#network

The post below the line of === recently appeared on a Telstra executive's LinkedIn account. It was also covered by the Australian Financial Review in an article by Media, marketing and telecommunications reporter Sam Buckingham Jones.

As a former Telstra Principal Technical Officer with 4 decades of experience in the network maintenance and implementation field, I find this 'restart' approach extremely disturbing. It fixes nothing and may have the potential to interrupt traffic to triple-zero 'emergency' calls. (That is - calls to police, fire & ambulance).

Such interruptions have previously been linked to the death of people.

How many times will Telstra merely restart equipment before actually fixing the real fault ?

If equipment requires repeated restart to clear faults, then the network owner should really be placing more scrutiny on their vendors and demanding a real fix.

Network operators should focus on quality of service, rather than just 'clearing' equipment alarms to improve KPIs. Network alarms are raised for a reason. - To notify of problems.

Fix the faults. - Don't just clear alarms to improve your statistics.

“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”
Turns out, our network already has🤖🔁🔧

Telstra's SmartFix 🤖 is one of those AI capabilities that’s quietly been working in the background for years to make things better for our customers.

SmartFix uses smart telemetry from across the network 📡 to spot common issues early and, where it can, fix them automatically - sometimes by restarting equipment before a customer even realises there’s a problem.
✅ Fewer faults
⚡ Faster fixes
🙂 Less friction

This is AI doing real work, not demos or hype. And it’s a great example of our Network as a Product strategy in action - using data, software and automation to make the network itself smarter, more adaptive and more valuable 🔧📈.

We’ve been applying AI like this for a long time, embedded deep in how the network operates, with a simple goal:
👉 more reliable connectivity
👉 better experiences
👉 every day

Much of management has proven they are clueless, sociopathic and pretty much stupid when it comes to real analysis of what will and will not work when it comes to the network. And for those few that know better, they are spineless and will not speak up to stop the insanity. It would not surprise me for there to be mass layoffs if/when a handful of Elon's satellites get deployed and VZ jumps the g-n firing people with the thinking they will move customers to the satellite system. The facts are that the satellite systems will help the rural areas, and probably have some [more] governmental applications (more spying on our citizens), but high traffic areas will still need ground based cell sites. See the question asked on Google, and the response (bottom line - the pipe is not big enough to serve lots of people at the same time, and too many satellites would be needed to make it work).

Here is the question posted on Google (if you want to ask variations yourself):
How many simultaneous users can be served with 5 mbps download speeds on a single satellite (all beams) using the latest satellite and mobile technology and 100Mhz of bandwidth?

And here is the answer (NOTE the last section):

AI Overview
With 100 MHz} of bandwidth of bandwidth, a single satellite system with the latest 5G and mobile technology can serve between 4,000 and 12,000 active, simultaneous users (depending on the use of spatial beam multiplexing) at a guaranteed 5 Mbps download speed.
The Breakdown
To calculate how many simultaneous connections can be maintained, we must look at the mathematical throughput and spatial reuse of modern Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN).
Spectral Efficiency: The latest 5G New Radio (NR) standards have a high spectral efficiency, delivering roughly (3) to (6\text{ bits}) per second per Hertz.
Total Per-Beam Throughput: For a (100\text{ MHz}) channel (the maximum standard carrier component), a single spot beam yields a peak capacity between (300\text{ Mbps}) and (600\text{ Mbps}).
Active User Allocation: If every user is actively streaming or downloading at exactly (5\text{ Mbps}) without sharing, a single beam can support (60) to (120) continuous, simultaneous users ((300\text{ Mbps} \div 5\text{ Mbps} = 60) users).

Scaling to the Whole Satellite:
Satellites multiply their capacity by reusing the same (100\text{ MHz}) bandwidth across tens or hundreds of spot beams directed at different geographic areas simultaneously (frequency reuse). If a high-throughput Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite utilizes 100 simultaneous beams, it can support between (6,000) and (12,000) simultaneous active users across the globe.

Chime in below. Also, I would not be surprised if someone was to set up a prediction market on Kalshi or PolyMarket for things like this. But then, HR or Management would have an upper hand and would always win (just like they do in the real life but that's a separate topic). So, this thread is my prediction market.

I know exactly what is going on with Cisco? I follow networking companies earnings report and Gartner report. I know exactly where Cisco and other networking companies stand in each networking technology.

Greed is everywhere at top level and hiring is broken with favoring friends and family members in most of the groups.

Many know how to play the corporate game! 60-70% of Directors, managers and VPs do not know how to motivate team and no good vision in their tech domain. There are 20-30% good managers, rest are useless !!

I left the group of old networking technology in my group at Cisco and nepotism. Got a better opportunity to learn a different technology and better pay. I don't have to deal with the incompetent Indian manager any more from my group at Cisco.

Reposted from: Post ID: @mz+1kqae1qpk

Can someone give me some idea or insight to how few years ago my service was pretty good in most areas .Now my service it terrible and spotty all over the place .Some areas I used to have no issue now have no or slow service.I mean it’s all over the place all over the country.Is this have anything to do with which unlimited plan I have or is it just our network has taken a total dump.This is no joke a serious question please

https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/business-and-law/fcc-approves-order-to-accelerate-high-speed-network-rollouts

Rumor is that with Optum Real getting phased out, the work is going back to UHC for the super connectors project. Any truth to how stable the team will be long term as it grows?

I do not see any big changes in the Network org. Most cuts are happening on the consumer and business side.
Our network is getting worse and worse.. Network org remains As-Is ..
Is there any changes in that area ?

America’s Best Network keeps getting better
For the first time ever, ranked #1 for network quality by J.D. Power
#1 for Network Quality – J.D. Power 2026 Vol. 1, Best Mobile Network in the U.S. according to Ookla® Speedtest®.

“Vistance Networks” = Wi-Fi that arrives “within… vistance.”

“Aurora Networks” = your internet goes out, but it’s beautiful while it happens.

Is the DEG group (In CNIO/Network Operations under SVP-Corey Anthony) moving to AFO (Under SVP-Chris Altomari) soon??? Overheard some chatter about that being a reality come 2/1/2026.

Any update on network team this week ?

They said - things are going to break - thats okay - dump 15k employees. Perfect example of how to destroyed a great company. I remember back in 2001 - how Verizon was such a great name

I ported all our lines to Xfinity mobile because it’s cheaper. They use Verizon’s RAN (cell sites and backhaul) but they have their own core. We weren’t impacted by the outage.

Verizon implements a network freeze around the holidays. My educated guess is that they started implementing changes in the core network once the freeze was lifted and something went wrong. Not a good way to start the year!

BAD T1 WIRE WRAP aka SHINER. ENTIRE NETWORK DOWN. KEVIN WILL FIXIT!

https://www.fierce-network.com/wireless/att-hunt-more-345-ghz-spectrum

Quit your whining! Late 1st, 2nd quarter 2026 VZ will be hiring back employees layed off through the various contract firms. CEO clearing the books…..not the network! Mark my words! They know good employees will come back running for higher paid jobs without benefits. Mark my words.

Keep this in mind while reading the below: A new build costs ~$500,000 (under/over deploying equipment costs even more). It pays to get the best performance up front. Mod projects cost less, but rework adds up fast. Don't forget about rent at the site locations, too (landlord/tower vendor).

Seeing the number of layoffs of the cell site designers, VZ's higher up managers evidently never learned the lessons from riding in POS cars from American car companies in the 1970's and 80's. During that time Toyota put in the work up front to provide quality cars. Now Toyota is eating the other car makers' lunches. Maybe the higher ups grew up getting new cars every few years, so they never experienced constantly breaking down in American cars and not being able to afford better.

Customer service on the front end was put on the backburner. Now, network design will take a backseat, too. Poorly performing areas will continue to perform poorly.

Let's ignore a lesson of the auto industry (long term quality does matter). All cars are essentially the same, so no stopping of the production line, and the design just has to be good'nuff, it is ok to have acres and acres of new cars needing rework before going to the dealers. Following that model, it is ok if we waste design money, need lots of rework, and delay needed capacity and coverage solutions due to all of the coming rework and poor location choices.

VZ is going the way of Chrysler - All in the name of giving more money to less people, regardless of the fact there is plenty for all.

A large number of director+ in Network Technology let go today.

Dan mentioned that we can't rely on our network superiority anymore. No need to worry about that Verizon is the new Sprint. Major impacts to engineering teams. There won’t be a good network to rely on anyway. I am already setting the degradation happening.

Saying nothing but the truth. We aren’t what we used to be. Hans shipped all of customer service to 3rd world countries. What were we thinking the outcome was going to be ? Cheaper for a better experience? Heck no. You get what you pay for. The good old days with Lowell where our customer service was #1 and respected.

Our network su-ks. What happened to our network ? Can you hear me now? “Call dropped” I miss those day we had full bar is signal anywhere we would go. Now it’s 1 bar everywhere unless you live next to a tower within site distance.

a year that's going to the executive board and put it back into the network and customer service.

If AT&T wants to push AI so hard, all they need to do is run a basic Google search for “AT&T Su-ks.” Then they can use agents to run sentiment analysis on everything from all the interwebs. There’s even a Facebook page some built called AT&T Su-ks.

In a matter of seconds, John Stankey will be able to see, even without using AI, that Customers are most frustrated with network speed, stability, lack of being able to reach a US-based human agent to resolve billing issues and broken promotion promises, among others.

Go ahead, give it a whirl - especially if you work for J.D. Power & Associates.

I didn’t get let go but a lot of my peers in GNT got hit hard. Network assurance is already thin and they hit us hard. I’m just wondering what to expect. One thing I learned today is upper management doesn’t care about us or work load. 15 people got let go just in our market.

Our incoming calls going directly to voicemail!
Per Apple Support suspected “network” issue.
Required a phone reset….
Coincidence?…
Anyone else having/had trouble?

All the network techs in our state had MNC meetings and calls assigned to us for 8am-9:30am tomorrow 11/20. Asked our supervisor about it and could hear the sheer panic in his voice when he said he had no idea about it and that he hasn’t been invited to a call of any sorts for those times. There’s also no bridge # or meeting link sent to us yet. Just blocked off MNC from 8-9:30.

Not sure if that means we are safe or if he’s getting the boot.. I hope not. He’s one of the few good supervisors still around.

I can’t imagine they’d let all of us go. There wouldn’t be anyone to maintain the network.

Did any other areas get the same meetings assigned to them?

I have meetings tomorrow and need somewhere to work in between meetings while waiting for clients. And of course need to connect to the network.

Vz needs employees with engineering degree running the network and operations .
Any network related job should be run by an engineer with a valid Engineering degree.
Not Liberal arts, not poliical science not vetenrian not home science and not social science history or seimnary majors ! This can be attributed to the degradation of the network over the past 8 years
Change the skillsets at every level of leadership touching the network and you will see performance and customer satisfaction improve.

Between $50B in spectrum, and billions more in buildout, we flushed money down the toilet to be able to say we had “Real 5G”. Users didn’t care. A rose by any other name.

Incremental speed increases to keep networks delivering richer content within user expectations is sufficient. Aside from that, they want USABLE, contiguous signal.

Not full bars at a busy lunch spot and all your apps are saying “No Internet Connection”. Not SOS at the same cabin in the mountains from 3 years ago when you still had 3G service.

When a brand has substance, your reputation precedes you and you can ki-l it each quarter with cheesy or basic advertising. When a brand is commoditized, and differentiators are all removed, the GLUE that kept that 1% churn rate is gone.

How many of these places do we expect to keep more than 1 person? Most of the Network Affecting work happens during the MW, most of the work can be contracted out or sent to other grps to run configurations. Will the switch techs just be there for vendor access??

NI layoffs coming

Almost an hour now but no indication sending us home lol

https://www.fierce-network.com/broadband/att-now-making-headway-its-copper-retirement-plan

Verizon experienced a nationwide outage this afternoon leaving tens of thousands customers across the United States unable to send texts or make calls.

Reports of cell service outages began at around 12pm ET on Saturday, according to Down Detector.

There were almost 24,000 outage reports catalogued on the site, which tracks interruptions of service for many different companies.Countless outraged customers said on social media that their phones were stuck on SOS mode.

Verizon has said it is aware of the issue and apologized to those affected.

'Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue, Please visit our Check Network Status page for updates on service in your area,' a spokesman said.

'We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience. We appreciate your patience.'

https://www.sdxcentral.com/analysis/the-5-firms-who-could-buy-intels-network-business/

https://www.sdxcentral.com/analysis/the-5-firms-who-could-buy-intels-network-business/