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Cynical me certainly can believe all this. But on the other hand, I’m wary of just reinforcing what I believe anyway. How trustworthy is this? There seems to b

Cynical me certainly can believe all this. But on the other hand, I’m wary of just reinforcing what I believe anyway. How trustworthy is this? There seems to be a lot of inside information, where did they get it from? Does anyone have corroborating links? All article links are either general, or US specific.

g_p 6y ago
Much of this is fairly widely known in the telecoms sector, and is "open secrets". The sector is a pretty "closed shop" though, full of trade secrets and "proprietary" things. Underneath it all though, actually it's fairly simple once you get your head around it. If you work closely with an operator, even as a client, you'll see examples of this - the number of people brought to meetings from the vendor, versus from the operator. Who answers the questions. For a public example, see the Telefonica O2 outage in the UK (and Japan, I believe) due to an Ericsson certificate outage, and how much of a role Ericsson played in this. (https://www.theregister.com/2018/12/06/ericsson_o2_telefonica_uk_outage/ https://www.theregister.com/2018/12/06/ericsson_o2_telefonic...) Press releases also give bits and pieces away: https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2019/11/orange-opts-for-ericsson-operations-engine-in-managed-services-extension https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2019/11/orange-op... https://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/press-wire/9588-three-uk-joins-telefonica-by-outsourcing-core-management-to-huawei https://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/press-wire/9588-three-uk-join... Although they might not give the level of detail you're looking for, it should hopefully corroborate things.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  No exactly what I was looking for, but a good start. Thank you!
ahubert 6y ago
Hi - author here. By all means ask around. I can only tell you that I've received may corroborating anecdotes over the past year. Many telcos even assumed I was writing about them specifically, when I wasn't! I also have a second post that has some more logos and names where I based this article on -> https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/how-tech-loses-out/ https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/how-tech-loses-out/
mrweasel 6y ago
It’s public knowledge that most telcos don’t actually run their own network. That also make the whole fear regarding back door in Huawei equipment at little strange, it seems mostly political. I’ve pointed it out in previous discussion that China doesn’t need back doors to western 4G/5G infrastructure, because it’s their people operating it. But as with much other technologi our politicians are ignorant and forgetful.
- AlphaSite 6y ago
  I mean if that’s true, doesn’t that make the fear a much more practical concern? It’s much worse to have a potentially hostile foreign state running core infrastructure than potentially have them install a back door.
throwaway-8c93 6y ago
The reality is even worse. The article depicts the operators as middle-men piggybacking on the tech expertise of vendors like Ericsson or Nokia. Unfortunately, the vendors are subject to exactly the same pressures. The whole industry is in a deepening downward spiral. Outsourcing and subcontracting is rampant, layoffs left, right and center. The combination of non-functional requirements that would make even senior FAANG fellows dizzy - left to be done by stressed out graying veterans or naive greenhorns, who leave the industry after 2-3 years for 50-100% raises elsewhere for the same skillset. Due to the monopsony power of the large operators, the vendors barely break even on their deliveries. There's no institutional knowledge buildup, nobody to take up the baton after the veterans retire, the vendors gave up pretending they care about being a nice place to work. If you're a techie, stay away from the telecom industry.
tguvot 6y ago
It's not inside information, it's common knowledge if you work in telecom area. How trustworthy ? It depends. Operators in developing countries those day might completely outsource buildout and management of their network to Huawei because they frankly have best end to end portfolio I think. With operators in rest of the world, especially those that are "well established" reality is more complicated. Telecom networks having a lot of moving parts and require a lot of domain specific knowledge or proficiency with hundreds or thousands types of hardware and multitude of heavily customized per telecom needs software systems. For some of those things work might indeed be outsourced but in many cases outsourced work performed by people who function as company employees in day to day: i.e. they work in telecom office building, have employee badges, pass background checks, etc. Essentially this type of outsourcing is deeply embedded within telecom itself for a most part
topranks 6y ago
The author is widely respected in the internet, open source and technical world. He founded the PowerDNS project and worked with many operators as a result. Not that that’s everything but I would tend to trust Bert. Certainly, based on his tracks record, I don’t think he’d deliberately mislead.
myself248 6y ago
This is far from proprietary, I would say it doesn't even rise to the level of "open secret". It's plain and obvious to anyone in the industry, just not exactly advertised outside it. Personally, I left the industry in 2006 and it was already very close to what's described in this article. I was working for a tier-1 vendor, sitting in the carrier's offices coordinating field work, and saw every facet of these interactions. (Technically I wasn't even working for the vendor, I was working for a contracting firm that had temped me out to the vendor, so it's even more abstract.) Institutional knowledge was held by project managers on the vendor's side at least as much as by the carrier's own staff. Talk to literally anyone in the industry. I'd be surprised if you can find a single one who says it's not as bad as this article suggests.

g_p 6y ago

Much of this is fairly widely known in the telecoms sector, and is "open secrets". The sector is a pretty "closed shop" though, full of trade secrets and "proprietary" things. Underneath it all though, actually it's fairly simple once you get your head around it. If you work closely with an operator, even as a client, you'll see examples of this - the number of people brought to meetings from the vendor, versus from the operator. Who answers the questions. For a public example, see the Telefonica O2 outage in the UK (and Japan, I believe) due to an Ericsson certificate outage, and how much of a role Ericsson played in this. (https://www.theregister.com/2018/12/06/ericsson_o2_telefonica_uk_outage/ https://www.theregister.com/2018/12/06/ericsson_o2_telefonic...) Press releases also give bits and pieces away: https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2019/11/orange-opts-for-ericsson-operations-engine-in-managed-services-extension https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2019/11/orange-op... https://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/press-wire/9588-three-uk-joins-telefonica-by-outsourcing-core-management-to-huawei https://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/press-wire/9588-three-uk-join... Although they might not give the level of detail you're looking for, it should hopefully corroborate things.

Semaphor 6y ago
No exactly what I was looking for, but a good start. Thank you!

ahubert 6y ago

Hi - author here. By all means ask around. I can only tell you that I've received may corroborating anecdotes over the past year. Many telcos even assumed I was writing about them specifically, when I wasn't! I also have a second post that has some more logos and names where I based this article on -> https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/how-tech-loses-out/ https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/how-tech-loses-out/

mrweasel 6y ago

It’s public knowledge that most telcos don’t actually run their own network. That also make the whole fear regarding back door in Huawei equipment at little strange, it seems mostly political. I’ve pointed it out in previous discussion that China doesn’t need back doors to western 4G/5G infrastructure, because it’s their people operating it. But as with much other technologi our politicians are ignorant and forgetful.

AlphaSite 6y ago
I mean if that’s true, doesn’t that make the fear a much more practical concern? It’s much worse to have a potentially hostile foreign state running core infrastructure than potentially have them install a back door.

throwaway-8c93 6y ago

The reality is even worse. The article depicts the operators as middle-men piggybacking on the tech expertise of vendors like Ericsson or Nokia. Unfortunately, the vendors are subject to exactly the same pressures. The whole industry is in a deepening downward spiral. Outsourcing and subcontracting is rampant, layoffs left, right and center. The combination of non-functional requirements that would make even senior FAANG fellows dizzy - left to be done by stressed out graying veterans or naive greenhorns, who leave the industry after 2-3 years for 50-100% raises elsewhere for the same skillset. Due to the monopsony power of the large operators, the vendors barely break even on their deliveries. There's no institutional knowledge buildup, nobody to take up the baton after the veterans retire, the vendors gave up pretending they care about being a nice place to work. If you're a techie, stay away from the telecom industry.

tguvot 6y ago

It's not inside information, it's common knowledge if you work in telecom area. How trustworthy ? It depends. Operators in developing countries those day might completely outsource buildout and management of their network to Huawei because they frankly have best end to end portfolio I think. With operators in rest of the world, especially those that are "well established" reality is more complicated. Telecom networks having a lot of moving parts and require a lot of domain specific knowledge or proficiency with hundreds or thousands types of hardware and multitude of heavily customized per telecom needs software systems. For some of those things work might indeed be outsourced but in many cases outsourced work performed by people who function as company employees in day to day: i.e. they work in telecom office building, have employee badges, pass background checks, etc. Essentially this type of outsourcing is deeply embedded within telecom itself for a most part

topranks 6y ago

The author is widely respected in the internet, open source and technical world. He founded the PowerDNS project and worked with many operators as a result. Not that that’s everything but I would tend to trust Bert. Certainly, based on his tracks record, I don’t think he’d deliberately mislead.

myself248 6y ago

This is far from proprietary, I would say it doesn't even rise to the level of "open secret". It's plain and obvious to anyone in the industry, just not exactly advertised outside it. Personally, I left the industry in 2006 and it was already very close to what's described in this article. I was working for a tier-1 vendor, sitting in the carrier's offices coordinating field work, and saw every facet of these interactions. (Technically I wasn't even working for the vendor, I was working for a contracting firm that had temped me out to the vendor, so it's even more abstract.) Institutional knowledge was held by project managers on the vendor's side at least as much as by the carrier's own staff. Talk to literally anyone in the industry. I'd be surprised if you can find a single one who says it's not as bad as this article suggests.