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Will Townsend

Chief Analyst at LoneStar Advisory & Research

Bastrop, Texas, United States

Top 10 Ranked Analyst in the World by ARInsights - Networking & Security Analyst Featured on NPR & WSJ, Technology Consultant & Avid Cyclis

Will Townsend Points
Academic 0
Author 67
Influencer 52
Speaker 0
Entrepreneur 0
Total 119

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Company Information

Company Type: Company
Theatre: Global
Minimum Project Size: $5,000+
Average Hourly Rate: $300+
Number of Employees: 1-10
Company Founded Date: Undisclosed

Areas of Expertise

5G 30.03
Agentic AI 30.31
AI 30.12
AI Infrastructure 31.03
Cloud 30.03
Customer Experience
Cybersecurity 30.03
Data Center 30.38
Digital Transformation
Emerging Technology 30.05
Generative AI
Innovation 30.81
IT Leadership 30.97
IT Operations
IT Strategy
Management 30.13
Marketing
Quantum AI
Quantum Computing
Security 31.33
Smart Cities
Telecom 41.73

Industry Experience

Consumer Products
Healthcare
High Tech & Electronics
Industrial Machinery & Components
Media
Telecommunications

Publications & Experience

4 Analyst Reports
ANALYST INSIGHT: Marvell’s Trailblazing Efforts in System Development
Moor Insights & Strategy
September 30, 2025
As AI surges in importance, there is a need for shorter time-to-market. There is also a demonstrable need to manage overall development costs to improve margins by leveraging other core competencies of solution providers. Silicon system development addresses both of these challenges.

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Tags: Innovation

ANALYST INSIGHT: The Value Of Analytics And Observability Within Nokia’s Autonomous Networks Platform
https://moorinsightsstrategy.com/
February 12, 2025
Modern network deployments embrace disaggregated infrastructure, and for good reason. The use of cloud services allows service providers to avoid costly upfront capital investments, while also forgoing the hassle of procurement, configuration, provisioning, deployment, and management tasks.

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Tags: Innovation, Telecom, Analytics

ANALYST INSIGHT: Exium Aims to Disrupt the SASE Market with Managed Networking and Security Services
https://moorinsightsstrategy.com/
February 07, 2025
The software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) market — including what has matured into the secure access service edge (SASE) market — has become a crowded space, and for good reason. Enterprises are adopting SD-WAN and security-infused SASE services in growing numbers, given their ability to improve connectivity performance and resiliency based on application and user demands

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Tags: IT Leadership, Security

ANALYST INSIGHT: Nokia’s Mission to Optimize Security Outcomes Through Modern AI Ops
https://moorinsightsstrategy.com/
January 29, 2025
Over the past several years, AI ops has allowed enterprises to achieve improved service reliability, faster resolution of IT-related issues, reduced operational costs, and higher degrees of network assurance.

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Tags: Security, Telecom

12 Article/Blogs
Black Hat USA 2025: The Year Of The Enterprise Browser
Forbes
August 20, 2025
Black Hat USA 2025 returned to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, marking its 27th year in North America. With more than 22,000 participants, the event unwound over six days with an agenda that focused on deep dives into cybersecurity, underlying research efforts, practitioner training, vendor summits, technical demonstrations and social events.

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Tags: AI Infrastructure, Emerging Technology, Telecom

Palo Alto Networks Completes Its Platform Play With CyberArk Deal
Forbes
August 13, 2025
The proposed $25 billion acquisition reflects the growing importance of identity management — and would fill a crucial gap in the Palo Alto Networks portfolio.

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Tags: Innovation, Management, Security

The Agntcy Framework For Agentic AI Moves To The Linux Foundation
Forbes
July 29, 2025
The Agntcy open source project, aimed at harmonizing interactions among AI agents, is gaining more support among major IT vendors with its move to The Linux Foundation.

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Tags: Agentic AI, AI, Management

HPE Ramps Up Networking, Automation And Observability At Discover 2025
Forbes
June 30, 2025
Celebrating 10 years as an independent company, HPE has asserted itself in its traditional areas of strength and touted its broader strategy for agentic AI in networking.


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Tags: Agentic AI, AI

Cisco Charts Its Agentic AI Journey At Cisco Live U.S. 2025
Forbes
June 18, 2025
Cisco has quickly developed deep agentic AI integrations across its networking, security and observability products, along with a renewed focus on customer experience.

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Tags: Agentic AI, AI

RSA Conference 2025 Highlights, Insights And Companies To Watch
Forbes
May 07, 2025
The annual RSA Conference has become a showcase for the application of modern AI within cybersecurity — with agentic AI as the star of this year's show.

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Tags: AI, Cybersecurity

Unpacking Google Cloud Platform’s Acquisition Of Wiz
Forbes
March 21, 2025
Alphabet’s acquisition of Wiz should improve Google Cloud Platform’s security capabilities, and could make GCP more competitive against bigger cloud service providers.

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Tags: Cloud, Security

9 Telecom Insights From Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2025
Forbes
March 18, 2025
Attendance at MWC Barcelona 2025 was at an all-time high, with a big emphasis on enterprise connectivity, including private networking and plenty of AI.

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Tags: AI, Management

Transforming Telecom Operations Through Agentic And Generative AI
https://www.forbes.com/
February 24, 2025
Modern AI, encompassing generative and agentic solutions, continues to be at the forefront of technology conversations. In this piece, I will dig deeper into several telecom service providers that I believe are embracing the power of modern AI to significantly improve subscriber experiences and in the process transform operational efficiency and service delivery.

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Tags: Agentic AI, Innovation, Telecom

AT&T Refines Subscriber Experience With New Service Guarantee And More
https://www.forbes.com/
January 30, 2025
Following my participation at the AT&T Analyst and Investor Day in December, I had an opportunity to speak with Jenifer Robertson, executive vice president and general manager of the company’s Mass Markets business unit that provides consumer wireless and wireline services.

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Tags: Telecom

MITRE ATT&CK Round 6 Insights
LinkedIn
December 12, 2024
For the past several years, the MITRE ATT&CK (Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge) framework has provided an analysis of cybersecurity threat actor tactics, techniques, and procedures and, in the process, measures how well endpoint security solutions detect and prevent cyber threats. Last year’s Round 5 focused on the ability of almost thirty EDR solution providers to detect, analyze, and describe the techniques of threat group Turla through the execution of multiple attack scenarios.

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Tags: Security

Juniper Furthers Its Reach into the Enterprise with SD-WAN Enhancements
LinkedIn
January 20, 2022
For many years, Juniper Networks was a service provider play. During that time, Juniper’s bigger rivals Cisco and Aruba made hay in the enterprise space while it stood on the sidelines, evidenced by flatlined gross revenue. However, the company has made significant inroads into the enterprise market. Juniper has established sales momentum through a mix of acquisitions in Mist Systems and 128 Technology, strategic partnerships with Anuta Networks for needed automation capabilities, and organic roadmap development and repositioning. At the same time, I believe Juniper has formulated the proper positioning, leaning into artificial intelligence credibly to create to power what it has coined as "experience first networking." This week, the company made several enhancements to its SD-WAN offering to further its enterprise sales momentum. I want to highlight my key takeaways.

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Tags: Security, Mergers and Acquisitions, AI

1 Miscellaneous
RESEARCH NOTE: The McLaren Formula 1 Team Goes for the Checkered Flag with Connectivity and Security
https://moorinsightsstrategy.com/
February 13, 2025
Formula 1 is considered the most popular annual sporting series globally, as measured by Nielsen Sports. Over 750 million fans attend and tune into Grand Prix events around the world, including the race in my hometown of Austin, Texas.

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Tags: IT Operations, Security, Sports

1 Podcast
The G2 on 5G: Episode 237 – Mavenir, NVIDIA & Intel, MasOrange, Meta and More!
Moor & Insights Strategy
September 18, 2025
In this episode of The G2 on 5G, Will Townsend and Anshel Sag break down six fast-moving stories: Avenir’s “agentic AI” ambitions for OSS, why NVIDIA is investing in Intel and what NVLink on x86 could mean for edge AI and future 6G, MásOrange’s nationwide launch of Voice over New Radio (VoNR) in Spain, Meta’s next-gen smart glasses (including Oakley Vanguards and a display model) and how 5G enables on-device AI, NATO’s MN5G dual-use experiments for defense and critical infrastructure, and EchoStar’s post-spectrum-sale strategy.

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Tags: 5G, Agentic AI, AI

4 Videos
The Future of Telecommunications Starts with Autonomous Networks – Six Five Media
https://moorinsightsstrategy.com/
February 10, 2025
Autonomous networks = the next big thing? Will Townsend, VP & Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy gets the download in his conversation with Vishal Singh, Nokia‘s Senior VP, on how AI and machine learning are revolutionizing network efficiency and the power of autonomous networks in the telecommunications sector.

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Tags: Innovation, Telecom

Datacenter Podcast: Episode 37 – Talking Cisco, Google, Nutanix & Dell
https://moorinsightsstrategy.com/
February 10, 2025
On this week’s edition of MI&S Datacenter Podcast, Moor Insights & Strategy co-hosts Matt, Will, and Paul analyze the week’s top datacenter and datacenter edge news. This week they talk Cisco, Google, Nutanix & Dell.

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Tags: Data Center

Six Five Media – NTT R&D Forum 2024: A Showcase of Innovation Aimed at Creating a Better Future
https://moorinsightsstrategy.com/
January 29, 2025
NTT is a top 15 global tech company with nearly $100B in revenue and 340K employees worldwide. What many people don’t realize is they’re much more than a telecom provider – they’re also a major player in enterprise IT services, data centers, and even renewable energy.

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Tags: Security, Telecom, Data Center

Datacenter Podcast: Episode 36 – Talking Stargate – Is It Real?
https://moorinsightsstrategy.com/
January 27, 2025
On this week’s edition of MI&S Datacenter Podcast, Moor Insights & Strategy co-hosts Matt, Will, and Paul analyze the week’s top datacenter and datacenter edge news. This week they talk about Stargate – is it real?

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Tags: Data Center, Telecom

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