---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20200101224538.GA13368@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 22:45:38 +0000 From: Moderator <telecomdigestsubmissions@remove-this.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Of course AT&T is outsourcing thousands of jobs after getting a massive tax cut last year It's bad enough that AT&T cut thousands of jobs (after promising to create thousands of new ones) despite saving a reported $3 billion thanks to the Trump tax cuts that were signed into law in December 2017. The carrier had pushed hard for the tax cuts, promising to invest an extra $1 billion in 2018 - with CEO Randall Stephenson even touting that "every billion dollars AT&T invests is 7,000 hard-hat jobs." And he told CNBC the following, by way of continuing to make a public case for the tax cuts: "Lower taxes drives more investment, drives more hiring, drives greater wages. I know exactly what AT&T would do: We would invest more." https://bgr.com/2019/12/31/att-jobs-outsourced-after-tax-cut/ -- Bill Horne Telecom Digest Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <c33b1b7d-776d-4326-b315-c013fc543db4@googlegroups.com> Date: 30 Dec 2019 14:15:54 -0800 From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Pieces of the Past: Residents prepared for Y2K mania, survived On Saturday, December 28, 2019 at 11:16:48 PM UTC-5, Moderator wrote: > When the calendar flips over to January, there are high hopes for the > New Year and in 2020, uncertainty over threats of nuclear war and > strong political division. We weren't quite as computerized and computer dependent in 1999 as we are today. So, there was a lot of mission critical software that was still standalone. If it crapped out, maybe the bills or paychecks would be delayed a day or two, but the world wouldn't come to an end. It turned out there was adequate lead time to convert software and problems were few. Fast forward to today--everything these days is e-commerce and web dependent. Sabotage, malware, and fraud are rampant (just to name one example, a major convenience store chain discovered it had been hacked for months, stealing customer account data). In my humble opinion, today we're at far greater risk of a devastating meltdown. We are much more dependent on our computers and computer/phone networks to do pretty much anything. We see airlines grounded with massive delays from a computer trash. In my opinion, business and government are not doing enough to maintain adequate security and backup. Everyone wants convenience and credit cards, and to save labor. Every business wants all work done via computer with no humans. I think our environment today is at high risk. ------------------------------ Message-ID: <5d33852a-8cec-4e91-8ff7-07b363c81c2f@googlegroups.com> Date: 30 Dec 2019 14:23:59 -0800 From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Omaha: Frustration over outages at 911 call centers On Saturday, December 28, 2019 at 11:16:47 PM UTC-5, Moderator wrote: > Outages that are keeping you from getting through to 911 call centers > across Nebraska are preventable, according to Nebraska Public Service > Commissioner Crystal Rhoades. Here's more ads by the Bell System noting how its operators were trained and ready to assist in emergencies: https://archive.org/details/the-saturday-evening-post-1963-04-20/page/n49 https://archive.org/details/the-saturday-evening-post-1964-01-18/page/n67 When I read of 911 outages, I note that the problem may have occurred hundreds or even thousands of miles away in some centralized computer center. In my opinion, that's a bad practice even if it saves money. I believe it increases risk. Indeed, centralization over thousands of miles has been an industry belief for some years now because the technology exists so they can do it. But it often is lousy. As an example, the CSX railroad centralized is dispatching in Jacksonville, FL. But the people down there were clueless as to what was happening to trains 2,000 miles away. It was a mess. Then, a hurricane hit Jacksonville so the dispatchers left. The whole CSX system shut down. (Ok, some a bit of centralization might be efficient-- maybe we don't need staffed community exchanges as we had 75 years ago. But centralizing 100 miles is very different than 1,000 miles or 10,000 miles). ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Thu, 02 Jan 2020