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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months ago

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Richard R John’s “Network Nation”

THIS SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

The telegraph and the telephone have a special place in the history and future of competition and Big Tech. After all, they were the original tech monopolists. Every discussion of tech and monopoly takes place in their shadow.

Back in 2010, Tim Wu published The Master Switch, his bestselling, wildly influential history of "The Bell System" and the struggle to de-monopolize America from its first telecoms barons:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/11/01/the-master-switch-tim-net-neutrality-wu-explains-whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-for-net-freedom/

Wu is a brilliant writer and theoretician. Best known for coining the term "Net Neutrality," Wu went on to serve in both the Obama and Biden administrations as a tech trustbuster. He accomplished much in those years. Most notably, Wu wrote the 2021 executive order on competition, laying out a 72-point program for using existing powers vested in the administrative agencies to break up corporate power and get the monopolist's boot off Americans' necks:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

The Competition EO is basically a checklist, and Biden's agency heads have been racing down it, ticking off box after box on or ahead of schedule, making meaningful technical changes in how companies are allowed to operate, each one designed to make material improvements to the lives of Americans.

A decade and a half after its initial publication, Wu's Master Switch is still considered a canonical account of how the phone monopoly was built – and dismantled.

But somewhat lost in the shadow of The Master Switch is another book, written by the accomplished telecoms historian Richard R John: "Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications," published a year after The Master Switch:

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674088139

Network Nation flew under my radar until earlier this year, when I found myself speaking at an antitrust conference where both John and Wu were also on the bill:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VNivXjrU3A

During John's panel – "Case Studies: AT&T & IBM" – he took a good-natured dig at Wu's book, claiming that Wu, not being an historian, had been taken in by AT&T's own self-serving lies about its history. Wu – also on the panel – didn't dispute it, either. That was enough to prick my interest. I ordered a copy of Network Nation and put it on my suitcase during my vacation earlier this month.

Network Nation is an extremely important, brilliantly researched, deep history of America's love/hate affair with not just the telephone, but also the telegraph. It is unmistakably as history book, one that aims at a definitive takedown of various neat stories about the history of American telecommunications. As Wu writes in his New Republic review of John's book:

Generally he describes the failure of competition not so much as a failure of a theory, but rather as the more concrete failure of the men running the competitors, many of whom turned out to be incompetent or unlucky. His story is more like a blow-by-blow account of why Germany lost World War II than a grand theory of why democracy is better than fascism.

https://newrepublic.com/article/88640/review-network-nation-richard-john-tim-wu

In other words, John thinks that the monopolies that emerged in the telegraph and then the telephone weren't down to grand forces that made them inevitable, but rather, to the errors made by regulators and the successful gambits of the telecoms barons. At many junctures, things could have gone another way.

So this is a very complicated story, one that uses a series of contrasts to make the point that history is contingent and owes much to a mix of random chance and the actions of flawed human beings, and not merely great economic or historical laws. For example, John contrasts the telegraph with the telephone, posing them against one another as a kind of natural experiment in different business strategies and regulatory responses.

The telegraph's early promoters, including Samuel Morse (as in "Morse code") believed that the natural way to roll out telegraph was via selling the patents to the federal government and having an agency like the post office operate it. There was a widespread view that the post office as a paragon of excellent technical management and a necessity for knitting together the large American nation. Moreover, everyone could see that when the post office partnered with private sector tech companies (like the railroads that became essential to the postal system), the private sector inevitably figured out how to gouge the American public, leading regulators to ever-more extreme measures to rein in the ripoffs.

The telegraph skated close to federalization on several occasions, but kept getting snatched back from the brink, ending up instead as a privately operated system that primarily served deep-pocketed business customers. This meant that telegraph companies were forever jostling to get the right to string wires along railroad tracks and public roads, creating a "political economy" that tried to balance out highway regulators and rail barons (or play them off against each other).

But the leaders of the telegraph companies were largely uninterested in "popularizing" the telegraph – that is, figuring out how ordinary people could use telegraphs in place of the hand-written letters that were the dominant form of long-distance communications at the time. By turning their backs on "popularization," telegraph companies largely freed themselves from municipal oversight, because they didn't need to get permission to string wires into every home in every major city.

When the telephone emerged, its inventors and investors initially conceived of it as a tool for business as well. But while the telegraph had ushered in a boom in instantaneous, long-distance communications (for example, by joining ports and distant cities where financiers bought and sold the ports' cargo), the telephone proved far more popular as a way of linking businesses within a city limits. Brokers and financiers and businesses that were only a few blocks from one another found the telephone to be vastly superior to the system of dispatching young boys to race around urban downtowns with slips bearing messages.

So from the start, the phone was much more bound up in city politics, and that only deepened with popularization, as phones worked their ways into the homes of affluent families and local merchants like druggists, who offered free phone calls to customers as a way of bringing trade through the door. That created a great number of local phone carriers, who had to fend off Bell's federally enforced patents and aldermen and city councilors who solicited bribes and favors.

To make things even more complex, municipal phone companies had to fight with other sectors that wanted to fill the skies over urban streets with their own wires: streetcar lines and electrical lines. The unregulated, breakneck race to install overhead wires led to an epidemic of electrocutions and fires, and also degraded service, with rival wires interfering with phone calls.

City politicians eventually demanded that lines be buried, creating another source of woe for telephone operators, who had to contend with private or quasi-private operators who acquired a monopoly over the "subways" – tunnels where all these wires eventually ended up.

The telegraph system and the telephone system were very different, but both tended to monopoly, often from opposite directions. Regulations that created some competition in telegraphs extinguished competition when applied to telephones. For example, Canada federalized the regulation of telephones, with the perverse effect that everyday telephone users in cities like Toronto had much less chance of influencing telephone service than Chicagoans, whose phone carrier had to keep local politicians happy.

Nominally, the Canadian Members of Parliament who oversaw Toronto's phone network were big leaguers who understood prudent regulation and were insulated from the daily corruption of municipal politics. And Chicago's aldermen were pretty goddamned corrupt. But Bell starved Toronto of phone network upgrades for years, while Chicago's gladhanding political bosses forced Chicago's phone company to build and build, until Chicago had more phone lines than all of France. Canadian MPs might have been more remote from rough-and-tumble politics, but that made them much less responsive to a random Torontonian's bitter complaint about their inability to get a phone installed.

As the Toronto/Chicago story illustrates, the fact that there were so many different approaches to phone service tried in the US and Canada gives John more opportunities to contrast different business-strategies and regulations. Again, we see how there was never one rule that governments could have used if they wanted to ensure that telecoms were well-run, widely accessible, and reasonably priced. Instead, it was always "horses for courses" – different rules to counter different circumstances and gambits from telecoms operators.

As John traces through the decades during which the telegraph and telephone were established in America, he draws heavily on primary sources to trace the ebb and flow of public and elite sentiment towards public ownership, regulation, and trustbusting. In John's hands, we see some of the most spectacular failures as more than a mismatch of regulatory strategy to corporate gambit – but rather as a mismatch of political will and corporate gambit. If a company's power would be best reined in by public ownership, but the political vogue is for regulation, then lawmakers end up trying to make rules for a company they should simply be buying giving to the post office to buy.

This makes John's history into a history of the Gilded Age and trustbusters. Notorious vulture capitalists like Jay Gould shocked the American conscience by declaring that businesses had no allegiance to the public good, and were put on this Earth to make as much money as possible no matter what the consequences. Gould repeated "raided" Western Union, acquiring shares and forcing the company to buy him out at a premium to end his harassment of the board and the company's managers.

By the time the feds were ready to buy out Western Union, Gould was a massive shareholder, meaning that any buyout of the telegraph would make Gould infinitely wealthier, at public expense, in a move that would have been electoral poison for the lawmakers who presided over it. In this highly contingent way, Western Union lived on as a private company.

Americans – including prominent businesspeople who would be considered "conservatives" by today's standards, were deeply divided on the question of monopoly. The big, successful networks of national telegraph lines and urban telephone lines were marvels, and it was easy to see how they benefited from coordinated management. Monopolists and their apologists weaponized this public excitement about telecoms to defend their monopolies, insisting that their achievement owed its existence to the absence of "wasteful competition."

The economics of monopoly were still nascent. Ideas like "network effects" (where the value of a service increases as it adds users) were still controversial, and the bottlenecks posed by telephone switching and human operators meant that the cost of adding new subscribers sometimes went up as the networks grew, in a weird diseconomy of scale.

Patent rights were controversial, especially patents related to natural phenomena like magnetism and electricity, which were viewed as "natural forces" and not "inventions." Business leaders and rabble-rousers alike decried patents as a federal grant of privilege, leading to monopoly and its ills.

Telecoms monopolists – telephone and telegraph alike – had different ways to address this sentiment at different times (for example, the Bell System's much-vaunted commitment to "universal service" was part of a campaign to normalize the idea of federally protected, privately owned monopolies).

Most striking about this book were the parallels to contemporary fights over Big Tech trustbusting, in our new Gilded Age. Many of the apologies offered for Western Union or AT&T's monopoly could have been uttered by the Renfields who carry water for Facebook, Apple and Google. John's book is a powerful and engrossing reminder that variations on these fights have occurred in the not-so-distant past, and that there's much we can learn from them.

Wu isn't wrong to say that John is engaging with a lot of minutae, and that this makes Network Nation a far less breezy read than Master Switch. I get the impression that John is writing first for other historians, and writers of popular history like Wu, in a bid to create the definitive record of all the complexity that is elided when we create tidy narratives of telecoms monopolies, and tech monopolies in general. Bringing Network Nation on my vacation as a beach-read wasn't the best choice – it demands a lot of serious attention. But it amply rewards that attention, too, and makes an indelible mark on the reader.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/18/the-bell-system/#were-the-phone-company-we-dont-have-to-care

#pluralistic #books #reviews #history #the bell system #monopoly #att #western union #gift guide #tim wu #richard r john #the master switch #antitrust #trustbusting

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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For more than three weeks, Gaza has faced an almost total internet blackout. The cables, cell towers, and infrastructure needed to keep people online have been damaged or destroyed as Israel launched thousands of missiles in response to Hamas attacking Israel and taking hundreds of hostages on October 7. Then, this evening, amid reports of heavy bombing in Gaza, some of the last remaining connectivity disappeared.

In the days after October 7, people living in Gaza have been unable to communicate with family or friends, leaving them unsure whether loved ones are alive. Finding reliable news about events has become harder. Rescue workers have not been able to connect to mobile networks, hampering recovery efforts. And information flowing out of Gaza, showing the conditions on the ground, has been stymied.

As the Israel Defense Forces said it was expanding its ground operations in Gaza this evening, internet connectivity fell further. Paltel, the main Palestinian communications company, has been able to keep some of its services online during Israel’s military response to Hamas’ attack. However, at around 7:30 pm local time today, internet monitoring firm NetBlocks confirmed a “collapse” in connectivity in the Gaza Strip, mostly impacting remaining Paltel services.

“We regret to announce a complete interruption of all communications and internet services within the Gaza Strip,” Paltel posted in a post on its Facebook page. The company claimed that bombing had “caused the destruction of all remaining international routes.” An identical post was made on the Facebook page of Jawwal, the region’s biggest mobile provider, which is owned by Paltel. Separately, Palestinian Red Crescent, a humanitarian organization, said on X (formerly Twitter) that it had lost contact with its operation room in Gaza and is “deeply concerned” about its ability to keep caring for people, with landline, cell, and internet connections being inaccessible.

“This is a terrifying development,” Marwa Fatafta, a policy manager focusing on the Middle East and North Africa at the digital rights group Access Now, tells WIRED. “Taking Gaza completely off the grid while launching an unprecedented bombardment campaign only means something atrocious is about to happen.”

A WIRED review of internet analysis data, social media posts, and Palestinian internet and telecom company statements shows how connectivity in the Gaza Strip drastically plummeted after October 7 and how some buildings linked to internet firms have been damaged in attacks. Photos and videos show sites that house various internet and telecom firms have been damaged, while reports from official organizations, including the United Nations, describe the impact of people being offline.

Damaged Lines

Around the world, the internet and telecoms networks that typically give web users access to international video calls, online banking, and endless social media are a complicated, sprawling mix of hardware and software. Networks of networks, combining data centers, servers, switches, and reams of cables, communicate with each other and send data globally. Local internet access is provided by a mix of companies with no clear public documentation of their infrastructure, making it difficult to monitor the overall status of the system as a whole. In Gaza, experts say, internet connectivity is heavily reliant on Israeli infrastructure to connect to the outside world.

Amid Israel’s intense bombing of Gaza, physical systems powering the internet have been destroyed. On October 10, the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which oversees emergency responses, said air strikes “targeted several telecommunication installations” and had destroyed two of the three main lines of communications going into Gaza.

Prior to tonight’s blackout, internet connectivity remained but was “extremely slow and limited,” Access Now’s Fatafta says. People she has spoken to from Gaza say it could take a day to upload and send a few photos. “They have to send like 20 messages in order for one to go through,” Fatafta says. “They are desperately—especially for Gazans that live outside—trying to get through to their families.”

“Every time I try to call someone from family or friends, I try to call between seven to 10 times,” says Ramadan Al-Agha, a digital marketer who lives in Khan Yunis, a city in the south of the Gaza Strip. “The call may be cut off two or three times,” he told WIRED in a WhatsApp message before the latest outages. “We cannot access news quickly and clearly.” People in the region have simultaneously faced electricity blackouts, dwindling supplies of fuel used to power generators, and a lack of clean water, food, and medical supplies. “It is a humanitarian disaster,” Al-Agha says.

Connectivity in Gaza started to drop not long after Israel responded to the October 7 Hamas attack. Rene Wilhelm, a senior R&D engineer at the nonprofit internet infrastructure organization Ripe Network Coordination Center, says based on an analysis of internet routing data it collects that 11 Palestinian networks, which may operate both in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, began to experience disruption after October 7. Eight of the networks were no longer visible to the global internet as of October 23, Wilhelm says. Ahead of this evening’s blackout, there was around 15 percent of normal connectivity, according to data from Georgia Tech’s Internet Outage Detection and Analysis project. That dropped to around 7 percent as reports of the blackout circulated.

One office belonging to Paltel in the Al Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City has been destroyed in the attacks, photos and videos show. Floors have been destroyed and windows blown away in the multistory building, and piles of rubble surround the entrances. (It is unclear what equipment the building housed or how many floors Paltel occupied.) Another internet provider, AlfaNet, is listed as being based in the Al-Watan Tower. The company posted to its Facebook page on October 8 that the tower had been destroyed and its services have stopped, with other online posts also saying the tower has been destroyed.

Multiple Palestinian internet and telecoms firms have said their services have been disrupted during the war, mostly posting to social media. Internet provider Fusion initially said its engineers were trying to repair its infrastructure, although it has since said this is not continuing. “The network was destroyed, and the cables and poles were badly damaged by the bombing,” it wrote on Facebook. JetNet said there had been a “sudden disruption” to access points. SpeedClick posted that the situation was out of its control. And HiNet posted that it has “no more to offer to ensure” people could stay online following “the attacks and destruction our internet servers have suffered.”

Across Paltel’s network on October 19, according to an update shared by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 83 percent of fixed line users had been disconnected, with 53 percent of sites providing fixed line connections also being offline. Half of the company’s fiber optic internet lines in Gaza weren’t operational, the update says. The connectivity disappeared this evening, according to Paltel’s Facebook post, which says there has been a “complete interruption” of all its services. Paltel, AlfaNet, Fusion, and SpeedClick could not be reached or did not respond to requests for comment.

Lost Connections

In recent years, governments and authoritarian regimes have frequently turned to shutting down the internet for millions of people in attempts to suppress protests and curtail free speech. Targeting the communications networks is common during conflicts. During Russia's war in Ukraine, its forces have decimated communications networks, tried to take over the internet, and set up new mobile companies to control information flows. When Hamas first attacked Israel on October 7, it used drones to bomb communications equipment at surveillance posts along the borders of the Gaza Strip.

Monika Gehner, the head of corporate communications at the International Telecommunication Union, says the body is always “alarmed” by damage inflicted on any telecommunications infrastructure during conflicts. The ITU, the United Nations’ primary internet governance body, believes “efficient telecommunication services” are crucial to peace and international cooperation, and its secretary-general has called for respecting infrastructure in the Middle East, Gehner says.

Officials in Israel have consistently claimed they are targeting Hamas militants within Gaza, not civilians, while responding to the Hamas attacks, which killed more than 1,400 people in Israel. The Hamas-run Health Ministry within Gaza has said more than 7,000 people have been killed there and released a list of names. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces did not respond to WIRED’s questions about internet disruptions within Gaza.

Hanna Kreitem, a senior adviser for internet technology and development in the Middle East and North Africa at the Internet Society, an open internet advocacy nonprofit, says Palestinian firms have a “big reliance” on Israeli internet firms. “Palestinians are not controlling any of the ICT infrastructure,” says Mona Shtaya, a non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. Mobile networks in the Gaza Strip rely on 2G technologies. Al-Agha, the digital marketer, shared a screenshot showing mobile internet speeds of 7.18 kilobytes per second; average mobile speeds in the US in 2022 were 24 megabits per second, according to mobile analytics firm Statista.

“The internet is vital in times of war in crises,” says Fatafta, the Access Now policy manager, who adds that there can be “terrible consequences” linked to connectivity blackouts. The UN’s OCHA said rescue workers have had a harder time “carrying out their mission” partly due to the “limited or no connection to mobile networks.” Al-Agha says he has lost some clients due to the disruptions. The lack of connectivity can obscure events that are happening on the ground, Fatafta says. News crews have told WIRED they have footage from the ground but are “losing the story because of the internet.”

Kreitem says that a lack of electricity and access to the equipment will have made an impact on top of any physical damage to communications networks. “We don't know how many of the people that actually operate these networks are still alive,” Kreitem says. “The network operators are part of the world there, there's no place for them to run. They are as affected as any other person.”

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beardedmrbean · 3 months ago

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Finnish media outlets closely followed Tuesday night's US presidential debate, when Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, met face to face for the first time.

Finnish outlets were particularly interested in the candidates' stances on Ukraine — unsurprisingly as Finland is among the world's top military aid donors to the war-torn country.

Ilta-Sanomat reports that Trump was asked whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war, but he avoided giving a direct answer.

"I want the war to stop. I want to save lives," Trump said, adding that Europe had not done its share to end the war. "They [The Biden administration] don't ask Europe, which is a much bigger beneficiary to getting this thing done than we are," Trump said.

Tiktok and kids

Some 1.6 million people in Finland use the short video app Tiktok every week, but the Chinese-owned company doesn't want to reveal who moderates the content.

Hufvudstadsbladet talked to Chloe Setter, the platform's European child safety manager on a recent trip to Helsinki. She said the platform is neither intended for nor suitable for children under 13.

HBL noted that this was an interesting admission given that a survey conducted by the telecom operator DNA three years ago showed that as many as one in five children aged 5–12 in Finland regularly use the platform.

"Verifying a user's age sounds very simple, but in reality, it's complicated," Setter told reporters.

According to Setter, the platform has some 30 moderators reviewing Finnish-language content and argued that the company is an industry leader in working to keep children safe.

What TikTok does not want to reveal, according to HBL, is where the Finnish or Swedish-speaking moderators are actually located. This means that outsiders can't know whether these are people who speak the language or if they are simply employees tasked with monitoring user activity in Finland and Sweden.

Hormonal changes

Fuelled by social media, children as young as ten have started using pricey skin products that scientists now say are harmful to growing bodies as these products often contain phthalates, chemicals associated with numerous health harms.

Known as "endocrine disruptors", they are chemicals that interfere with the human hormone system and are found in a wide range of everyday household products.

Helsingin Sanomat reports on an American study indicating that children as young as four are being exposed to phthalates.

"This finding isn't at all surprising, Jorma Torppari, a pediatric endocrinologist, told HS.

The widespread use of skincare products among pre-teens has become a growing trend on Tiktok. On that front, Torppari said it would be wise for kids to exercise caution.

"Early adolescence is a particularly sensitive period when the development of reproductive organs is most vulnerable to potential harm," he said.

No longer testing on animals, cosmetics companies try their products on synthetic skin and cell cultures that don't gauge hormonal impact, according to Torppari.

"The users themselves are the guinea pigs," he said.

#nunyas news #updates from up north

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schraubd · 8 months ago

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End Spoofing

The Portland JCC, which also houses the local Jewish Day School, was swatted today. Elsewhere, the mom of a friend of mine nearly got victimized by a scam where someone used voice-altering software to impersonate her daughter and beg for money after she was "in a car accident". It's no mystery that these sorts of scams seem to be on the rise, and seem to be increasingly sophisticated. And I doubt I'm giving any hot take when I say that these scammers are absolutely, 100%, the lowest of the low. One common tactic in these thugs' repertoire's is "spoofing" -- basically, impersonating another number when they call you, so it shows up on Caller ID as your doctor or the IRS or a customer support center (or just hides the actual number that the person is calling from). I don't know whether spoofing was involved in either of the above incidents. But I'm increasingly of the mind that we might need to just ban spoofing outright. I'm aware of the legitimate reasons for spoofing. A business wants a call to register as emanating from their main line, not whatever back office is calling you. Or someone working from home still wants to be identified as calling from their company, not their personal cellphone. I even can understand some cases where spoofing may have anti-fraud properties (it lets me know that the call is coming from someone at Aetna, which I may be disinclined to believe if the phone number is the random area code of wherever the nurse went to high school). But at this stage, I just don't see those real benefits as outweighing the costs. It doesn't seem like the phone companies have any real way to distinguish "bad" spoofing from good. And while I don't actually know the mechanics (so what I say next might be entirely wrong), it seems to me that it would be technologically-easier to simply ban the practice outright -- create no mechanism through which phone calls can "identify" themselves as anything but their unique actual phone number -- than to engage in what seems to be a losing game of whack-a-mole. And sure, I know in my heart that this is probably a lot more complicated than I realize (though I do genuinely believe that it's one of those things where, if there was some serious government regulatory muscle behind it, you'd see the telecom providers hop to it). But one of the joys of aging is that I get to cantankerously grumble about problems and just demand they be fixed, and I'm leaning in. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/WqlrTzE

#FCC #scams #telephone

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naturepointstheway · 2 years ago

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Youtube's Autocaption tried: Pekes and Pollicles edition, plus some extras

Mountains vs atoms: FIGHT! (Wait…aren't mountains, like everything else, made of atoms and thus particles? Eh, whatever.)

Indeed. A week-long pause is a long time indeed.

Pigs vs Particles: FIGHT! (Despite pigs also being made up of particles.) And somehow loons get involved. It's...complicated, I guess?

DAMN. Dogs (or at least one named Isadora) can drive tanks now?! These cats better up their game (then again, Misto could totally win against a tank with his magical powers. They still have an ace up their sleeves, so to speak.)

Also, I just love Michael's face here XD

And while not related to autocorrect, I just have to add this as a bonus:

Now some more bonus autocaption ones:

LET ALONZO SAY COCK. #letalonzosaycock

"Telecom songs with jellicle cats" is just making me think of hold music, but it's songs from Cats.

We apologise for the delay. Someone will be with you shortly.

Hold music: JELLICLE CATS ARE QUEENS OF THE NIGHT!

Also I'm sure several cats would be highly offended by the implication of being fragile. Especially Misto, who may be small but call him fragile and boy. You'll regret it.

The more thick, soundproof walls between yowling cats and long suffering humans, the better, I guess.

OMG even Jellicle cats are getting polls!

The Jellicle Moon is readying for battle with an electrical bow?

Yeah more likely he'd prefer kittens to pups, being a cat.

#cats the musical #cats 1998 #1998 cats #Munkustrap

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hasufin · 2 years ago

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In the beginning...

I was just talking to my spouse this morning, and realized how utterly unhinged Silicon Valley culture was back before the bubble burst.

For context, I graduated with a degree in Computer Science in December of 2000. I worked for a large telecom for a year before I got laid off - things looked okay, looked like we’d weather the recession, but then 9/11 happened and my company laid off 20,000 tech workers mostly in one metropolitan area. But that’s a story for another day.

Anyway, it’s worthwhile to note that while I graduated with a degree in computer science, almost none of my professors had CS degrees themselves. These were mathematicians, electrical engineers, physicists, and one psychologist (best teacher in the department) who had been on the ground floor building the field. We were the first generation of computer science graduates.

That’s important, really, because at the time nobody had any real idea what we could do. Corporate America sort of knew something different was happening, but had no grasp of what. Now, on the one hand big companies are - and were especially so before the tech bubble - very stolid, cautious creatures. But they’re also unrelentingly greedy, and while they had no idea just what these tech kids could do, what they could tell was that we were making lots and lots of money.

This meant that the more adventurous of the investing types would throw money at any damned thing. They really had no idea what would, and would not, work. There was no metric on how much to invest in anything, an the corporate world had no idea what was easy and what was hard. Which meant that if you had the right pitch (or went on the mythical hike up Mt. Tamalpeis) you could get millions of dollars in venture capital for, well, damned near anything. Astute readers may note this has slowed down a little, but is still happening. (Personally I suspect that venture capitalists will recover from their tech-induced cashtigmatism sometime in the 2040s, when major decisions are being made by people who grew up with information technology and are confident enough in the subject to say “Wait, this violates the laws of thermodynamics, it can’t work” though that’s complicated by the reality that it’s perfectly possible to become filthy rich on vaporware if you’re clever enough to get out at the right time).

Anyway. They also had no idea what to do with this new generation of techies. They had no idea how to recruit them, how to motivate them, or how to retain them. What they did know what that these were all young, recent college graduates. The more savvy folks also knew (and, less wisely, believed) the narrative that all the innovation was happening in dorm rooms and late night sessions, not in classrooms - which was true, but reductive and failed to appreciate that the late night hacking happened because of the classroom learning, an attitude which still permeates the industry.

What many companies did, then, was try to recreate that kind of college environment. My own experience with this was ancillary, but one saw enough to give credence to it. Casual work environments became de rigeur, of course. Companies began providing perks on a previously unheard of scale. (Well, sort of. The benefits traditionally offered to corporate executive put all the tech companies to shame, bu those perks were for the rich and well-heeled, not the mere workers. Anyway. At one such place - and considered pretty restrained for the era - they had coolers of drinks free for the taking, an onsite chef to provide restaurant-quality meals for free - including to take home, which encouraged people to work late - onsite gym, movie theater, and video games, and even a weekly beer truck. Some of these have settled as normal, others less so.

Now, these weren’t really stupid, when you consider. What these perks did was encourage people to work longer hours (we were all salaried anyway) and discouraged those same hackers from developing the kind of personal lives which would distract them from their hyperfixation du jour. Moreover, these non-compensatory benefits could be withdrawn on a whim - if it’s not in the contract, it exists at the CEO’s pleasure. Which is precisely what happened during the recession when the tech bubble burst.

It’s also worth noting that many fortunes were made in that era, often by people whom you would not imagine could become rich so easily. Some, of course, became unspeakably wealthy - this was the era which spawned Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos, to name a few. But also many rank and file workers ended up with several million dollars - I know of quite a few folks who had backgrounds not unlike mine, and ended up in the comfortable $10-20 million range (there’s a book, Microserfs, which introduces a characters as “the obligatory millionaire in our household”“).

Now, those fortunes are kind of an interesting phenomenon. At the time, many companies offered most of their compensation in stocks - you could be making $60,000 in cash, or you could get $40,000 in cash and $20,000 in stocks. Since those stocks were soaring, the latter option often came to an easy six figure salary. I knew many people at the time who were paying off their mortgage by selling stock. Which put them in quite a bit of a bind wen those stock prices tanked... But those whose stocks really took off, and who got out at the right time, ended up unexpectedly rich. The famed DNA Lounge of San Francisco exists for this reason, and numerous other odd, weird vanity projects in the Bay Area - yes, “Weird” requires money, and having an awful lot of people with money and no clear idea how to spend it does sometimes have a positive effect. But I also know a guy who lives in an aircraft hanger, surrounded by arcade games, TVs, and every other form of entertainment - a 50-year-old man living the dream of his 14-year-old self.

It was an interesting time. I just missed it, honestly. I suppose I could have dropped out of college my junior year, maybe I would have caught the wave, but I think I would not have fared particularly well.And I’m not sure I’d want to be the kind of person I’d have become if I had, either. But it certainly had a profound effect on the Bay Area, and will echo for decades to come.

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businesslawyersinvietnam · 2 years ago

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Regulations on Investment in Telecommunications Services in Vietnam

The field of telecommunications has appeared in Vietnam for more than 30 years and has helped the business environment and social life of Vietnam to develop. The process of liberalizing the telecommunications sector in Vietnam has led to the expansion of the telecommunications network and has become an attractive field for investors to set up company in telecom service, internet service, or join with Vietnamese partner on business cooperation contract in the same fields.

Telecommunication Lawyers in Vietnam

Currently, telecommunications services are not just telephones and telex, but variy with many types from simple to complex such as audio, video, data transmission services,… Besides the conveniences brought in life, telecommunications services have really become one of the important infrastructures of the economy. However, Vietnam government also impose certain requirements on foreign investors entering Vietnam in this sector.

Specifically, at present, foreign investors can only participate in investments in the form of joint ventures or business cooperation contracts with Vietnamese enterprises to provide telecommunications services. However, for the provision of services with network infrastructure, the partner in which the investor joins the joint venture must be a licensed telecommunications service provider in Vietnam. In addition, foreign investors are also limited on the percentage of charter capital in joint ventures. Accordingly, for services without network infrastructure, foreign investors own not more than 65% of charter capital and for services with network infrastructure, foreign investors do not own more than 49% legal capital of the joint venture.

On the other hand, foreign investors participating in business cooperation contracts will be able to sign a new agreement or switch to another form of presence with conditions no less favorable than those they are currently receiving. Furthermore, an organization or individual that already owns more than 20% of the charter capital or shares in a telecommunications enterprise may not own more than 20% of the charter capital or shares of another telecommunications enterprise doing business in the same company a market for telecommunications services.

Therefore, if the investor meets the above conditions, the investor will carry out the procedures for establishing an economic organization. Like other foreign-invested organizations, the establishment will go through two stages: investment registration and business establishment. For foreign investment projects in the business of telecommunications services, it is necessary to receive the investment approval of the Prime Minister. Accordingly, the investor submits the application for approval of the investment policy of the investment project to the investment registration agency and within 03 working days from the date of receipt of the complete dossier, the investment registration agency submit the application for appraisal opinions of the Ministry of Information and Communications. Within 15 days from the date of receipt of the dossier, the Ministry of Information and Communications shall give its appraisal opinions on the extent under its state management and send it to the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Within 40 days from the day on which the application is received, the investment registration agency shall organize the appraisal of the dossier and make an appraisal report and submit it to the Prime Minister for approval of the investment policy. After receiving the approval of the investment policy, the investor proceeds to establish the business as domestic entities.

The telecommunication services are subject to strong regulations hence the conditions for foreign investors to invest and set up company in telecommunication services or take part in providing telecommunication services are also relatively complicated. Therefore, investors are suggested to undertake research on telecommunication regulatory specific to their business with the help of telecommunication services lawyers in Vietnam to make the investment effectively.

Professionals at ANT Lawyers work on many a variety of telecommunications, media and technology transactions and cases. Our attorney’s industry knowledge and expertise allow us to effectively support the information technology sector. We could deliver the experience and expertise needed to handle issues in both private practice and in corporate and regulatory bodies.

ANT Lawyers, a law firm in Vietnam always follow up the regulations on investment in telecommunications services in Vietnam to update clients on regular basis.

You could learn more about ANT Lawyers TMT Practice or contact our TMT lawyers in Vietnam for advice via email [email protected] or call our office at (+84) 24 730 86 529

Source ANTLawyers: https://antlawyers.vn/library/regulations-on-investment-in-telecommunications-services-in-vietnam.html

#Regulations on Investment in Telecommunications Services in Vietnam #telecommunication services lawyers in Vietnam

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govindhtech · 2 days ago

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Vodafone And Google Cloud Unlock Gen AI For Telecom

Vodafone And Google Cloud Explore Telecom Gen AI Potential

Globally, generative AI is changing sectors, and the telecom sector is no exception. Generative AI has the potential to completely change the telecom sector, from individualized customer service and efficient content production to network optimization and increased efficiency.

Leading telecoms company Vodafone is aware of the enormous potential of advanced AI to transform its network engineering, development, and operations. Vodafone is starting an exciting journey to include generative AI into its network operations as part of its expanding, multi-decade cooperation with Google Cloud. The goal is to boost productivity, stimulate innovation, and optimize costs.

This blog post will explore the innovative ways that Google Cloud and Vodafone have used generative AI to increase productivity, creativity, and customer pleasure. They look at practical applications and give an overview of how this game-changing technology will develop inside Vodafone in the future.

The genesis of generative AI in Vodafone’s network

When Vodafone and Google Cloud began talking about the possible uses of gen AI in network use cases in late 2023, the roots of this partnership were planted. In March 2024, Vodafone and Google Cloud launched a hackathon in recognition of the technology’s revolutionary potential, bringing together more than 120 network experts with extensive knowledge of networks and telecoms but little expertise with AI/ML.

Innovation was sparked by this event, which led to the creation of 13 demonstration use cases using a combination of classical machine learning methods, Vertex AI Search & Conversation, Gemini 1.5 Pro, and a code generation model. These comprised:

AI-powered site evaluations: Using pictures, determine whether installing solar panels at RAN locations is feasible right away.

Using natural language searches, Doc Search for Root-Cause-Analysis (RCA) enables staff members to find pertinent material fast.

Natural language to SQL (NL2SQL): Developing intuitive user interfaces to enable colleagues who are not technical to use generative AI for activities such as SQL query generation.

Network optimization is the process of creating AI-driven tools to identify problems with networks, forecast possible outages, and help with setup.

With the help of Vodafone’s industry knowledge and the expanding possibilities of cloud computing, these creative solutions show how easily generative AI can be applied to real-world problems in the telecom sector. When the creative use cases from the Vodafone and Google Cloud hackathon specifically, RCA and NL2SQL were presented together at DTW 2024 in Copenhagen, other telecom companies keen to leverage the potential of generative AI expressed a great deal of interest.

Unveiling the potential: Understanding the network design, deployment and operations workflows

In order to have a thorough grasp of the normal workday in network departments, Vodafone and Google Cloud conducted in-depth interviews with a variety of network stakeholders. Network professionals’ problems and difficulties were clarified by these interviews, which also showed a wide range of areas where gen AI may be very beneficial.

The business case study that followed showed how using modern AI technologies might result in significant time and cost savings.

Vodafone and Google Cloud demonstrated the concrete advantages of gen AI in optimizing workflows, improving decision-making, and boosting efficiency, with over 100 use cases emerging from this network space discovery phase. Vodafone is working with Google Cloud to produce the following prioritized sample of gen AI for network use cases:

Empowering network operations with knowledge at their fingertips

During complicated occurrences, network operations teams frequently struggle to obtain vital information. It can take a lot of effort and impede quick resolution to move away from extensive documentation, incident reports, network topologies, and strategic plans. Vodafone is giving network operators immediate access to the information they require by leveraging Vertex AI Agent Builder‘s capability to extract and synthesize relevant information from these documents. They are able to make well-informed decisions more quickly as a result, which lowers downtime and improves network dependability overall.

Streamlining network engineering with automated documentation

It takes a lot of effort and time to create technical documentation, including network diagrams, high-level designs (HLDs), and low-level designs (LLDs). Multiple engineers and vendors are frequently involved, which might cause delays and irregularities. Vodafone plans to automate the creation of these papers by utilizing Gemini’s multimodal capabilities and artificial intelligence. Although human inspection is still essential, gen AI may offer a strong basis, saving engineers time, speeding up time to market, and enhancing the precision and coherence of technical documentation.

Transforming network development with data-driven insights

Large volumes of contractual data are thrown at network development teams, making analysis and decision-making difficult. Vodafone will using gen AI to examine thousands of contracts, extracting important terms and provide insightful information for the creation of contract templates. Together with ground categorization skills, gen AI can also make it possible to create digital twins of the Vodafone network. This minimizes mistakes and maximizes resource allocation by enabling more precise and efficient design and implementation of new network actions.

Enhancing customer fulfillment with AI-powered field technicians

Field technicians are essential to guaranteeing client pleasure. On-site visits, or truck rolls, are expensive and time-consuming. Vodafone will reduce the need for truck rolls, enable more efficient on-field responses, and prevent repeat dispatch by utilizing gen AI to provide field professionals with real-time information and multimodal troubleshooting help. Vodafone will save a lot of money as a result, and customers will have better experiences.

These applications demonstrate how gen AI has the ability to completely change a number of facets of Vodafone’s network operations. Vodafone’s usage of Gen AI is driving innovation and enabling a more customer-focused, agile, and efficient future.

Vodafone’s big bet: generative AI for the future

Vodafone’s network divisions stand to gain a great deal from the incorporation of Gen AI:

Zero-touch operations and accelerated automation: Gen AI can speed up network job automation, helping Vodafone meet its automation objectives more quickly and effectively.

Cost reduction: Gen AI can drastically cut Vodafone’s operating expenses by automating repetitive processes and streamlining network operations.

Time savings: Network workers may save a significant amount of time by using Gen AI-powered solutions to optimize operations and facilitate quicker decision-making.

Increased effectiveness: Gen AI has the potential to increase Vodafone’s network operations’ overall effectiveness through clever automation and optimization.

Innovation catalyst: Gen AI gives Vodafone the ability to stay ahead of the curve by creating new opportunities for innovation in network management, optimization, and design.

Building on past success: AI Booster and Neuron

Vodafone’s ambitious aim to integrate generative AI into all facets of its company is based on AI Booster and Neuron. Vodafone relies on these programs to research and apply cutting-edge AI.

Vodafone uses AI Booster, a Google Cloud Vertex AI-based machine learning platform, to build AI. Fast and efficient design allows this platform to create and apply AI models quickly. AI Booster’s strong automation and security features enable Vodafone’s data scientists to move from proof-of-concept to production with ease, greatly speeding up the rate of innovation.

Neuron, Vodafone’s specially designed “data ocean” hosted on Google Cloud, is a perfect match for AI Booster. As a central hub, Neuron compiles enormous volumes of data from all throughout the company into a single, easily accessible storehouse. The creation of potent generative AI applications is fueled by this data, which is essential for AI models training and analysis.

Imagine having an AI that can forecast possible problems, evaluate the performance of network components, and even recommend the best settings to avoid downtime. Vodafone is enabling this kind of revolutionary impact by fusing the extensive data resources of Neuron with the model creation capabilities of AI Booster.

Vodafone is able to create and implement innovative AI solutions with speed and efficiency thanks to the collaboration between AI Booster and Neuron. Faster insights, more precise forecasts, and eventually an improved customer experience are the results of this. Vodafone is putting itself at the forefront of the generative AI revolution in the telecom sector by making an investment in this strong foundation.

In conclusion

Vodafone’s work on generative AI marked a turning point in CSPs’ AI-powered future. Vodafone can use current AI to generate remarkable productivity, innovation, and cost savings. Vodafone’s dedication to pushing the limits of technical progress and providing its customers with outstanding network experiences is shown by this strategic cooperation with Google Cloud.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

#GenerativeAI #Google #googlecloud #Vodafone #telecom #govindhtech #NEWS #TechNews #technology #technologies #technologytrends #technologynews #ai

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timesofinnovation · 12 days ago

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As concerns over cybersecurity and geopolitical tensions rise, Portugal’s new center-right government has confirmed its commitment to a ban on Chinese technology within its 5G networks. This policy, initially enacted by the country’s cybersecurity board (CSSC) in May 2023, extends to 4G infrastructure that supports 5G capabilities, hindering the efforts of Chinese tech giants like Huawei to penetrate the Portuguese market. Infrastructure Minister Miguel Pinto Luz underscored the significance of this ban, framing it as a necessary measure to ensure national security. The decision aligns closely with the security policies of the United States and marks a more stringent approach compared to several other European nations. It comes at a time of heightened global scrutiny on Chinese technology and its implications for data privacy and security. Major telecom operators in Portugal, including Altice, NOS, and Vodafone, have already taken steps to exclude Huawei’s technology from their 5G networks. Thus, they are proactively complying with the restrictions imposed by the government. However, this exclusion is not without its economic repercussions. A recent study indicates that the economic impact of replacing Huawei technologies could exceed 1 billion euros, raising concerns about future investments in infrastructure. The financial implications of the ban are particularly concerning for telecom operators, who face considerable costs associated with the transition to alternative technologies. Despite these challenges, Minister Pinto Luz reassured operators that they have sufficient time to adapt their infrastructure and processes to comply with the ban, minimizing immediate disruptions to service. Interestingly, while Huawei is challenging the ban in court, it underscores the broader struggles between Western governments and Chinese tech companies, which have become focal points in the international debate over technology standards and security protocols. Legal battles surrounding the ban could further complicate the operational landscape for Portuguese telecom operators, particularly if the courts rule against the government. This situation raises critical questions about the future of digital infrastructure in Portugal and the larger implications for European telecommunications. The European Union has been striving for a unified approach regarding the privacy and safety of technology providers, yet individual countries are beginning to carve out their paths influenced by national security concerns. This emerging fragmented landscape could lead to inconsistent technological standards across Europe, ultimately impacting the global competitiveness of European telecoms. Adopting new technology can also influence the pace of digital transformation in Portugal. Operators may need to invest heavily in research and development of alternate solutions that align with the new standards while maintaining operational efficiency. This will, in turn, trigger a shift not just in equipment but in strategy as companies redesign their approaches for customer engagement and service delivery. Moreover, this ban has posed a reputational risk for technology firms that may have partnerships with Chinese companies. They must now deal with heightened scrutiny from both governments and consumers, who are increasingly concerned about data privacy and security. As public awareness of national security develops, companies may need to implement more transparent operational processes to maintain consumer trust. In terms of international relations, Portugal's stance is indicative of a broader Western trend where security considerations dominate over economic incentives. By maintaining this ban, Portugal asserts its sovereignty and commitment to protecting national interests against perceived external threats. For industry stakeholders, this evolving regulatory landscape presents a critical juncture to assess both risks and opportunities. Companies that are

prepared to pivot and innovate are likely to gain a competitive advantage, while those who delay may find themselves at a strategic disadvantage in the long run. In summary, Portugal’s decision to maintain a ban on Chinese technology for 5G networks not only highlights individual national security concerns but also reflects broader international tensions. The financial implications for telecom operators, the feasibility of alternative technology adoption, and the court challenges ahead will shape the narrative of technological advancement in the country. As Europe navigates this complex maze of cybersecurity, quality standards, and partnerships, Portugal’s decision may serve as a bellwether for the future of telecommunications infrastructure across the continent.

#News #cybersecuritypolicy #Europeantelecommunications #Huaweiban #Portugal5Gsecurity #telecomoperators

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kpgreenengineering · 13 days ago

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The Environmental Impact of Telecom Towers and Sustainable Practices

Telecom towers are an essential part of the telecommunications infrastructure, playing a vital role in providing mobile, internet, and other communication services. In India, telecom tower companies are pivotal to meeting the growing demand for connectivity in both urban and rural areas. However, while these towers help bridge the digital divide, they also present significant environmental challenges. From energy consumption to land use and e-waste management, telecom towers can have a considerable environmental footprint. Fortunately, many Telecom tower companies in India are adopting sustainable practices to mitigate these impacts, transitioning to cleaner energy sources, optimizing resource use, and reducing their carbon footprint.

In this article, we will explore the environmental challenges posed by telecom tower infrastructure and how companies are addressing them with sustainable and green initiatives.

1. The Environmental Challenges of Telecom Towers

Telecom towers are large structures that require significant energy to operate. They house various equipment like antennas, base stations, and amplifiers, all of which need a reliable power source to ensure continuous operation. Let’s break down the environmental challenges that telecom tower companies face:

A. High Energy Consumption

One of the biggest environmental impacts of telecom towers is their high energy consumption. Traditional telecom towers rely heavily on grid electricity, which is often sourced from fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, or oil. This leads to substantial carbon emissions, contributing to climate change. In addition to this, many telecom towers are located in remote areas where the electricity grid may not be easily accessible, further complicating energy sourcing.

B. Land Use and Habitat Disruption

Building telecom towers, especially in rural and forested areas, can disrupt natural habitats and ecosystems. The land required for tower construction and the infrastructure around it (such as access roads, power lines, and backup generators) can lead to deforestation, soil erosion, and disturbances in local wildlife populations.

C. E-Waste Generation

Telecom towers house a variety of electronic equipment, such as power amplifiers, radios, and routers. Over time, this equipment becomes outdated or damaged and needs to be replaced. Improper disposal of these electronics can lead to the generation of e-waste, which contains harmful substances like lead, mercury, and cadmium. If not properly disposed of, this e-waste can leach into the soil and water, posing risks to both human health and the environment.

D. Noise Pollution

Telecom towers are equipped with cooling systems for equipment, which can generate noise pollution in the surrounding areas. In densely populated urban areas, this can contribute to unwanted noise levels, affecting the quality of life for local residents.

2. Sustainable Practices by Telecom Tower Companies in India

To reduce the environmental impact, telecom tower companies in India are increasingly adopting sustainable practices and integrating renewable energy solutions. Let’s take a look at some of the key ways telecom tower infrastructure is becoming greener:

A. Transitioning to Renewable Energy Sources

One of the most impactful steps telecom tower companies are taking to reduce their environmental footprint is the transition to renewable energy sources. Solar and wind power are increasingly being used to power telecom towers, especially in remote and off-grid locations.

Solar Power: Many telecom tower companies are installing solar panels on tower rooftops to harness solar energy. Solar-powered towers can operate without relying on grid electricity, significantly reducing carbon emissions. These towers are particularly beneficial in areas with abundant sunlight, such as Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra.

Wind Power: Some telecom towers in coastal regions, such as Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, are equipped with small-scale wind turbines to generate electricity. By combining wind and solar energy, telecom tower companies can ensure that their operations remain sustainable even during periods of low sunlight.

Hybrid Power Systems: Many top tower companies in India are now implementing hybrid power systems that combine solar and battery storage, reducing their reliance on diesel generators (which are traditionally used as backup power sources). This shift helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as diesel-powered generators are major contributors to air pollution.

B. Energy-Efficient Equipment

Telecom tower companies are also focusing on using energy-efficient equipment to lower their overall energy consumption. This includes switching to more efficient LED lighting, low-power consumption antennas, and optimized cooling systems that require less electricity to operate.

The introduction of intelligent energy management systems has allowed telecom companies to monitor and optimize energy use in real time, ensuring that power consumption is kept to a minimum, and equipment only operates when necessary.

C. Tower Sharing and Infrastructure Optimization

One of the innovative ways telecom companies are reducing environmental impact is by sharing infrastructure. Instead of each telecom operator building its own tower, multiple operators can share a single tower, reducing the overall number of towers needed for network coverage.

This tower-sharing model not only cuts down on the number of structures being built, but it also reduces the amount of energy consumed by each tower. This practice helps save resources and reduces the need for land, decreasing habitat disruption.

D. Sustainable Materials and Green Building Practices

Some telecom tower companies are focusing on the sustainability of tower materials. By using recycled materials, such as steel and aluminum, for tower construction, they are reducing the demand for new raw materials and minimizing waste. Additionally, eco-friendly paints and coatings are being used to reduce the impact of chemicals on the surrounding environment.

Telecom tower companies are also exploring the concept of green building practices for tower sites. For instance, the incorporation of green roofs, rainwater harvesting systems, and energy-efficient buildings for housing telecom equipment is becoming more common.

E. Managing E-Waste Responsibly

To address the issue of e-waste, telecom tower companies are adopting circular economy principles. By recycling and refurbishing old equipment, companies can prevent e-waste from ending up in landfills. Telecom companies are also partnering with certified e-waste management firms to ensure that equipment is disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner.

F. Minimizing Noise Pollution

To reduce the impact of noise pollution, telecom tower companies are investing in noise-reducing technologies such as silent diesel generators and soundproofing materials around their equipment. These technologies help to lower the noise output from towers, making them less disruptive to nearby communities.

3. Future Outlook: The Green Telecom Tower of Tomorrow

Looking forward, the future of telecom tower infrastructure in India is likely to become even more sustainable. With the Indian government’s increasing focus on sustainability and green energy, telecom tower companies are expected to invest even more in renewable energy, sustainable materials, and environmental innovation.

In the coming years, we can expect the following:

Greater integration of 5G infrastructure: As India transitions to 5G, telecom tower companies will need to adopt next-generation technologies that are more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.

More widespread use of renewable energy: More towers will be powered by solar, wind, or hybrid energy systems.

Increased focus on reducing e-waste: Telecom companies will continue to improve recycling and disposal practices for old electronic equipment, minimizing their environmental impact.

Conclusion

Telecom towers are crucial to the modern communication landscape, but they also pose significant environmental challenges. Telecom tower companies in India are increasingly adopting sustainable practices, such as using renewable energy, sharing infrastructure, and reducing e-waste, to mitigate these impacts. As the demand for connectivity continues to grow, the telecom sector’s commitment to sustainability will be critical in ensuring a green and eco-friendly future for the industry.

#Telecom tower companies in India #Top tower companies in India #Telecom tower companies

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marketanalysisdata · 18 days ago

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Contact Center Software Market Segments by Application 2030

The global contact center software market was valued at USD 33.38 billion in 2023 and is projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.9% from 2023 to 2030. The primary driver of this growth is the increasing emphasis on enhancing customer experience. As businesses recognize the importance of high-quality customer service in fostering customer loyalty and satisfaction, they are investing in contact center software to improve response times, streamline interactions, and personalize each customer experience. In line with these efforts, the growing popularity of omnichannel communication is further accelerating the adoption of contact center solutions.

Modern customers expect to interact with companies through a variety of channels, including phone calls, email, live chat, social media, and more. Contact center software enables businesses to integrate and manage these diverse communication channels, ensuring that customers enjoy a seamless and consistent experience across all touchpoints. This omnichannel capability is especially important for companies looking to meet or exceed customer expectations for convenience and consistency.

In addition to omnichannel communication, the market is also driven by advancements in data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). Contact center software now incorporates AI-powered tools, such as chatbots, speech analytics, and predictive analytics, which help businesses automate routine processes, derive actionable insights from customer interactions, and enhance operational efficiency. These AI-driven features allow companies to understand customer behavior, predict their needs, and improve the overall customer journey.

Gather more insights about the market drivers, restrains and growth of the Contact Center Software Market

The drive for cost optimization and increased operational efficiency is another significant factor fueling demand for contact center software. These solutions allow businesses to streamline workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and increase agent productivity through functionalities like call routing, workforce management, and real-time reporting. By optimizing resources, businesses can minimize operational costs and enhance efficiency. Moreover, as companies continue to expand globally, contact center software is becoming essential for managing customer interactions across regions and time zones.

One of the challenges in the contact center software market is the complexity involved in integrating new software with existing systems. Integrating modern contact center solutions into a company's existing infrastructure can be a complicated process, requiring careful planning and coordination. Legacy systems or outdated infrastructure may not always be compatible with new technologies, leading to potential disruptions or integration difficulties. To address this challenge, businesses are encouraged to conduct thorough assessments of their current systems and infrastructure to identify compatibility issues or gaps. This preparatory step allows organizations to plan necessary upgrades or modifications, facilitating smoother integration.

End Use Segmentation Insights:

In 2022, the IT & telecom segment led the contact center software market, holding a revenue share of over 24.0%. The IT and telecom sectors heavily rely on efficient customer support systems to resolve technical issues, provide guidance, and deliver high-quality service. Contact center software is crucial for optimizing these interactions, ensuring that communication between customers and IT & telecom companies is seamless. Features such as call routing, automatic call distribution, and customer relationship management (CRM) integration help IT and telecom providers manage high volumes of inquiries efficiently, enabling them to resolve customer issues quickly and effectively.

The consumer goods and retail segment is projected to grow at the fastest rate over the forecast period. With consumers increasingly using digital channels for shopping, consumer goods and retail businesses are adopting contact center solutions to meet the demands of a tech-savvy customer base. Contact center software enables these companies to provide personalized interactions, helping build stronger customer relationships. By automating high-quality service interactions, this software also allows customer service agents to focus on activities that drive revenue and strengthen brand perception. Furthermore, AI-powered tools support these businesses by offering enhanced insights into customer preferences and behaviors, allowing for better-targeted support and marketing efforts.

In summary, the contact center software market is expected to witness substantial growth driven by increasing customer experience demands, omnichannel capabilities, and advancements in AI and data analytics. Despite challenges related to system integration, the market is anticipated to expand as businesses across industries adopt these solutions to improve operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty.

Order a free sample PDF of the Contact Center Software Market Intelligence Study, published by Grand View Research.

#Contact Center Software Market Trends #Contact Center Software Market Growth

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marketstudyreport · 18 days ago

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Contact Center Software Market 2030 Drivers Overview, Competitive Landscape & Future Plans

Gather more insights about the market drivers, restrains and growth of the Contact Center Software Market

End Use Segmentation Insights:

Order a free sample PDF of the Contact Center Software Market Intelligence Study, published by Grand View Research.

#Contact Center Software Market Trends #Contact Center Software Market Growth

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mariacallous · 8 months ago

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Ads containing abortion-related misinformation are allowed to run on Facebook and Instagram in countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, while legitimate health care providers struggle to get theirs approved, new research has found.

The report, released today from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and MSI Reproductive Choices, an international reproductive health care provider, collected instances from across Vietnam, Nepal, Ghana, Mexico, Kenya, and Nigeria. Between 2019 and 2024 in Ghana and Mexico alone, researchers found 187 antiabortion ads on Meta’s platforms that were viewed up to 8.8 million times.

Many of these ads were placed by foreign antiabortion groups. Americans United for Life, a US-based nonprofit whose website claims that abortion pills are “unsafe and unjust,” and Tree of Life Ministries, an evangelical church now headquartered in Israel, were both linked to the ads. Researchers also found that ads placed by groups not “originating in the country where the ad was served were viewed up to 4.2 million times.”

In the report, researchers found that some of the ads linked out to websites like Americans United for Life, whose website describes abortion as a “business” that is “unsafe” for women. The abortion pill is widely considered safe and is less likely to cause death than both penicillin and Viagra. Other ads, like one run by the Mexican group Context.co, linked to a Substack dedicated to the topic that implied there is a secret global strategy to manipulate the Mexican populace and impose abortion on the country.

One ad identified in Mexico alleged that abortion services were “financed from abroad … to eliminate the Mexican population.” Another warned that women could suffer “severe complications” from using the abortion pill.

Meta spokesperson Ryan Daniels told WIRED that the company allows “posts and ads promoting health care services, as well as discussion and debate around them,” but that content about reproductive health “must follow our rules,” including only allowing reproductive health advertisements to target people above the age of 18.

“This is money that Meta is taking to spread lies, conspiracy theories, and disinformation,” says Imran Khan, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

In these countries, where Meta often has partnerships with local telecom companies that allow users to access its platforms for free, Facebook is a key source of information. Some of these ads also ran on Instagram. “Anybody with a cell phone can access information. People use it to find services. When we ask clients, how did you hear about us? a lot of them will cite Facebook, because they live on Facebook. It's where they know to search for information,” says Whitney Chinogwenya, marketing manager at MSI Reproductive Choices. So when disinformation runs rampant on the platform, the impact can be widespread.

“Good health information saves lives. By actively aiding the spread of disinformation and suppressing good information,” Khan says, “[Meta is] literally putting lives at risk in those countries and showing that they treat foreign lives as substantially less important to them than American lives.”

Many of the countries impacted by this report also have high maternal mortality rates, making access to reproductive services particularly crucial. In Nepal, for instance, there are 239 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, as opposed to only 32 in the United States. In Ghana, it’s even higher: 319 deaths per 100,000 live births. This comes as the US continues to grapple with the implications of the 2022 Supreme Court decision that struck down Roe v. Wade. On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a milestone abortion case that will determine access to the abortion pill across the country. These laws and policies in the US are often fodder for those seeking to roll back abortion rights elsewhere in the world.

These findings are not the first instances of right-wing groups using social media to promote antiabortion messaging abroad. In 2022, the Spanish far-right group CitizenGo orchestrated a disinformation campaign on Twitter to rebrand a reproductive health bill focused on regulating surrogacy as an “abortion bill.” (The legislation did not address abortion.) A 2023 report from Amnesty International also cited social media as a key way that antiabortion groups disseminate their messaging and target reproductive-health workers.

The report also found that the problem extends beyond just abortion. In one instance, Meta removed one MSI Reproductive Choices ad for cervical cancer screenings in Nepal, saying it involved “sensitive information.” Another ad promoting breast cancer awareness in Ghana was also flagged, as was one in Kenya providing information on vasectomies.

After trying and failing to place ads on Meta’s platforms in Nepal and Vietnam, MSI’s local accounts were restricted from placing any further ads, forcing the organization to start new ones. “But of course, it doesn't have as much audience as we did on the original page,” Chinogwenya says.

Glenn Ellingson, a former Meta employee who worked on civic misinformation, tells WIRED that there are several factors that might lead to an ad being rejected from the platforms, including if it’s targeting a group considered “sensitive,” particularly in an automated system.

“When you’re operating at the scale Meta is at, there are always going to be errors,” he says, adding that greater investment in humans who could review and flag content would likely help the platform distinguish between content that violates its policies and content that doesn’t.

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36crypto · 19 days ago

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Beijing Police Uncover $111M Crypto Money-Laundering Ring Tied to Telecom Fraud Amid New Digital Asset Laws

Beijing police recently dismantled a vast money-laundering network allegedly moving 800 million yuan ($111.36 million) through cryptocurrency transactions tied to telecom fraud and online gambling. The operation reportedly used foreign cryptocurrency platforms to mask the illegal funds, complicating efforts for Chinese authorities as they strive to address rising cyber and financial crimes. The…

#China #Crypto

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truebylsolutions · 22 days ago

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Achieving a 360° Financial View of Telecom Tower Operations Through Convergent Billing

In today's rapidly evolving telecommunications industry, efficiently managing telecom tower operations has become a critical task for Towercos (Tower Companies). The increasing complexity of billing multiple sites, tenants, and diverse energy consumption models necessitates the implementation of a comprehensive financial management system. The solution lies in adopting a convergent billing system that provides a 360° financial view of all telecom tower operations. This approach not only simplifies the billing process but also offers enhanced visibility into revenue and operations, ultimately leading to operational excellence.

Challenges of Traditional Billing in Telecom Tower Operations

Powering telecom towers involves significant recurring expenses, such as energy consumption and site rentals, making monthly billing a complex process. For Towercos overseeing thousands of sites, each with unique billing parameters like the number of tenants or energy consumption models, manually verifying, validating, and approving invoices can be a tedious and time-consuming task. This complexity often results in:

- Human error: Manual billing processes are prone to inaccuracies, particularly when handling large volumes of data. - Delayed payments: Slow processing times can cause invoices to exceed their due dates, disrupting cash flow and creating financial strain. - Increased operational costs: The need for additional teams to oversee the billing process can lead to higher expenses, further reducing operational efficiency.

The manual management of telecom tower billing becomes increasingly inefficient as operations scale up. As Towercos expand into new regions and markets, the lack of billing standardization, coupled with varied contract terms, further complicates the task.

The Importance of Convergent Billing in Telecom Tower Operations

Convergent billing is the ultimate solution for addressing the challenges faced by telecom tower operations. By implementing an automated convergent billing system, Towercos can streamline their billing processes and overcome complexities with ease.

Here are some key ways in which convergent billing revolutionizes telecom tower operations:

1. Enhanced Accuracy and Efficiency: A convergent billing system eliminates the possibility of human error in the billing process, ensuring precise invoice generation. With the ability to process thousands of records in minutes, the billing engine operates seamlessly without the need for manual intervention.

2. Achieving Operational Excellence through Standardization: Standardizing the billing process across regions and countries allows Towercos to achieve operational excellence, regardless of the complexity of contracts or billing parameters. This uniformity reduces administrative burdens and enables teams to focus on more strategic tasks.

3. Improved Revenue Visibility: Convergent billing systems provide a comprehensive financial view, enabling real-time monitoring of site, tenancy, and asset data. Towercos can gain valuable insights into their revenue streams, empowering them to make informed decisions and identify new revenue opportunities within their portfolio.

4. Scalability and Flexibility: As Towercos expand, their billing requirements become more intricate. A flexible billing system allows for customization of billing parameters, such as energy consumption models, tenancy rental proration, and shared component charges. Additionally, the system supports bulk discounting, retrospective billing, and convergent invoicing, providing Towercos with the agility needed to adapt to changing market demands.

Key Features of Convergent Billing for Towercos

A modern convergent billing system specifically designed for telecom tower operations offers a comprehensive array of features to streamline the billing process. Some of the standout features include:

1. Rental Billing - Monthly Tenancy Billing with Proration: Ensures accurate billing based on tenants' actual usage period. - Tower Consolidation and Escalation: Allows Towercos to consolidate tenancy billing for multiple towers and apply annual rental escalations where necessary. - Charging of Shared Components: Fair billing for tenants sharing infrastructure based on usage. - Package-Based Charging: Flexibility to bill tenants for different service packages tailored to their needs.

2. Energy Billing - Pass-through Billing: Billing for energy consumption based on BTS type and actual usage, with the ability to factor in day-ratio and specific energy pay-outs. - Fixed-Cost and Consumption-Based Charging: Multiple billing models available, whether charging a flat rate or based on energy consumed. - Support for Multiple Energy Sources: System supports various energy sources such as grid electricity, diesel generators, solar, and batteries.

3. Invoicing and Financial Reporting - Convergent Invoicing: Combines rental charges and energy billing for a consolidated view of expenses for tenants and operators, reducing complexity. - Customized Invoice Templates: Tailor-made invoices to meet the specific requirements of different customers. - Multi-Currency Support: Essential for Towercos operating in multiple countries, enabling invoicing and payments in various currencies.

In conclusion, a modern convergent billing system for Towercos offers a range of features to streamline billing processes and enhance operational efficiency.

4. Revenue Assurance and Discount Management

Pre-Bill and Post-Bill Revenue Assurance processes are in place to ensure that no revenue is lost during the billing cycle, ultimately safeguarding financial performance. Additionally, the system supports bulk and volume-based discounts for leasing tower space in large quantities or entering into long-term tenancy agreements. Furthermore, the system allows for retrospective billing, credit, and debit notes to easily correct past billing errors or adjust for changes in tenancy contracts.

5. Seamless Integration and Scalability

Our cloud-agnostic, multi-tenant solution can be deployed on any cloud platform, providing scalability as Towercos expand their operations. The system also offers seamless integration with other financial systems, ERP tools, and energy management platforms, ensuring smooth data flow and operational efficiency.

Conclusion: A 360° Financial View for Future-Ready Towercos

By implementing a convergent billing system, telecom tower companies can streamline their financial operations while enhancing transparency, accuracy, and efficiency. This system provides a comprehensive financial view of all aspects of tower operations, including rental income, energy consumption, and tenancy agreements. With this information, Towercos can achieve operational excellence, optimize resource allocation, and confidently scale their operations.

As the telecommunications industry continues to grow and evolve, it is essential for Towercos to adopt an automated and flexible billing system to remain competitive and ensure long-term success.

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