Sean Buckley
31 March 2025
Marriott Marquis
San Francisco, California USA
Events
Sean Buckley
Broadband Technology Report and Lightwave Magazine, Editor-in-Chief
About the Speaker
Like other journalists that have covered the telecom and IT space, my journey began over 20 years in 1998 ago by a stroke of luck. Other than once watching a film in the third grade on the Bell System’s voice telephone network, my knowledge of telecom was limited to making phone calls and conducting internal e-mails for a leasing company I worked for. After accepting a position at Information Gatekeepers – an independent publishing and analyst firm that once sat above a movie theater in Allston, Mass -- covering optical and local area networking, I was thrust into how to adapt to then emerging internet world. As a way to establish my knowledge of the telecom industry, my boss had me write short summaries of the day’s telecom events—an exercise that soon turned into the first web-based online publication called “Today in Telecom.”
After spending over a year establishing knowledge and good contacts, I applied for a staff editor position at Telecommunications Magazine. I then spent the next five years covering a mix of wireline broadband, edge and even emerging wireless technologies like MMDS and WiMAX. During this period, I saw the after effects from a build-it-and-they-will-come strategy that resulted in what many industry observers call the “telecom nuclear winter.”
But after nearly 7 years covering the telecom industry as a journalist, I took on the opportunity to be an analyst at Current Analysis. As an analyst covering first the public sector IT and later wireless space, I gained new skills in how to critically look at technology trends.
Following a three-year return to Telecommunications Magazine, one where helped drive the publication’s move from print to all online via the Telecom Engine brand, I found my way to FierceTelecom. For the next nearly next nine years, I steered the publication during a time of massive consolidation. I also drove FierceTelecom’s coverage of the emerging software-driven and automation trends via SDN and NFV.
