know they're they're anxious to try to figure out how to monetize and drive a harpoon higher for for 5G. You know, on the, you know, the cloud side it's it's it's just obvious that, you know, those those platforms are going to grow significantly and continue to grow significantly in the foreseeable future Microsoft announced yesterday I mean they're, they're growth actually increased a little bit on the cloud side from, you know, 63% year over year to 64% year over year which is staggering for, you know, businesses that are billions of dollars of revenue so so I think those two silos are you know, very in very different states. And then to the other the other areas that don't really have a strong opinion over. I'm going to weigh in and say that the fiber operators are continuing to drive revenue, they're constantly building the fibers going to have to happen first before 5G is a reality. But every other part of our life is just touching more and more fiber every every place all the way back to the home. I think the business spend on on fiber is going to continue to is going to continue to accelerate especially in metro markets. And Rick Talbot also has question, do you see low latency applications drive data centers to the edge of the network. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, you know, we have a the actual first production deployment of that for one of the big cloud guys if you guys probably saw a couple months ago. And they announced on announced what they call local zones and they announced that in LA and ultimately what that is is a stripped down availability zone that has been physically placed in a quote unquote edge market. I mean most people don't think of LA as an edge market but it is from the perspective of all the major cloud providers don't have infrastructure anywhere near the LA market. And so the one Microsoft what AWS said is they deployed this there because there's a big gaming community big gaming kind of production and they wanted to have that infrastructure local to that type of community and with that, they did. They also launched a product called Wavelengths which is a way for them to integrate that availability zone that local zone with in this case Verizon's 5G network and kind of claim that all right now you'll be able to kind of keep packets in that same region. So, you know this is I think something that you know we'll start 2020 from Amazon, which has indicated that they're going to deploy those local zones and other major metropolitan areas and then I think once they do the other cloud providers will follow them because you know obviously it's a it's a competition and you know it's a keeping up with the Joneses type of investment. And I think essentially what we're talking about here is edge computing right which is going to enable some of those low latency applications and I think once we addressed the 5G infrastructure issues and fiber issues that break and you know you guys are pointing out, you know when 5G becomes ready for prime time, what you're going to see is a lot of these micro data centers pop up under the cell towers right so you got an optimized stack of compute where now you know think about autonomous vehicles I mean each car produces like I think it's like five terabytes of data per hour. There is no way you're going to send that to transmit that data to a centralized or regional data center for processing back latency is just crazy right I mean, you could think probably 50 to 80 milliseconds or more versus if you have a micro data center under that cell tower. Now you're looking at less than five millisecond latency so you're processing that data faster locally and then transmitting whatever is necessary to. And I have one more question can squeeze it in. There's a too much, but a good friend Curtis reason of data center dynamics asking how much involvement will or should the US government have in adding to the extra infrastructure of fiber required for 5G implementation, sort of going back again to to our 5G chat that Frank picked up. Well, let me.  But you know you'll see a USF charge right universal service fund right so that obviously was it's a tax right it's billions and billions of dollars a year, and it goes to your life line support which is you know people having access to communication they're obviously in the process to deploy that for delivery of Internet access and ultimately this participation. It's happening it's called calf now, I think it's a $40 billion over 10 years or something like that. And it's mainly for rural areas. I saw one award recently where when I did when I did the math it looked like it was $3,000 per home to get fiver to those locations so I think there is a role for the government to, you know, step in where there isn't enough private incentives in other areas in specific areas like rural areas. That will obviously you know make it so that you know we don't have a digital divide and things like that but I think it's it's politics at the end of the day so and it's our tax dollars. You can rest assured it won't be done completely logically and it won't be done completely efficiently. I think it will be done this year probably. I mean, I think you nailed, I think you nailed the point. I mean, because it's not just the technical issues of the digital, but it's the social issues, and all of the social issues that come with the digital divide. And, you know, it's, I think there's a lot. So, you know, doing these types of things that we've talked about, such as, you know, video chatting, screen sharing, all of the things over slack and teams like we just talked about that that breaks down the physical barriers of geographically separated teams. We can bring a lot of prosperity out to, you know, the, to the rural areas of the country and I think, you know, coupling that with a good way to couple that will be with a lot of renewable energy development, because when you've got those rights rights away from our utility lines, you know, power transmission, radio transmission, etc. or distributed wind turbines and solar arrays. That's a good way to write all that and those systems still need their control circuits as well for scatter and such. I'm just standing really sitting round table and so sorry there's so many questions on the board. We will capture them and and and send you back some written responses. But thank you everyone for your participation here on our data center, telecom and technology. Thank you so much for taking the time to give them our first 20, our all star panelists. Thank you, Raul Matinec, CEO of Data Bank, Anish Patel, VP of emerging tech, TBI, Frank McDermott, CEO of Karma. Thank you guys. And of course, a big thank you also to Rob Powell, founder of telecom rambling, for keeping us on point today and viewers. Thank you so much for tuning in. You know, the numbers have been blockbuster for us are our best round table yet to date. And if you were one of our first 100 registrants, we're hoping you enjoyed your lunch on us today, and go ahead and visit us. We're going to register for upcoming JSA virtual round tables we're rolling them out every month is here next one February 20 for talking micro edge where is it and where is it heading. We've got to see level round up there from edge connects, start points, edge micro and edge presence. So another round table not to be missed. Okay, that's it for now. Thanks for tuning in to JSA virtual round table. The play back of today's predictions will be available soon on JSA TV and JSA podcast that's on YouTube, iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, wherever you're going, we're there. All right, until next time, happy networking.


The next item of business is a statement by Keith Brown on Scottish Government response to independent review of deaths in prison custody. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of his statement and so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on Keith Brown, cabinet secretary, around 10 minutes, please. In November 2019, my predecessor asked Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons for Scotland and her co-chairs, Professor Nancy Lawkes, chief executive of families outside, and Judith Robertson, chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, to carry out an independent review into the response to deaths in custody in recognition of the need for increased transparency and better engagement with families following a death in custody. That review is now complete and has published today. I would like to take this opportunity to make a statement to highlight this important work and set out the context of the review and its findings, and members will now have the opportunity to consider and read the report. Before I do so, however, I must offer my sincere condolences to all those who have lost loved ones while in prison custody. It is always hard to lose someone close to you, but to do so in circumstances where you cannot be with them and may not be clear about the circumstances of their death must be especially hard to bear. I am also very grateful to Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons, Wendy Sinclair-Gabyn and her co-chairs, Professor Nancy Lawkes and Judith Robertson, who worked with her to conduct the review for the comprehensive and robust work that they have carried out. Families outside facilitated the involvement of families who have been bereaved by a death in custody, and the commission provided expertise on human rights. I know that delivering the review took longer than had originally been planned, but that was unavoidable in light of the impact of the Covid pandemic. I would like to thank all concerned for their commitment to the review through challenging circumstances and the very real barriers that Covid imposed on the research process. The primary aim of the review is to make recommendations on areas in which improvements can be made in the immediate response to deaths in prison custody by both the Scottish Prison Service and the NHS, including deaths of prisoners, while in NHS care. Most importantly, the review aims to highlight ways that, in the event of a death in custody, the response to and experience all families could be standardised and improved, so as to provide prompt answers, transparency and, importantly, compassion. I should highlight at the outset that it's not the purpose of this review to include or consider the investigation of deaths in prison. The Lord Advocate is the independent head of the system for the investigation of sudden and suspicious deaths, and the Crown Office and Fiscal System carry out that work on her behalf. As such, the investigation of deaths occurring in prison, including criminal investigations and arrangements for fatal accident inquiries, are out with the remit of the review. In Scotland, a fatal accident inquiry, or FEI, is mandatory whenever someone has died in prison custody, and the Crown Office undertakes independent investigations in advance of mandatory FEIs. I'm grateful, as I've said to the management and staff at the Scottish Prison Service and the NHS for engaging with the review and for informing its recommendations. The review makes a number of important recommendations, highlighting practical, operational and compassionate changes that are needed to improve the ways that deaths in prison custody are handled and responded to in Scotland by both the Prison Service and the NHS. Those changes include training grounded in the appreciation of the impact of death, as well as early empathetic engagement with families. We will work with the SPS and healthcare delivery partners to ensure that those recommendations are delivered. I know that SPS has already implemented some immediate improvements, such as compiling a booklet that signposts families to bereavement services and to support, and I look forward to seeing more of the changes that will be implemented in the coming months. I put on record my own appreciation for the SPS and prison-based NHS staff, who care for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. As I saw at first hand when I visited Perth prison earlier this month, the overwhelming majority of staff are extremely committed to ensuring the health and wellbeing of the people they care for, and they want to do the right thing with regard to their loved ones. It is clear that, although systemic and operational changes are needed, particularly in standardising and improved response in the event of a death, there are and there have been very real efforts by staff to support one another, as well as the prisoners who are impacted by a death. Most of all, I like to express my gratitude to the families who either participated in the research process or who formed a family advisory group. I understand that the advisory group met monthly for the duration of their review, providing lived experience and expert views on the issues that they looked at. I am very aware that their involvement over such an extended time period may have required a great deal of emotional resilience, and I thank them for their time, their willingness to revisit the grief that they experienced and the insights that they gained through their participation. Turning to the report itself, the law officers and I met last Thursday with the chairs of the review to discuss their findings and recommendations, although I, of course, have not yet had the opportunity to fully consider the detail and implications of all the findings and recommendations that were made by the review, I wanted to be clear to Parliament that I accept the recommendations in principle. In respect of the key recommendation, I agree that an independent body should carry out an investigation into every death in custody. The recommendation is that an independent investigatory body, which immediately starts a process of engaging with the family and agencies, could provide transparent and prompt information to families at an early stage, thus better meeting the needs of bereaved families. Families want to know as quickly as possible how their loved ones died and what the circumstances of their deaths were. That would complement the independent investigation by the Crown Office into the circumstances of the death, the information provided to families by the Crown Office in terms of the family liaison charter and the subsequent FAI, which is provided over by the judiciary. I should highlight at this stage that it is clear that the suggested recommendation around this independent body does not and should not replace any of the current inquiry processes. The current FAI process, as enacted in legislation in 2016, follows upon an in-depth review of the FAI system. There have been improvements in relation to the system of FAIs since the introduction of the legislation and the modernisation project undertaken by the Crown Office in 2019. That will be further enhanced by a specialist Crown Office team that will focus on the investigation of deaths in custody and the resulting FAIs and brings together a number of specialist disciplines. That recommendation will require some further detail, practical and legal consideration in conjunction with the Crown Office and Fiscal Service and other partners. That will take time, but I commit to doing so as quickly as possible. Overall, the findings point to a lack of consistency in the way that deaths in custody and, specifically, the engagement with the family by the prison service in the event of a death are handled. Indeed, while the experience of families in the way that they are consulted and considered varies, at present this engagement tends to lack the compassion that we might expect. I believe in fatality that this does not represent a lack of compassion or humanity on the part of the prison service. Rather, that points to the need for staff training and how to have difficult conversations and knowing what information they can share and when. Conversations, as we know, about death are never easy, and they require maturity, sensitivity and empathy. Staff can be coached to enable them to hold these conversations in ways that uphold the dignity of bereaved families while also providing them with valuable answers and support. I was also pleased to note that the review acknowledges the good practice that does exist, such as meetings held with families that struck a sensitive tone, invitations to families to visit the establishment and see where their loved one lived for context, inclusion of the family also in memorial services and facilitating their meeting friends and cellmates. I have been told that the review team heard examples of sensitive and supportive staff. I am not too sure that this was not universally the case, and I accept that. Through trauma informed training, as I mentioned earlier, and a review of operational processes, what is an extremely difficult time for bereaved families could be made less traumatic and more compassionate. I want to reiterate that I am committed to improving the immediate response to bereaved families who have lost their loved one while they were in prison custody. I should also mention that it is outwith the scope of the review, but I have also raised the issue of the notification of victims in the event of a death in custody. I am aware that the service is already provided by the victim notification scheme, and it will be subject to a review in its own right next year. I, along with relevant key partner agencies, will hold a round table at the beginning of next year to map out what needs to be done to deliver it on the review's recommendations and progress work to make the necessary changes to operations. The review is a substantial one, and we will work on the recommendations and advisory points set out by the chief inspector and her co-chairs. Our ultimate aim is to improve the ways that deaths of loved ones in prison custody are experienced by bereaved families. As a progressive society, it is important that we have transparency, a trauma informed approach, and a compassionate justice system that understands that improvements need to be made to better deliver for families. Finally, I commit to giving Parliament a full update of progress by summer 2022. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in his statement, and I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions, after which time we will have to move on to the next item of business. It would be helpful if members who wish to ask a question were to press their request to speak buttons now. I call Jamie Greene. I thank the cabinet secretary for his statement, but I also thank the review group for their work, and I say to the families of anyone who is relative died in custody that we share your grief here today. The best way to summarise this rather stark report is on the front page of it. Two pillars of trauma informed practice are choice and control. Our review showed that families who are bereaved through a death in custody have neither. The report paints a grim picture of systemic failings and how we deal with and prevent deaths in custody, many of which go unknown and unnoticed, those with mental health problems who died of suicide or drug overdoses in our prisons, the silent victims of our justice system, 39 of them so far this year. Their families have been let down on so many levels so many times. Most worryingly of all, though, the report says that little has been done right now to learn lessons and prevent future deaths. I hope that the report is a real wake-up call and a catalyst for change. Given that the main recommendations for an independent new body to oversee investigations into deaths in custody, how will that remove, augment or duplicate work, which is the current remit of the crown and existing bodies? If legislation is needed for its creation, how forthcoming will that legislation be? Will he finally back our repeated calls for a statutory timeframe for fatal accident enquiries, as the report itself now calls for, and given the stark seriousness of the situation, which of the report's recommendations can be acted on straight away so that even just one life could potentially be saved as a result of this report? I thank Jamie Greene for his questions and trying to address them in turn. First of all, he mentioned how important it was for the prison service and others to learn the lessons, and I think that that is one of the trenching criticisms in the report, that, although it might be the case that an individual death in custody has learned to learning of lessons, it is not cumulatively done. We do not bank that learning for future. I think that the establishment of an independent body may be one way in which we can ensure that that happens. There are other recommendations, as Jamie Greene will know in the report, that should ensure that that does happen. We have to learn continuously and not forget lessons that have previously been learned. I take that point on board. He has asked about the independent body and, in particular, how it would fit into the other bodies that are involved, necessarily after a death in custody. That is an important point. All I would say is that, in the discussions that I had with both the authors of the report and the law officers last week, we have all acknowledged that there is going to have to be substantial work involving the Crown Office, involving the Lord Advocate and various other bodies to make sure that that can fit properly. We cannot allow any system to prejudice a criminal report or undermine the Lord Advocate's constitutional position in relation to FEIs. That is a real concern, and I cannot answer it just now. All I would say is that those discussions will take place and we will make sure that one does not trip over the other. On his point about speed, I very much take that point. It has been a criticism, obviously, in relation to FEIs as well. To see the report mentioned that those reports should come out within months—they say that very specifically—I certainly agree with that. The actions that I will take between now and when I come back to Parliament to report on that will be to make sure that we do not lose sight of the need for a quick response to the families. Both in terms of the communications and the quickness of response, perhaps there are two of the top three asks of families in this circumstance, so we have to do that. It will only be at the point when we do have the chance to look further into the report's findings and have those discussions with other partners, whether we will be able to tell whether further legislation is required, and, as I have said, I am happy to come back to Parliament to report on that in due course. Thank you, cabinet secretary, for the chance to question this important area of policy. The report is damning on Scotland's approach to death and custody, and the report states things like prison officials accused of corporate homicide for their failures in the investigation of death. To name but a few, Alan Marshall, whose family still do not feel he have the answers, William Lindsay Brown, and Katie Allen, whose family still await a fatal accident inquiry. The report goes on to say that the Scottish Prison Service is seeking to limit accountability, a lack of family engagement in every step of the journey. Humanity and compassionate times were compromised. Cabinet secretary, we know that evidence shows that the involvement of families in fatal accident inquiries and investigations does make a huge difference to the outcome and terms of the recommendations. Does the cabinet secretary believe that the independent body should have unfair access to all relevant material, including the data, and that there should be a duty on the Scottish Prison Service to retain all relevant information, as the report says? Cabinet secretary has already responded to Jamie Greene's question, so he has answered that, which is, can this have the ability to shorten the time it will take to get answers? He has said that, yes, it could have. I am sure that he wants to ask, does the cabinet secretary believe that, in order to change the direction of those horrendous figures and the way that families are treated, that this body must be given unfettered access to provide those answers, the answers that families need to have? I cannot immediately think of any reason why a body should not have those powers. Unless there is something that comes up during the discussion with other partners, which is a compelling reason not to do, I cannot think of why we should want to fetter this independent body. It is independent for a reason. You will also see that other recommendations refer to data and information that has been provided more readily, for example to families. Why we do not provide that information to the independent body would seem wrong to do that. As I said, we will have to have those discussions with other partners and we will come back to Parliament and Parliament will have it say of course on that. However, the other points that Pauline McNeill makes are really important, and they can be sometimes lost, the ability to be informed and the ability to be spoken to in a way that understands the impact of somebody's death. I do not blame the prison service for that. I think that across the justice system people are doing a job and they do not see it as central to that job necessarily to have that trauma informed approach that is necessary for us to try and embed right across the system. They are doing their job, but I think that it is important now that we say that there is more to it than that. When we are dealing with people who have lost somebody who has died through a death in custody, we have to make sure that they get the right information as much information as they can, that they are spoken to in a way that understands the loss that they have experienced and, crucially, that we get those answers in a quick fashion. I cannot say for certain that there would not be a case for somebody who did not take longer than a year, but I think that if the standard is to be a matter of months, and not necessarily 10 or 11 months but a matter of months, that would be much better for the family. It is a serious attempt by this report to try and address somebody's fundamental concerns. I would just ask for succinct questions and answers. We have used up over seven minutes of the 20 minutes available for two questioners, and I really do not want to prejudice all the backbenchers who wish to ask questions. The cabinet secretary mentioned the importance of ensuring that staff are well trained in the way that deaths in custody and the engagement with families in the event of deaths should be handled. Can the cabinet secretary say any more about what can be done to ensure that staff are trained to hold such conversations sensitively, whilst providing the answers and support that they require? Just to be brief, the review makes, as Rona Mackay points out, a number of important recommendations highlighting practical, operational and compassionate changes that are needed to improve the ways that deaths in prison custody are handled and responded to by the prison service, the NHS and others. That will require, as the report suggests, and as Rona Mackay hints, training on their part. We will work with the prison service, the NHS and Crown Office, to make sure that those changes are made. Against a backdrop of rising prison deaths, families tell the report's author that the authorities often do not care about the death of addicts. The cabinet secretary has committed to ending drug-soaked prison mail that will save lives, but can he tell us exactly when that will happen? In terms of the laying of the statutory instrument, that was laid today with the Parliament. If it goes, and it depends on parliamentary scrutiny, as the member will be aware, but if it goes, as we hope it will do, then that should be coming into effect on the 13th of December. Can the cabinet secretary provide any further information as to how the voices of families of prisoners, as well as human rights experts, have been represented throughout the review process? As the member hints, it would have been wholly wrong to have had such a review without involving the families. I have already mentioned that the family advisory group was set up. It met monthly for the duration of the review, made up of 12 people from eight families, and it informed the work of the review throughout by providing lived experience. The helpline team from families outside also collated inquiries for families regarding concern for someone in prison. Judith Robertson, chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, was appointed as co-chair of the review. I reassure the member that we will make sure that the involvement of families continues as we look through the report's recommendations and take them forward. The cabinet secretary said that he agrees in principle with a key recommendation of the report that a separate independent investigation should be undertaken into each death in custody. Does he agree that, as part of that, it is vital that an independent investigator has early access to all witnesses whilst events are still fresh in their minds? I think that the member of the question says that that is why I have said in principle, because I think that in practice she will know better than me perhaps that there are dangers in relation to that in terms of a possible criminal prosecution or an FAI. There is a lot of work to be done to make sure that those who are carrying out those inquiries, a independent body, make sure that they are not going to jeopardise any future potential criminal case by making sure that, when they talk to witnesses, they do so in such a way that it does not make that process or impinge on that process. However, the ability to get into a situation quickly and provide the facts to the families is very important, and that will be the thrust of what we are trying to do. However, some of those issues have to be worked through, and that is why we need more time. Gordon MacDonald, to be followed by Liam McArthur. I met with the Governor of Shots prison last week concerning a constituent's relative who died while serving a prison sentence. His relatives do not want another family to face the outcome that they did. Can the cabinet secretary advise what steps are now being taken to reduce the number of drug-related deaths in prison custody and also how improved data transparency on deaths in custody will help families to find closure? Just to confirm for the members, as I have said in response to Russell Finlay, an SSI is being laid. I hope that in Parliament today, which amends the prison rules to allow prison officers or employees to copy and for the purposes of investigating whether general correspondence received into a prison contains a prohibited article or unauthorised property to test that correspondence. As I have said, my hope is that, subject to parliamentary scrutiny, it will come into force on 13 December. Liam McArthur, to be followed by Collette Stevenson. I thank the authors that there is report but also pay credit to the families who have dragged the Government to this point, determined to secure change for others because of the pain that they endured. Does the justice secretary acknowledge that there are a number of lessons of this report, such as the need for learning to prevent more deaths, for investigations to happen quickly, for families to be kept updated, also apply to FAIs, which continue to routinely compound the pain of families and which ministers deliberately excluded from this review? I may have misheard the question that was in there but the point that he makes about yes this was, this was about the prison service's response and the NHS's response to death in custody. Overriding that is the ability of Lord Advocate or she, there's a mandatory FAI when there's death in custody. So that process, which was not the subject of this review but which has been introduced by Mr McArthur, I should say is one which has been reviewed by this Parliament, has been agreed. I've still yet to see, although there are objections to it and I'll do listen to those objections and some of the concerns, some of which have just been raised by Mr McArthur. I've not yet seen an alternative proposal being put forward in relation to that. I'm happy to listen to that but in the meantime, I think that this is taking forward what the SPS and the NHS can do in today's in custody when people are in their care. Can the cabinet secretary provide any further information in terms of the steps being taken to provide mental health support to people in prisons to help mitigate against suicides? I should say that the front-line prison officers and NHS staff work hard every day to support people in custody, including those who use challenging behaviours as a means to communicate their distress. And we know that people in custody present higher levels of risk and vulnerability than the general population as a whole. So our mental health transition and recovery plan, published in October 2020, made clear our commitment to continue to work with partners to seek better support for those with mental ill health within the criminal justice system, including prisons. A cross-portfolio ministerial working group has been formed to identify the current issues facing the justice system in relation to mental health and to look at ways to bring forward urgent and creative solutions to those issues. Maggie Chapman, to be followed by Brian Whittle. I thank the cabinet secretary for his statement and echo his thanks to the reviews co-chairs and everyone who supported its work, especially the families who have lost loved ones in custody, and I extend my sympathies to them all. The review highlights that, despite their best efforts, they experienced challenges in securing the participation of prison staff and had no control around ensuring randomise selection of participants and informed consent. Similarly, no women in custody participated. Both of those should be a cause for significant concern, perhaps the latter, especially given recent and forthcoming discussions about gender inequalities in our institutions. Can the cabinet secretary outline what additional information and research he thinks is necessary to ensure that we better understand the experiences and views of women in custody, as well as the prison staff who support them? I should say that the process that I have outlined earlier about taking this forward in discussions with other partners, those partners in the main will be listening to this debate and will take on boards from the suggestions about additional information that might be required to make sure that we get to the right solutions. The member is quite right to mention the fact that prison staff in this context need training. It is fair enough to say that prison staff should do this, that and the other, but they have to be trained to do that and have mentioned the difficult conversations that they have to have. The member is right to say that they must be trained and supported in doing that to make sure that the families are kept aware and to make sure that other prisoners are also considered in terms of a death when it has happened. It is to be a much more trauma informed approach. We cannot just say that people should do that, we have to take responsibility for training and we will do that, and as to the other lessons that we have to learn or other information that we have to call on, that will happen in the course of the next few months. One of the prison staff members said that their participation in a fatal accident inquiry cannot be prepared for and is the single worst experience of a prison staff's role. What is the Scottish Government doing to support our hard-working prison staff both and to ensure that they have access to mental health support services and to support them when they participate in a fatal accident inquiry? The fatal accident inquiry, as I have mentioned, or the holding of it, is not within the gift of the Scottish Government and it is conducted by the Lord Advocate, but the member is quite right to raise the fact that there are staff that are involved in that that require support, and that report recognises that. I think that I would just accept what the member says, that we have to do more in relation to that. I have mentioned the impact on other prisoners of a death in custody. There is an impact on the staff as well, and we have to acknowledge that. The point is well taken. I think that the report tries to address that and the challenge for us now is to take that forward and try to deal with it as most effectively as we can. I now call James Dornan, our last questioner, who is joining us remotely. The work will be taken forward regarding... Excuse me, Mr Dornan. Sorry, I am sorry. There was a technical problem, so could you start your question again, please? I certainly could. Can the cabinet secretary advise how the views and experiences of families will inform the work that will be taken forward regarding recommendations of this review? I think that James Dornan has his question. I have partially answered it earlier on, but he asks if it will be taken forward and just say that we will be holding a round table early next year to inform next steps for progressing the review's recommendations. For my part, I am very open to discussion with the chief inspector of prisons and families outside who have mentioned on how best the views of families and the family advisory board can be heard at the round table and also how they can help inform and shape the progress of the recommendations. We will not get to the place that we need to be if we do not have that input from the people most affected by this. Thank you, cabinet secretary. That concludes the statement, and there will be a very short pause to allow front benches to move to their seat safely before I call the next item of business.


Jack really said he's over the moon about signing the contract with Manchester City and it's for six years. He's now the most expensive player in Premier League history. He's smiling to the bank with some £100 million release clause. He says to come to play for a club like Man City is obviously massive for him personally. It was obviously a difficult few moments because I think I've obviously been at the villa for my whole life, but when I spoke to the manager here and you see what type of players they've got here, it was something that I couldn't say no to and I'm absolutely delighted to be here.


What they gonna do with me now?  Alright, so hey guys, so we got a new episode of Talkin' Town Today we have a special guest Najé Chill Yeah, yeah, yeah So for the people that don't know, let's film the guys and people about your catalog We work with Sony Orchard Yeah, yeah Cigar talk Yeah, I'm the VP of Urban at Sony Orchard Sony's independent distribution I started this YouTube series called Cigar Talk Bunch of different guests, rap Athletes, fuckin' Actors, everything Just anybody movin' culture And then just, you know, just hustlin' Just all around hustlin' in this music game All around hustlin' So, um, so was you working at Sony When you started Cigar Talk or it came after? Nah, I actually, um, I started Cigar Talk first The reason I actually even started it was This was 2017, so I started it in like May 2017 Something like that And at the time I wanted to get in the record label Like that was my goal, I was like, yo I just know if I get in the record label Like I can make shit shake And I was puttin' out mad resumes Like for like two years straight I was sendin' resumes for every fuckin' job Like the low from the low to the highs Like everything, I was cryin' for everything And it never worked, none of that shit worked Like nobody was calling me back, nothin' So I was like, damn, you know what?  Yeah, the Queen Radio Um, the Qwanda Ronda one went crazy too Yeah And I think recently they like some Drill artists like 2x6 Yeah, facts, facts I definitely got a show love to the town You know what I'm sayin' I got a show love to the town Um, so you know Gettin' a bunch of the drill guys I had Suno on recently Mm-hmm 2x6, I did 2x2 Gs when it was early Yeah, like Chef G Facts So like, do you feel like They're like lettin' the drill I don't want to say let them in a little bit more But you know, just shut them more like Or to them Or they lookin' Or they not repantin' What do you think on the industry side Lookin' out It's kind of a weird thing with the drill Yeah, it's in a weird space Just because One is labels and the mentality of any business Is just profitability, right? Like people just care about money The end of the day, who gonna make the money?  So It's in a weird space, I think, drill So do you think it's possible to be a drill artist And not do all the street shit? Or you think like We get tested so often It just ends up happening anyway I don't I think it's impossible I think the energy that That you give off Is the energy that's gonna come back to you in a way So You know what I mean?     You know what I'm sayin'?    But I just feel like, you know It shouldn't just be using Only rap lyrics You gotta have like real Evidence to me Yeah, I feel that way too And like It's just Drivers in a scarce place right now People say like It's gonna end soon People say like Now's the time If you ain't on that Or if A lot of people feel like They miss they mark too Like what's your thoughts on that? I think it's gonna come to an end In the next few years To be honest And I say that because Like I love this shit, right? Like be clear I love it But when I say that is You gotta understand is From the standpoint of like One is New York City is different Than any other city We're the most police Fucking state In this country Right? Like when we talk about Police and people actually Being there You can't One is most of these kids Is not able to do shows Because the mayor And everything is stopping Y'all from doing shows So it's like How can a genre grow If you can't perform Right?    Facts That kid We took him out like Modern rap Like the new wave I feel like he done Did everything Like he He got To me He got Her classic albums He got hits He's talking real shit Like it's not just street shit Like he know how to put his Bars together I think Kodak is the full package For the new wave He one of my favorite like New artists for it Well I'm gonna say he not He not like new But like younger artists I would say I was thinking like I wouldn't hear Kodak On a pop record I feel like he did His thing with King Cole's Feel me? But I wouldn't hear him Like a Ed Sheeran Do a leap But like one of those like People that's like Gonna make it like That's hard I mean Shit he was on the Kendrick Lamar album Right you got the mode You got Kendrick The conscious nigga Reaching out to Kodak Like that was crazy I feel like Kodak is Is like a brand now I feel like he kind of Like he done built himself up So crazy like And then he just Marking himself really good too And I feel like it'd be bi I actually am on purpose At the same time I agree with that Cause like let's think about it Let's keep it a stack Super Gremlin not a record That's like People would think is a hit record That's what I'm saying That's like he just put that out And it just People gravitated to it But that wasn't like a record That's like If you just hear this in the studio You're going to be like, yo this is a hit That's not that type of record But Kodak just got it I fuck the yak a lot So being I guess A&R in the urban department Right do you find it like You have to like kind of Teach the artist kind of How to make these long Lasting records Or you feel like What's your thoughts?   What's more Well I don't want to say What's more important But Going viral Or to inform people Like what's kind of the message At the end of the Episode Damn It's kind of both right Because like You know what I'm saying?  What was the second part? To inform Like to inform the audience and stuff It's a little bit of both And I hate doing You know I know you say you got to pick But it's kind of both because For me like I said A lot of what I do When I talk to these artists Is really to give Insight So people that Want to do this And really trying to like Understand what it is They could get gems from somebody Who like did the shit already You know what I mean? Do you be like Doing an interview and like Getting gems too? Hell yeah Yo I be So like Shout out like a couple of artists That give you like a lot of gems I know 50 Probably definitely there Because I was talking for a minute Man 50 for sure And I'm from Queens So that shit was That was a legendary That meant that meant a lot To a nigga like that was I did I shot Kevin Gates today Okay And Oh after the whole Karisha please After the Karisha please Yeah yeah I shot Kevin Gates And man he gave A lot of gems though Like he seems like He's a deep brother Like he a different brother But he deep though You know what I'm saying? Like I When I say different Oh he a query? When I say different It's like he He not really like a lot Of people that I've met Or come across He's his own person Like there's nobody really like that He's like so entwined With the world and nature Literally Like for me like Literally Energy He's big on energy Big So that was that's that's fine That's fine So like Okay on the music executive tip Like what's the more important Image or talent?  But don't you think that's an image also? That is an image also But I think Do you say image? It's like It feel like It's like Alright what do you do To make something Presentable But she's She just doing what she do Like I think regardless of if it was On the off camera This is This is how she is Like This is her Yeah She's definitely authentic in that way But he had like Image could be like drawn up It could be like You could Have to paint an image for artists Or they could kind of come like Already with that Yeah It's really like Cause pop image was Was fired too You know what I'm saying?  But that first record Y'all know that summer What was that last summer?  To where it's like Niggas, I'm trying to get money And I could get money like this Legal money Yeah, but you can't go to work Once every six months Facts That's a fact Like You gotta be in there At least a couple of times a month You want some check Like You know So just like I think artists should just like Keep that in mind like It's a new person Every day Trying to like You know Take your spot Right But um But I was gonna say like If you had to predict What you think the new sound would be Do you think you know Have you been hearing or something?