The company is moving to a wireless system including video. As with any big change the need to do it in steps is better. Moving to an IP phone is only the first step. Once the service is IP all that's needed is to change the router to a wireless type and guess what is no longer needed. Asking "which is it" is the normal response from people who think it's all rumor or it wont be affecting them. If you take the time to read all the various posts you will see a lot of people are shocked to learn it does affect them and go into panic when it hits. A lot of people sadly need to work and when a big company does what ATT is doing it comes as a surprise. If you read all the various articles listed in the company web pages your will get a very clear understanding of direction. Put your own thoughts aside and read with an open mind . chart the various statements and you will see it all leads to one direction regardless of how it's being stated by your managers. Why do you think the company is requiring multiple training classes beyond the normal mandatory yearly ones? How many people do you think wont complete all the classes or get a degree in Computer science and end up on the bottom of the list? Do you think the company really cares about training or is it an excuse to tell you your not qualified to continue. department ratings mean zero if the bosses give a number for layoff. Look around and you will see many people who were great in their jobs being cut. Read the posts here and you will even see some with "far exceeds" being cut
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Just told that Monday will be more numbers given. Tier 2 NOC in Chicago
ATT is touting Direct TV service as all wireless. Guess it wont be long for all wireline to be sold.
26 in my group notified today. Not a happy place. 911 support NOC
ATT doe not want any transport except wireless. Keep in mind if they have to pay for transport from a company like Frontier or other it is an expense and a clean write off against income. To increase profit all that's needed is to up the price of cell services which they are doing.
...338, what group are you in?
True, but if AT&T delivers it, it's a source of revenue from the other companies that must use it. If frontier delivers it, it is now an expense.
I got the call yesterday, leaving in few weeks for good.
Fiber is required but ATT does not have to do it. It can be delivered by any company including a company like Frontier
I was an OSP engineer for 16 years and I believe AT&T will have a fiber and cell network but will do their best to get rid of the copper. There just isn't money in POTS/T-1 lines and they are dying out anyway. A person I work with has a son that works in the UVerse group and he was told that he needed to get DirectTV at this house. The VRAD (how AT&T delivers UVerse via copper) was just installed in his area and they still told him to go to DirectTV, which really surprised us. We need to have fiber to deliver the bandwidth required of business and when I talk to customers they also want/require a 'diverse route' with their fiber. Pretty soon we will be dropping off 100Gb handoffs to dotcom companies so fiber is required for that. Who knows what the company will do but layoffs seem to come from the top down and when Dallas says 50 computer/IT or 50 OSP engineers have to go...then they go. It doesn't matter what your evaluations say. We have 10 people that got the call and some are very good at what they do but they still go the call.
Ok so let me jump in here a bit. ATT was working with Frontier in late 2011 to drop the east region and although there were a lot of things pointing to a sale no one believed it . when Frontier people were seen looking at various buildings, people said all they were doing is looking at how ATT managed things. When the announcement was made to a limited group, they were told it was under non disclosure but as it is in the company, it leaked out. Guess what no one here believed it. People were saying it was all rumors. When the day came to make the announcement, people said no big deal. ATT had 4958 people in CT. Frontier took only 2700. Want to guess how long it will be before everyone in CT is gone? Monday it was announced there would be additional managers in the 911 and other CT NOC groups that support the other states being laid off. The entire IT group in CT was laid off 4 months ago. now with the department size corrections announced , more will be gone very soon. the job I had in engineering supporting the Midwest COs was dropped 2 months ago. so for me it is real.
Frontier did buy the East region , you know the first commercial phone company. Verizon also sold 1.5 million lines in the east to Frontier. They also sold all wireline and video ( FIOS ) service to frontier in Florida, Texas, Nevada and California. You really think it will only be Verizon? ATT is in progress of gaining approval to drop Florida and Georgia like Connecticut. Also on the table is Illinois. Do a simple search for information and you will be surprised. As for the wireline staying, yes it will but the point is how many ATT jobs will be lost? The company will be about 45% of what it is today but how much will be out of the US? One estimate is less than half of that.
Ok, so sounds like we're in agreement that the wireline will still exist, albeit at a smaller scale once the copper retirement is completed. What I dont get is the thinking behind frontier buying our entire wireline network. Just because that happened in one state where a unique situation existed doesn't mean it'll happen across the entire 22 states.
So if you have some real info to back that up, I'm all ears, but I just don't see it.
Reality is the CWA only cares about dues and keeping their income level. Until people wake up and demand a stop to outsourcing of work regardless of the politics involved more will be lost. If you read the CWA web site news you will see absolutely nothing about layoffs only how strong the union leadership is and what they are doing to secure a contract. where is the outrage from them? We now live in a progressive political environment and until the ethic of work for what you need not how much will the government give me changes it's all downhill. Read the various posts and you will see a lot of responses indicating they are clueless on anything going on around them and when it hits they are upset. when people call their politicians and DEMAND the company's who outsource pay taxes that will reduce the profit they make nothing will change.
This is NOT a republican or democrat thing its a career politician thing. As one stated " what difference does it make now"
This separation of production from consumption is an intentional move by corporations like AT&T precisely to avoid being held responsible by consumers for their actions. And it is very effective.
What’s the impact of the massive technological outsourcing of jobs that would’ve gone to members of the American working class?
There just aren’t good jobs for working people in this country. The jobs that moved the working class into the middle class are almost all gone. The decline of their companies unions that organized against , means that working voices are increasingly eliminated from politics.
This had allowed corporations to fill the gap. As we now live in the post-Citizens United era of corporations and the super rich controlling our political process, we have to look at the antecedents to this situation. A big part of it comes back to the corporate war on unions and the working and middle classes. This corporate power over our politics then leads to more policies that hurt American workers and concentrate wealth at the top, No one is making them stop and workers pay the price
Yes it will. The only issue is the amount of people working in ATT or Verizon doing the work. Not many. Hopefully most will be employed by the company taking over the wire network or possibly the contractors doing the work. With the experience most have it would be wise to simply hire them.
Wire will always exist
If you read some posts it becomes very evident a lot of people don't have a clue how things work or the direction the company is heading. Wireless is it and wires are gone including the touted cloud service using wireline. Guess where the cloud ends up? not in any ATT office.
yes wireless to the cell site. Now guess how the tower gets back to the MTSO in some areas. what ATT and Verizon are both doing is using the local company ( soon to be Frontier) to do all transport to the office. All contractors for the tower work. remember the ASI days? All transport was by the local LEC. That is how all non-LEC company's handled their point to point needs. SO then ATT wont need any people working on the wires. Also big surprise, ATT and others are using non cell radio band tower repeating to get to the MTSO. Repeaters are utilized by many in the radio industry including power utility's Cable utility's and even us. With the new technology for band splitting it becomes less costly and eliminates people.
Your in the industry so read up on repeater technology
You do realize the wireless network is only wireless from the cell site to the device, right? It has to run through a "wired" network the rest of the time.
Good post
I can tell you the company doesn't care about training or degrees. I have a Master's in Computer Science and I'm an expert level programmer in several languages with "far exceeds" and whatever the rating was for 4 and I was surplussed. I was told I wasn't doing enough of the training even though I was already well beyond qualified for the tasks I was doing. The training is merely an excuse to start getting rid of the people too busy working to do the training.