4 ms·

> How much time and people it will take to AT&T to do all the work on it sown ? About as many people as are currently working on it, probably. The work does,

> How much time and people it will take to AT&T to do all the work on it sown ? About as many people as are currently working on it, probably. The work does, in fact, get done by real live humans. That they work for a contractor only adds humans in the middle. Also the money to pay them is present; it just flows through a few extra contractor accounts first.

tguvot 6y ago
And who will support existing network: fixing things, dealing with day to day operations, etc ? If it's same people, deployment timelines will be extended by years. If it's not and you hire extra people in order to work on this deployment, than when job is done, you end up with extra few thousands of employees that have nothing to do and you need to fire them. In this case it's easier, faster and cheaper to outsource the work than doing hiring of thousands of people, training them and then firing them when job is done...
- benlivengood 6y ago
  > If it's not and you hire extra people in order to work on this deployment, than when job is done, you end up with extra few thousands of employees that have nothing to do and you need to fire them. In this case it's easier, faster and cheaper to outsource the work than doing hiring of thousands of people, training them and then firing them when job is done... Are there enough carriers that the contractors stay busy 100% of the time or do they just hire and fire people as needed? I get why contract gigs can be mutually beneficial but it seems like either the demand is there for full-time trained technicians to do a particular job, or there isn't. If there isn't, then it does it really matter who does the hiring/firing? I think what I always figured was that most deployments are rolling and there will always be new tech to train on and then deploy every few years, which sounds fairly sustainable as a full time labor force. I haven't ran a telco before obviously.
  - tguvot 6y ago
    Hiring/training it's a time consuming process, especially for large scale project like this (think, 67k towers across entire united states). Usually telecoms RFI pretty much entire project from third party vendors (or few of them, on order to reduce risks), with very long list of requirements covering everything from software integration to hardware deployment. Vendors will bring teams of their own engineers for "higher level jobs" and a whole bunch of "licenses" subcontractors to do actual track rolls. In case it's a complicated project, like upgrade to 5G, vendor most likely can't provide entire solution by itself, so it will be a "consortium" of vendors that stich up complete solution that is organized by vendor that answers RFI. In this case each vendor may have it's own subcontractors who may have their own subcontractors etc...
- Spooky23 6y ago
  It’s a project based business model and isn’t particularly challenging to staff. For the field service portion of my business, I can tell you how many man hours at each title I need for the next 2-3 years. You know what you maintenance demand is and can project capital projects, because the business knows what capital money it’s borrowing. End of the day, it’s more to do with accounting stuff like fixed asset inventory, risk management and keeping salaries and benefits low. It’s easier to fire a contractor or hire a shittier/cheaper one than deal with a bunch of employees. IMO, saving hard dollars isn’t a driver.
  - tguvot 6y ago
    upgrading 67k towers for 5G and making relevant changes in software/network infra, it's not "project based business model". This particular exercise called "network transformation" and it makes grown men cry and quit their job :)

tguvot 6y ago

And who will support existing network: fixing things, dealing with day to day operations, etc ? If it's same people, deployment timelines will be extended by years. If it's not and you hire extra people in order to work on this deployment, than when job is done, you end up with extra few thousands of employees that have nothing to do and you need to fire them. In this case it's easier, faster and cheaper to outsource the work than doing hiring of thousands of people, training them and then firing them when job is done...

benlivengood 6y ago
> If it's not and you hire extra people in order to work on this deployment, than when job is done, you end up with extra few thousands of employees that have nothing to do and you need to fire them. In this case it's easier, faster and cheaper to outsource the work than doing hiring of thousands of people, training them and then firing them when job is done... Are there enough carriers that the contractors stay busy 100% of the time or do they just hire and fire people as needed? I get why contract gigs can be mutually beneficial but it seems like either the demand is there for full-time trained technicians to do a particular job, or there isn't. If there isn't, then it does it really matter who does the hiring/firing? I think what I always figured was that most deployments are rolling and there will always be new tech to train on and then deploy every few years, which sounds fairly sustainable as a full time labor force. I haven't ran a telco before obviously.
- tguvot 6y ago
  Hiring/training it's a time consuming process, especially for large scale project like this (think, 67k towers across entire united states). Usually telecoms RFI pretty much entire project from third party vendors (or few of them, on order to reduce risks), with very long list of requirements covering everything from software integration to hardware deployment. Vendors will bring teams of their own engineers for "higher level jobs" and a whole bunch of "licenses" subcontractors to do actual track rolls. In case it's a complicated project, like upgrade to 5G, vendor most likely can't provide entire solution by itself, so it will be a "consortium" of vendors that stich up complete solution that is organized by vendor that answers RFI. In this case each vendor may have it's own subcontractors who may have their own subcontractors etc...
Spooky23 6y ago
It’s a project based business model and isn’t particularly challenging to staff. For the field service portion of my business, I can tell you how many man hours at each title I need for the next 2-3 years. You know what you maintenance demand is and can project capital projects, because the business knows what capital money it’s borrowing. End of the day, it’s more to do with accounting stuff like fixed asset inventory, risk management and keeping salaries and benefits low. It’s easier to fire a contractor or hire a shittier/cheaper one than deal with a bunch of employees. IMO, saving hard dollars isn’t a driver.
- tguvot 6y ago
  upgrading 67k towers for 5G and making relevant changes in software/network infra, it's not "project based business model". This particular exercise called "network transformation" and it makes grown men cry and quit their job :)