Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

Hooooooo.... the “Enlarged Tech Combo Special” thread is alive!!!!!!!! For all of you non-believers. Start believing it’s coming for you!!!

Ok people,what you guys are talking about isn't what the original post is about. The combo tech future is for the tech to do it all, cable, prem, inside and out, including installing video products. Most core techs will become prem techs and force alot of them out, your pay will be frozen, until their pay reaches yours and we all are one big happy family. This is what is happening, it has been said on Town halls in the ATO, IEFS southeast, and Jen's Field Operations town halls as well.

I am not sure why some people do jot understand that this is happenjng already in tge southwest region, some i and r techs here have been trainer for us to do co work in smaller “unmanned” cos and the title of combo tech was offered to some but it never took.

So now we have about 15 co’s but only about 10 co techs, several of them are “rovers” and the other co’s the i and r guys get the tickets assigned to them in the morning to run junpers.

So yes it is happening not rumors in southwest region

Happy meal = happy tech. Combo meal = combo tech. It's a marketing game.

@Ymgs30E-2jzn... Yeah... From the company that could not pull off Digital Life, dipped it's toes in Cloud Computing and choked. FAIL FAST AND PIVOT, the new mantra....

Nice quote from Fierce Telecom... Any original thoughts?

Change—-Happened to glance at a article on Open Source that I saw AT&T mentioned. We talk about jobs moving overseas. For all intents and purposes the technology is evolving to such a point that it makes no difference. Bet most of us old folks can remember when articles were written in English and not this language.

Gilbert said O-RAN is working on the blueprint for disaggregating the RAN on the wireless side while also pursuing ONF's reference design for SDN Enabled Broadband Access (SEBA) and ONF's Virtual Optical Line Termination Hardware Abstraction (VOLTHA) project, which AT&T put into open source two years ago, on the wired side. (ONF is a member of the Linux Foundation.)

"You're going to see a significant involvement from AT&T, not only in the architecture of O-RAN, but in this disaggregating of the RAN, which allow us to do more next-generation-type workloads," Gilbert said. "Over the next few weeks, you're going hear more from AT&T on these blueprints for O-RAN."

@Ymgs30E-2qud Not all all of us have sat on our asses and let technology pass us by. I do understand your frustration. I was there 10 years ago wishing the "old" folks would retire to make a place for me.

I used the company's tuition to get my degree, not for the company, but because it will look good on a resume. I know I will not be able to completely retire from this place without getting another job, but with the money I've saved from this place (401K, pension) I could work at WalMart in my sleep and still be comfortable in retirement.

Plan accordingly young man.

What bothers me about all this is that people refuse to realize that the industry has changed so much so fast in the last 10 years. The world has changed and will continue to change for ever. People are stuck in a distant past, don’t want to accept it. If you want to survive in this modern brutal industry, better to start opening your eyes. If you don’t change your mentality, don’t evolve and adapt to the current and future circumstances then you will be left behind...

For the older folks... remember the time of Analog to Digital evolution? 🤔😉

Good post - Ymgs30E-1ewh

Please allow me to share what I know, not a rumor, not "I heard this from somewhere", but what I know to be a fact. I will state that I am craft, furthermore I am employed as a Communications Technician, which is what central office technicians are called in the South West.

The company, for better or worse (I'll not enter that debate) has created a "new" title for all technicians called Combination Tech. Sounds like this has been tried in the past in other regions, that sounds about right. I've been with the company long enough to understand that ideas like these come and go about every 10 or so years. (Anyone know why that is? Really, I'd like to know).

I'm going to use acronyms that I am familiar being used in the SW region, I.e. I&R=(installation and repair) / CST (customer service techs). Some regions call these techs I&M (installation and maintenance), and MST (maintenance splicing technician), Central office tech (ComTech).

With all of that said, what creation of the Combination Technician title means is that any tech of any stripe, I&R, CST, I&M, MST or ComTech who wants to transfer to a new location, gets surplussed and finds an opening or gets force adjusted will need to become a Combination Tech. I say "become" because they will have to pass the new TKT2 exam or be therefore exempt, and will have to pass all of the pass/fail schools the company will send them to.

Now, it is my understanding that if these conditions are not met, then that tech would become ineligible for the job. I do not know what that means from their future employment as I have not witnessed that scenario, yet.

These same rules would apply to me as a Comm Tech if I wanted to get a transfer to be closer to home. I would have to accept a Combination Tech title and be subject to all that it implies, frame, fiber, outside plant, SAI, and roach infested customer's dwelling.

I hope this helps. I'll tell you what I know about the Frame Share program that I think some of you are confusing with the Combination Tech title tomorrow, or tonight if I get time. Someone earlier posted "apex workshare" Well let me post "search apex for Frame Share" and it will tell you what that is all about.

And the new Combo Techs will be able to do it from India too!

combo tech? the holy grail bla bla bla.that c-ap doesn't work .puhleeze..some mgmt

scrub trying to scare people .company maaaaaaan!!! lol

"There will still be CO techs, for TEOs ... routines ... equipment repair and outages ... etc ... etc ... You can't have an outside guy tied up on something in the CO and still have a couple bonded pair installs or whatever needing done that same day.

Outside guys will come in and do their own wiring everywhere maybe, which they already do in our smaller CO's where i am at anyway." <---------BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Wanna make a bet? Already happening on a widespread scale......tough guy.

Apex workshare

Union folks are being targeted to be a jack of trades while management is being automated to single task functions so they can ship the tasks overseas. The times they are a changing.

Old news perhaps for other regions, but is a new concept here in the SW.

"What markets are currently doing this? That's right you won't say because its BS. They would be breaking their labor contract. Stop being id--ts."

Considering the MW has been working without a contract for over a year and two additional regions have upcoming contract expirations ( I think this month ? ) if the company is going to implement such a change, this is how and when they will do it.

SW contract is up in 2021 I believe.

They don't care. Go read the Centurylink board and look at all their techs complain about cuts and being worked to death and something called MAX killing them. Rheir union guys are running scared too. It's not just here.

Nevada population 2, including combo tech

There are Combination Technicians in Nevada Bell for decades.

Combo tech, tech of the future, super tech the company has been trying to implement this for years. It really seems that this has picked up momentum the last few years especially with the push for workshare. Certain areas folded and allowed this to happen under their contracts, sacrificing the few for the many. Really sad that they want a jack of all trades but a master of none. Tester, field techs, co techs the SME’s are a rare breed now.

What markets are currently doing this? That's right you won't say because its BS. They would be breaking their labor contract. Stop being id--ts.

Agile ?? haha u mean cheap ass

Nothing NEW in the “Combo Tech” concept. Smaller (and agile) companies (a couple of them now part of AT&T coincidentally) have had them for decades. A tech that can do a lot of different things, have accumulated a lot of knowledge and learn quickly!! That’s it, no rocket science. Indeed there are markets within AT&T currently working this way.

Folks, let me give you little advice: Change your way of thinking. Open up to new things and learning experiences. Upgrade your mind. This is the current world that we are living in. Things have to be more agile in order to survive.

CO's just require some semi smart hands to perform directed activities. Knowledge like we had to know when we were responsible are not needed anymore. Someone else with the brains is somewhere else and gives direction over the phone or messaging. I was the brains for some 10 years.

Verizon has been wanting to do this for YEARS, they called the the Universal Tech.

God help you if the CO Frame starts looking like some Crossboxes around here...

Installer-repairman OSP technician. Small town title. Once you got the training you did everything from running jumpers in a CO to putting in PBX systems. No work was titled based. However the older guys typically handled the complex business stuff. We had a couple who got to wear clean khakis to and from work for the most part. Ha

5g has so many problems....I’ll be long retired before it’s fully active it’s going to take years!!

They are rapidly moving to a Combo Tech outside too. From soup to nuts, one Combo Tech outside will do it all, bring the circuit into the Premise, then do the work inside also. One Truck Roll they call it. Oh forgot, he will swing by the CO on the way. Actually, just cross through CO and say the Combo Tech will do anything and everything... anywhere at any time and I think you will have it.

Nothing new really. We had combination techs in the early 80's.

This was dumb the first time it was posted and remains dumb today.

What they're creating is the: Optional Tech As Needed, i.e., a subcontractor at $16 an hour.

The CO of today will not be the CO of tomorrow. With SDN (software defined networking) you will only need electricity and some putz sitting around to make sure the lights are blinking and the fiber is plugged in. The network will be managed by some dude in Bangalore for a fraction of what a crack wh--e makes in an hour.

All of the "complexities" of the legacy network/plant will be gone. 5G further simplifies the network infrastructure and drastically reduces the actual "hands" needed in the field to turn a circuit up.

Get it through your skulls boys and girls: Humans are not "needed," just optional...

They realize; they just don’t care.