From Setback to Comeback: Charlie Rodriguez’s Journey and KORE’s Purpose-Built Tech

In-Depth Conversation on Telecom and Personal Growth with Charlie Rodriguez

In this episode of The Wireless Way, host Chris Whitaker interviews long-time friend Charlie Rodriguez, a seasoned telecom professional. The conversation kicks off with personal anecdotes and an apology from Chris for the delayed invite. Charlie shares his inspiring journey of overcoming personal struggles, including battling alcohol addiction and coping with the loss of his daughter to cancer. He also discusses his professional achievements and the evolution of the telecom channel, especially post-COVID. The episode dives deep into the cutting-edge solutions offered by KORE Wireless, focusing on purpose-built devices in healthcare and other industries. The discussion aims to motivate, educate, and inspire listeners, making it a must-watch for anyone interested in telecom innovations and personal resilience. Don't miss this heartfelt and insightful conversation!

00:00 Introduction and Guest Apology
00:39 Charlie's Professional Background
03:11 Personal Struggles and Triumphs
04:59 Overcoming Alcoholism
11:29 Charlie's Journey into Telecom
14:09 Reflections on the Telecom Industry
14:29 Career Journey at KORE Wireless
15:43 Changes in the Channel Post-COVID
16:44 Challenges in Partner Engagement
19:01 The Evolution of IoT and AI
20:45 Winning with Purpose-Built Devices
21:18 Healthcare Solutions and RPM
23:12 The Importance of Purpose-Built Devices
28:03 KORE's Comprehensive Solutions
30:04 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

More about Charlie

More about KORE

Transcript

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 0:00

Hey, welcome to another episode of The Wireless Way. I'm your host, Chris Whitaker, and this is almost embarrassing for me. I'll tell you why, because I've been friends with this guest for a long time, people, and he's, I just now got around to asking him to come on the show. So first of all Charlie Rodriguez is with me today. A lot of you know him. If you're in the channel one of, one of the, one of the best guys brought brilliant minds in the channel. Love this guy. So first of all, I'm gonna start off with apologizing, Charlie, although you're gonna tell me I don't need to, but I'm like, why did it take so long, man? My apologies my apologies to you, the listener,'cause you're gonna this a lot. A little bit about Charlie before I bring him on, a season telecom professional with a distinguished career. Just again, hey, when I say distinguish your career, man, just like everyone's career. It's a checkerboard of a pattern of different experiences business and professional and personal. It is, he's got it covered, man. Both on the direct side and indirect side with the wealth of experience and wireless IOT enterprise Solutions Cloud, MPLS the network if you will, managed network services all kinds of connectivity. A little side story. Charlie, this is not in his bio, but I'm gonna add it. When I, we were at Comcast business together, I was a Coax Circuit slinger and was told Chris, you gotta start selling fiber. I gotta be honest with you back then, I'm like, oh my God, man, you have to be like an engineer to sell fiber or something. And Charlie, flew from California to Tennessee. We did a road show and he coached me and mentored me. And at the end I realized, okay, so this isn't really any different. It's actually easier to sell. Some of my technical knowledge and expertise came from this guy. Charlie's constantly co consist delivered results by supporting agents and customers alike. He looks at both of them as equally important. Extensive background includes building, launching, and managing successful sales teams and startup environments, established environments showcasing his ability to drive growth and innovation in the telecom industry sounds very formal. But you are you're a pretty formal guy, but you got a good side, right? Charlie you're a funny guy too.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 2:09

Hey, Chris, thank you so much. Really appreciate being here. And you know what? It there's no, like you said, no apology necessary. I think this was meant to be at this point in time in our lives.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 2:21

Man.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 2:21

you

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 2:21

Good words.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 2:22

out to visit you that met so many years ago Dan Atlanta, and when I really first met you, I really didn't even know you when you called and said, Hey, I

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 2:30

Yeah.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 2:31

help with this fiber stuff. I was like, yeah, heck yeah, I'll, I got permission to fly down and hang with you. First time I met you. Loved you. Good human being, and so glad we've been friends for so long

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 2:41

No thank you man.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 2:42

on my friend.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 2:43

No, and it will brother. You're right. I think we're both cut from the same cloth. Yeah, I'm grateful for that as well. That was a great time. So first question for all guests, man. We got this professional bio. We know what's on LinkedIn. Tell us the rest of the story. What's not in the bio? How did you get here?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 2:58

That's a great question. Life's a funny thing, Chris. Life will give you some twists and turns and sometimes it'll kick you. And, hear the old cliche,

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 3:06

i.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 3:07

do you handle diversity tough times, and how do you get back up? This, we lost our oldest daughter to cancer about nine years ago. And and at that moment in time, prior to that, I had been struggling with alcohol. And at one point I made a decision that enough was enough. I got help and I was able to I haven't had alcohol since September of 2016. My daughter passed away Dece actually January Christmas Day in 2016. So I was able to be sober for my family at the really. Challenging tough time in our lives and I've maintained that sobriety ever since. And so the blessing that's come out of it, I know it's hard to find blessing when you lose your daughter. The blessing is that we were able to, take over raising our granddaughter at that time, she was three years old, she's now 11 years old, and

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 3:59

Wow.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 3:59

just. The sunshine of our lives and my motivation and I'm just a better dad the second time around Chris. So that's something I don't think anyone knows about me, but it, we were able to come back as a family. I was able to come back from that and today I feel I bring a different Charlie to people, to my partners, my, my customers, my company, my employers. Then the Charlie that, that was around 10 or 15 years ago.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 4:24

Wow. You're right because I think, I met that original Charlie, but even, you. Who you are at your core is who you are now. Yeah. The alcohol just that was a distraction, right? That, that, that was, hate to say the word watering down the real Charlie.'cause you don't think of alcohol watering down anything but. But and that's a very, I know we didn't even really talk much about this in our pre-show discussion, but I'm thank you for bringing that up.'cause that is a real problem in our society. Alcohol use, whether it be alcoholism or, social drinking day, drinking, everybody's got a name for it, binging, whatever. The bottom line is a poison. You mentioned you got help. Can you, how did, what would that look like? Who, what who?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 5:04

Yeah, so I literally found a local rehab center. It was John Muir Health here in, in Concord, my backyard. And I asked to sign up. They said, give us a week, we'll find a bed for you. And I checked in they, they housed me for about a month where I was locked down, no phone, no communication with my family. After that I was I went through a year of therapy and at this point in time, we were still struggling with losing. Our daughter and she was, the cancer was really kicking in the last few months of 2016. Went through a year of therapy throughout, during and post rehab and that therapy was positive in multiple ways. Number one, helping me overcome the struggle with alcohol. But two it gave me an outlet to voice. What was going on in my life and the tragedy we were dealing with other people that had struggles in their lives.'cause everyone that's an alcoholic, you'd be surprised at how many successful people struggle with alcoholics. I was in rooms with millionaires, business owners very smart individuals. But alcohol is a poison and it's allowed, I look around, you can't. Almost watch a football game without seeing 15 commercials about alcohol or booze or your regular shows or billboards. It's just everywhere and it's accepted, part of the channel event. You know this, we go to Vegas every year and a lot of times it's a big party for two or three days and I'm now blessed to be that guy that's. Exercised by seven o'clock in the morning, showered, ready to go, and I'm bright and peppy at eight o'clock in the morning. Something I couldn't have said, 10 or 12 years ago, You were, A lot of people are struggling at eight o'clock in the morning in Las Vegas. Not me anymore. I'm feeling good and zip

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 6:41

man.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 6:41

to go, man.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 6:43

God man, again, thank you so much for sharing that.'cause whether you're listening and you're dealing with that. And if you're not, you surely know someone that is. And I'm a big proponent of counseling and, getting help. We get checkups on our hearts and our lungs and, but a lot of times we don't think about our head. Our mind, our body, our soul needs. We gotta check on that sometimes. And whether you're a person of faith, which I am, which I, that's my go-to prayer meditation level sets me personally. But if not, yeah, talking to someone, some, someone that's, I could say even talking to a family member or friend, but even that's not the same, right? Because you need someone that's not gonna, maybe a third party. I don't know. That's my opinion. I'm biased person that's trained and you can just let it all out, man. But wow.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 7:25

and one thing I wanna say is, I'm always open to speaking to anyone that is struggling. The thing is this, you can never tell an alcoholic or a drug abuser or whatever you're struggling with in life what to do, how to do, you need to change your life. Because the challenge is, Chris, that person, that individual struggling with that addiction. not change until they make a decision to change. As much as they're not gonna do it for their family, their kids, their mom, their wife, they need to make the decision that they want to be done with it. And until that happens it's not gonna change. So what I try to do is share my story with folks that are struggling and I don't tell them what to do. I don't. I just share my past experience and struggles and I share my successes and say. If the door, there's the path you now have to make that decision.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 8:13

It is a choice.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 8:15

It's a choice.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 8:16

W was it a hard choice? Was it, again, I mean you, you said how long in the rehab, 30 days

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 8:23

30 days in rehab and then and

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 8:24

a year of counseling.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 8:26

of counseling after that. For me, it was not a hard choice. I was mentally done. You have to make a decision. You have to go, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and you have to be at that point, you can, many people crash, and they've lost everything. Many people crash and make that decision when they're still doing okay. Many people crash and they're very successful, but you have to make that decision no matter what. Point in your life you're at, but when you make that decision, you're ready. It was not a problem for me. I was ready. I wanted to be done. I just needed that help. I needed that support system to get it, get me out, get it outta my system, get back on track. And when I was done, Chris, I was done. I remember the bad times. So intently I never want to go back and experience that again.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 9:10

Yeah.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 9:10

and that's my strength. I know

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 9:12

Wow.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 9:12

Been and I know where

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 9:13

And

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 9:13

want to go

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 9:14

no, thank you for sharing that. That is very, I told you when we did our pre-show conversation, inspire, motivate, and educate. Man, if that was an inspirational brother, no, I, it did. I hope it was, I hope someone's listening is inspired by that to either talk to that love one, that friend. We all have friends. We look at them at the channel shows and go, man, what? There they go again. Someone go get so and help'em them get back their, whether it be he or she or we don't, that's a bad thing. A lot of people just go, eh, not my problem. Good luck with that. That's a tough one and I don't know, maybe it's'cause I'm getting older, been, doing this a long time. I feel like there's definitely a movement of professionals that are. Giving up, drinking. They're, they're for all kind of reasons, whether it be health reasons or it's causing a problem in their life. E even for me, I've been doing a lot of reading on it and, I don't wanna have any brain fog, man. I'm trying to stay sharp here, and I don't need any thing getting in my way. And so yeah, currently, I guess where I'm at in life, if I, not that you, not that I need to divulge it, but just, yeah, just sharing, we're sharing here yeah I probably, I wouldn't say it's a social drinker, but I'll have a couple of drink a beer or two a week. It used to be three or four a day. Yeah. Yeah. So I was going down the path of, I noticed I started to wobble, man, I started, I was getting in trouble, man. The oil light was coming on, and I'm like, man I don't want to, I don't want to go there. And so I think, and then I think it was someone said, Hey, you should try dry January. This was probably five, six years ago. And I'm like, why would I wanna go a whole month without drinking? What's the point? But I got it. First of all, it gave me the confidence that I could do it for one, I gave it up for a month and yeah, it was hard. It was, I was tempted and, you going to parties and everybody's drinking. I'm just, and it's so funny, I'm sure you get this a lot when you, someone says, Hey man what are you having? I'll have a, an iced tea. A lemonade, Long Island. No. A regular iced tea. What's wrong? What's, there's something wrong. No, I'm good. I'm actually really good.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 11:03

Yeah.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 11:03

Do you get that when you tell people you don't drink?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 11:05

I have no problem sharing what

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 11:07

Yep,

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 11:07

with. And the minute you've mentioned that, here's the great thing about where we're at today. It's not taboo to talk about this anymore.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 11:14

that's right.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 11:15

something that people are ashamed to hide, and you shouldn't be ashamed to hide it. I think you should share. And so I just share my story

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 11:21

Yeah,

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 11:22

get it and they go done. They're

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 11:24

that's right.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 11:24

Let me get you a ginger out, let me get

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 11:25

That's right.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 11:26

water and

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 11:27

good to hear.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 11:27

good. Yeah.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 11:28

That's good to hear. Changing gears a little bit on your bio, we didn't really go into pre-technology. What, was there a point you could remember going, Hey, this telecom stuff's pretty cool, I'm gonna do this, or did you stumble into it like most of us did? How did you get into this business?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 11:44

Stumbled into it. I was working retail back in the late nineties and a friend of mine who was in retail had got a job selling telecommunications for a local Clec out of the Central Valley in California. And he just needed some sales guys and he knew I was top. Top producer at my retail, position. And he called me up and said, Hey, I need a couple of guys. You interested in jumping outta retail? And I thought, hey, Monday through Friday, nine to five and I got a salary and I commissioned, yeah, I could do this. And I remember the first time my boss at that company and, knocking doors, going out and actually walking into businesses and. Asking them for their business was something I'd never done before. And I tell you, it was a little scary at first, but when my first boss and I went out door knocking together and he just started walking in doors and just said, Hey, I'm, Joe with this company, here's what we do. Who? Your company makes that decision. Bam. I thought. Oh, I can do that. And from that point forward, I was out knocking doors. And that's, and back in those days, Chris, we were selling symmetrical DSL, if you can believe it. It was

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 12:49

Ooh.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 12:50

up and 128 down, but it was symmetrical,

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 12:53

Ooh. That's good. Good stuff.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 12:55

Bonded T ones, Chris. Yeah. Not just 1.5. We're talking three gigs, baby, up and down. Guaranteed speeds on bonded T ones. Yeah, that was back in the day, and so that's how I got into it and I ended up learning that. I love technology. I love being, I, I've always loved electronics, as you can see, I have a lot of antique electronics, but I love new electronics and so it was just a good space for me. And it's just, I just, it attracted me and I'm here ever since 25 years Now, if you can believe it. These wrinkles. Prove that,

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 13:26

Yeah. Hey if you ever come to Georgia, both my daughters are aestheticians and one, one of'em works at a med spa. They'll do some Botox for you.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 13:33

Count

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 13:33

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not for it. I haven't done anything, but I say, what can about these crow's feet?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 13:38

Yeah.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 13:38

I, so yeah, they're pretty much gone.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 13:40

No

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 13:41

It works. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, so you, you've been doing it a while. I, like you, I stumbled into it as well, so thank goodness. I've always loved technology. I've always been curious about what, in fact, I'm more into what it does and how it does it, that's, I have friends that are a bunch of engineers and you have you do as well. The engineers wanna know how it works, how does that work? I'm more like, no, I just wanna know what it does. How does it make my life easier?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 14:05

Yeah.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 14:06

How can this add value? And and that, that's been working for me. Okay. So looking back over the last, two decades or so. I'm sure you have an opinion on like, where, what's the state of the industry, What's your observations about when you when you think about where we are as a industry, as a channel, as in, in technology. What are your thoughts?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 14:25

Yeah, good question. A few things cross my mind. Number one, just a little background. So I've been with the last, almost six years now, I've been at KORE Wireless initially my first three years. You brought me over Chris, so thank you for that. It's been a. Great career here at KORE, so thank you. Appreciate that. Those, so for those first three years, help helping KORE build a channel team, you started that project here and then there was some changes. I had the opportunity to move to our connected health team for two years, and that was on a direct, in a direct sales role. So I guess the end of last year, maybe November's timeframe. I was asked to come back to the channel here at KORE, and so I've been in the channel again for the last six months at this point it's a different channel. We've got a new leadership team today. What's different here at KORE in the channel is that. The internal teams understand the channel today, which is something you and I struggle with trying to teach and train and motivate internal teams on who the channel is, who partners are, who agents are, how they work, how they understand our services and how they make a living. That was a struggle. That's not a struggle at KORE anymore. That's part of the reason I came back to the team. very channel focused. We team with all the direct reps. And so the direct reps are hungry for partner opportunities and they treat them gingerly and they treat them well. So that's what's really changed here at KORE. Overall. What's interesting, Chris, is coming back to the channel post COVID because. I was in the channel here at KORE when COVID hit, and all of a sudden everyone was remote and we had great success regardless of what happened during COVID without having to go out and visit partners and agents and do events and travel. That all stopped, and we went to zero. Today. It's interesting, Chris, the last six months is, agents now have dispersed, they're all working remote offices that I was used to walking into and seeing 12 or 15 different reps in an office or independent brokers in an office. It's not the world anymore. They're, those offices are empty. I'm lucky if there's two or three folks in any given office, even if they have offices, here's. Part of the thing is many of our old larger agents out in the west, they've closed down their offices. The leases were up and they just shut'em down because no one was coming in. Why are they spending$15,000 a month or 10,000 a month for that rent and no one's showing up. So I think the biggest change for me is how. To get in front of partners today. So we have valuable conversations. So they see the value in what my product brings to them and how they can make money selling our services. Because it's just the lunch and learns the dine and dashes, the whatever the events we were doing, they're just not attracting partners anymore. So that's the biggest change. So now it's been a lot of independent individual reach outs LinkedIn visits, phone calls, emails. So really it's just. Interesting. Trying to figure out the new way to work. The channel is what I'm seeing as far as that goes.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 17:17

You mentioned lunch and learns and events. And you're right, these are all tactics that have been around for a while and I've always web, webinars is a lot of work can go into separate webinar and you got five people show up. You're like my feeling is that's better than zero. At least still five.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 17:30

Five touches

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 17:31

Five. Do five pitches at one time. That's better than, I make five separate phone calls. Do you have an opinion on what kind of partner engagement activity is most beneficial or most productive? Have you seeing anything?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 17:45

I can tell you when I sit down face to face, it, there's a difference between having a teams call or a Zoom call with somebody, you're far away. It makes it tough for us to get together personally, but, there is the, a huge difference when you sit down with somebody and break some bread and have a meal and sit down and then. Those discussions tend to be more personal about who is Chris, who is Charlie, who is this agent I'm talking to? and I think that's the difference. When you meet someone face to face and you sit with them it's deeper than the 30 minute or the 45 minute zoom call because that really ends up being all business, all conversation about what we need to accomplish to get this customer their services. Whereas you sit down with somebody. it's not always, it's not always all about business. It's about who you are, who I am. And I think that's the difference. So for me, it's when I get a chance or an opportunity to sit with somebody personally, break some bread, have some coffee in an environment that's not a work environment, it really, that personalized touch is huge. So I,

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 18:47

Yeah.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 18:48

love that aspect of what we do. And I to find that more often I think is where we're gonna find success in this channel.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 18:55

No, it's, we always say it's about the relationship, it's always about the relationship. So in these conversations you're having, And of course you know me, wireless way, I love iot. What are you talking about the most when it comes to the area of iot technology and connectivity? Is there a common thread or is it all over the map?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 19:11

Oh, great question. Look, if you go back to five years ago, e every new technology has a boom, right? Becomes the buzz word and the hot topic, and everyone wants to learn about it. Today, it's ai. years ago was IOT. Years, seven years ago was SD wan, So e every time

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 19:28

Prior to that cloud,

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 19:29

that the cloud, right? So that those times are exciting that happens. And that happened for us in iot many years ago and back then we were talking about. Trash cans that opened automatically or would notify the maintenance teams or we're talking about connected this or connected that. Connected chairs in retail. All of this stuff was connected and I think the excitement of that was fun. And every agent was interested because it was a hot topic. the challenge is that. That appeal is gone. Right now. AI the newest buzzword and everyone's talking about AI and what to do there. So the difference today in my world, in the I in the iot space is we have to have not just connectivity, it's gotta be a solution. So today we focus on sourcing equipment. Purpose-built equipment. We focus on connecting that equipment with connectivity and we focus on delivering a complete solution to our end users. So it's not about just a sim some odd science project that needs connectivity, that literary science projects don't pay money'cause they take years off and sometimes they fizzle out because they are just that a science project. Whereas when we deliver solutions, we bring value to our partners, their customers make them look good and everyone wins in those situations.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 20:45

So when it comes for partners that are winning deals and making money, what do the what, tell me about the last few wins you've had. What did they look like? Protect the innocent and keep the names out, but what where are people winning and earning the commissions and the money.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 20:58

Yeah it, again, it's about solutions. Right now our, we have, we've been winning with purpose-built devices especially in the healthcare space. We KORE, most folks don't know this, we have a hundred million dollar a year healthcare business practice here at KORE, thriving. It's booming. In healthcare. There are remote patient monitoring solutions being delivered today. By all of the healthcare organizations, whether it's a Kaiser Permanente out here in the West, or Baylor Health in Texas, whatever the healthcare organization is, they're delivering these remote patient monitoring solutions. What that is, Chris, is if someone goes in for a surgery or some sort of term, post-acute, long-term issue, they need help with when they're released from the hospital. They are delivered, they are sent home with a kit. That kit would be a gateway they used to send Samsung tablets or with them and all these peripherals. And what that kit would do is basically that patient or participant could have a visit with their doctor in their home with all the tools that you'd expect to see in a doctor's office, except they have'em in their home. And what that is ideal for Chris is for especially hospitals, need to avoid what's called readmittance. If you go to have a large surgery at a hospital and you're released and within two or three weeks, you have to be readmitted because something didn't heal right and they have to open you up and do that surgery again. It's not any cheaper the second time around, Chris, so say that first surgery was$300,000. second time it's gonna be$300,000. So what happens is when they go to Bill, the insurance companies or the Medicare Medi-Cal, what's gonna happen is they're gonna get a veto on the second surgery or the second ad admittance because they're gonna say, look, we paid you once. If the patient didn't heal, it's on you. You're gonna have to eat that other$300,000. So to avoid that. They're sending home these kits to ensure patients are healing properly, or if something's going sideways, fever starts kicking in. They'll get notifications, they'll know it's happening, and they'll bring that patient in and get ahead of it before they have to get into a big, major surgery. So that's called RPM. Where we're winning big is. challenge with using consumer grade devices, no offense to Samsung and iPads, they're fantastic. I have an iPad, I love it. Samsung Samsungs are great, but the challenge is they are really meant for consumers. you can't go out and buy a new iPhone and think you've got the latest and greatest'cause. Within three months, they'll have one that's even better than the last one you got. Three months, literally, right? Every three to six months there's a new iPhone, iPad, latest, greatest, right? That's fantastic for you and I if you want to have the greatest technology in a phone or a tablet, but it's not great for a business. Chris, imagine a Christmas a, a business, Chris that buys a. A thousand tablets and within a year that tablet now is end of life. It doesn't exist anymore and needs firmware updates and those updates happen when it's least expected or least wanted, and they often cause crashes. So now imagine you have a patient in the field with a kit, they have an iPad or a Samsung gets a firmware update, and now there RPM kit does not work. That could be tragic. It could cost hospitals thousands of dollars. Worse than that, it could someone's personal lives and their health. We work with a company called Social Mobile, which builds purpose-built devices. These devices, they don't have any bloatware. They're an Android gold cer. They're Google Gold, certified Android devices, so they're certified by Google. And these devices are purpose-built. They have a minimum shelf life of three years support for five to eight years from what I've seen to date. So now can basically support your healthcare customers. Trucking companies that use tablets, right? With these purpose-built devices that will last out in the field for 3, 5, 8 years without having to be refreshed every two to three years.'cause the devices are just end of life. Or if you, there's a huge market in. In certified pre-owned devices where companies are buying bits and pieces and patching together devices, they're a great value as far as cost goes, but in the long run they're very expensive because say you buy a thousand of this apple iPad version X one, two, and then you buy, you find another certified pre-owned pa, that batch of devices, 500 of these devices, version three, 400 of these devices. Now you have a mix, mash mix and mash of. Of devices and equipment in your inventory that don't make sense. Whereas if you go with a purpose-built device, Chris, now that healthcare organization has a single device, they can keep finding those devices for years to come buy new ones. They don't have to refresh every year, and they've got a device that is the same with all of their users in the organization. So it's huge cost savings, literally millions of dollars. And where we're winning, Chris is our current customers. Are literally refreshing all of their old certified pre-owned devices or iPads or Samsungs with social mobile devices that are purpose-built and will only do what they want it do for, want it to do for the next three to five years and longer from what we've seen.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 26:01

And a lot of the iPads in Samsung, consumer tablets have a lot of features and technologies that a business really doesn't need, so they're paying a premium. So oftentimes, not only is it purpose built, but it's probably more cost effective and budget friendly. Is that a fair statement?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 26:16

That's ab absolutely. They're budget friendly. They're probably a third of the cost, half the cost sometimes then your Samsung and iPads out there. The other thing is, what you talked about is bloatware. Whenever you get a, the latest, greatest phone, right? What happens is there's all these, apps on there that you'll never use. You can't delete'em. But what no one realizes is they're actually eating up memory behind, the scenes.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 26:36

battery life?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 26:37

battery life and your phone doesn't work that long. So imagine getting ready of that called bloatware. So now you don't have any bloatware on these devices. So they, the batteries last longer, the devices last longer. You don't have to worry about any of those things. Eating at memory, they work better, they're more efficient,

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 26:52

Is

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 26:52

built.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 26:53

when you say social mobile is it, are they really. Meant to be replacements for smartphones or smart tablets, or are there other devices like maybe point of sale or you see a lot of people, a lot of restaurants now taking orders on toast and clover devices, zebra devices, or did they do anything beyond a smartphone and a tablet?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 27:12

They're working on a couple things. They're look working on smart watches.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 27:16

Okay. Okay.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 27:16

the healthcare space that will do, more than what your I, your iWatch will do. They're working on dongles, right? Plugin dongles. That's a space that I think has been neglected for years. Just a dongle that'll have a sim card in it, and you can plug it in and out of different devices as you need connectivity. So they are working on other devices.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 27:34

Cool.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 27:35

in mind, these are not replacements for iPhones and I, Samsung they're not. Consumer grade devices, they don't have, you can't, they're not made to make phone calls. They're not made for the consumer. These are strictly purpose built for business use only.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 27:47

Got it. Got it. Yeah, you see a lot of in inventory and logistics and, everything's scanning the barcodes or the QR codes Hell lot. Yeah. You don't need a$800, a thousand dollars device to do that. You just need something with a basic, and you said there are androids, so you can load an MDM on'em as well, I imagine,

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 28:03

absolutely. And that's part of the services we offer at KORE. We work with all the top MDM services, manage engine, O-D-I-B-M, mass winnable, right? So we can load that device with the MDM, services load it with the customer's applications. Make sure it works, has connectivity.'cause that's what we do as an MVNO. We provide connectivity, we'll make sure the device works globally. We launched these, we sell these devices around the world and with our super sim, they will connect around the world with a single single sku, single IMSI KORE sim, which is also added value. Again, it's a complete solution that we're offering Chris, and that's the value we bring to our customers. We're not just. Of competitors in our space only do connectivity. We don't just do connectivity. We provide complete solutions here at KORE.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 28:48

Did I understand correctly? You guys are have a voice offering now there, like a voiceover IP type solution?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 28:54

So not KORE directly, but look, any device that has a SIM card and connectivity voice could be converted to data via WhatsApp,

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 29:04

Yeah.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 29:04

there's other VOIP applications. So that in essence could become a voice solution, and

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 29:10

Got it.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 29:10

most applications in the healthcare space use. When they're having a visit with a part patient and a doctor, that patient will have their social mobile device in their home. They can have a phone call'cause there's a camera in there. They can have that conversation. But it's all digital. It's not traditional Services.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 29:26

I'd be curious to know if they, if someone should survey. I could do a survey, a poll, but. Of all the voice conversations you have on your smart device, how many of them are actually over the PTSN? How many are actually over the switch network or, you dial a phone number, it's always even FaceTime. My granddaughter FaceTimes me all the time and I. There's no phone number there. It's just, it's FaceTime. Even right now we're talking over a data based solution whether it be again, zoom and, teams and all that. Yeah. So it's really interesting to see where the future goes when it comes to mobile voice solutions. I definitely think we're seeing this pivot, maybe, but

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 30:02

digital. Everything's digital. Everything's data.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 30:04

man, so is there anything else we haven't, that we need to talk about? I. Charlie, anything? Anything we haven't mentioned or any last words you want to give us?

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 30:14

I just I think, I, there's a lot of competition in our space in the iot space. And what I want to do is simplify. What we do for our partners out there. And let them understand a couple things, right? You can come to us not just for connectivity. We're not just a sim provider, we're not just an iot provider. We are a solutions company. We wanna be the trusted advisor to ensure that when you bring us your opportunities, we'll ensure that we bring a solution to the table. A device. Connected device, MDM services, if needed, deployment services. We can also do third party logistics where we'll deploy these kits completely working to the end users. Whether it's a distribution center that will redistribute these devices or whether it's to the actual participants or patients like actual individual users. We'll ship directly to those users. And the other side of that is we do the reverse logistics. So we'll also return those devices. Those are things that we offer that I think our competition can't touch. The complete logistics, full lifecycle services here at KORE.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 31:17

Wow. That's a good one to leave on. Yeah, that's, managed device, mobile devices are not going away. They're just becoming more and more prevalent. Again, you going back to the restaurants, obviously healthcare too. You go to the doctor, you, instead of signing in on a clipboard you're, punching away on a tablet, checking in everything, everything is gonna be a tablet. There's clipboards are going away. Even, the small restaurants are, I travel, I'm seeing more and more. Of the orders being taken on these handheld devices. You go to the big box home Depot, Lowe's, they're checking inventory on a handheld device without having to run back to the computer terminal, so

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 31:50

ever been in a retail store where, they're checking you out, with a tablet, so you don't even have to go to the

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 31:55

That's Right. Yeah. Seeing that more and more.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 31:57

the world is changing and technology is a part of it and jump on board. It's fun. It makes things easier and cork can help.

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 32:04

Excellent. Charlie, thank you so much for making time today. It's been a great conversation. We covered a lot. If you're listening, definitely check the show notes, some links to learn more about KORE. And if you need to contact Charlie and the team he's with I'll have that information in the show notes, man. Thanks so much. It's been as always a pleasure and I'm so glad we got to do this.

charlie_1_06-03-2025_080947: 32:23

Thank you so much, Chris. Really appreciate it. I'm honored to be here and thank you again for the

chris_1_06-03-2025_111255: 32:27

Yeah, man. Honor's all mine, brother. I there you go folks. Another episode of The Wireless Way. And as always, if you heard something that kinda hit home it made you think about a a customer, a prospect, or maybe a colleague, please share this episode with'em. And check out the wireless way.net. It's a website where you can hit the contact us button and send any feedback, input, suggestions, recommendations. I love to hear from you and how we can make this show better for you. So once again, thanks so much. So grateful you joined us today, and I'll talk to you next time on the Wireless Way.