because openly talking about the sh-t show I am experiencing to anyone here puts my job at risk. Communication between the groups is not as good as it was before Nov 2025. Project progress has slowed, keeping up with changes in direction is ridiculous. and trying to keep quality in the contractors' work is, well, impossible (too much to oversee). Leadership should not have wiped out so many good people in that last big layoff. This is my experience. Is it just me, or are others in this market also at their limit?
29 replies (most recent on top)
@ty They bought Frontier mainly so they can offer bundled services in more states. Any non-Verizon backhaul that can be migrated to Frontier would be icing on the cake. All the tier 1 telecom operators are currently pursuing a similar strategy. See Roger Entner’s article below.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rogerentner_this-week-q1-26-earnings-verizon-t-mobile-activity-7456422804691972096-Hznv
@tm I don't think they had to buy "frontier" so they can use their fiber network if they had that much strong backhaul. Being an ex RF I know some insight .
@q0 With all due respect, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Backhaul utilization metrics are continuously monitored and the bandwidth can be upgraded relatively easily when needed since it’s dark fiber.
I dislike how Verizon is treating its employees as much as anyone else on this board and I’ve called them out on it many times but I stick to the facts and give credit where credit is due. Fiber and backhaul are one of Verizon’s strengths especially compared to T-Mobile! It’s just a fact! AT&T is also in an advantageous position on fiber and backhaul.
@re are your sites microcells or other, denser, street-level installations? That would make sense for 1 gig links, then. This is Charlotte NC area for American Tower sites that are turning up the 40 gig for conventional macro sites.
@q0 COMPLETE RUBBISH! I AM A SENIOR T-MOBILE FIELD TECH AND WE HAVE ONLY 1GIG AT EVERY SITE IN OUR MARKET AND NO PLANS TO UPGRADE. MY MARKET IS L.A.
If they lay off CARTN, who will investigate the high CPU alerts?
@m7 Verizon thinks upgrading to 10 gig from 1 gig is modernizing backhaul, when they’re a day late and a dollar short. My former coworker who now is a digital technician for AT&T shared that they’re running 40 gig to all the T-Mobile tower sites.
It results in the funniest irony:
1.) You can have Verizon signal, but not Verizon service, or
2.) T-Mobile can have sufficient backhaul, but not be able to get a signal to you
There has to be a middle ground, and I think AT&T Mobility is where it’s at. Not the fastest speed test but always a usable connection, and in my state I’ve tested an AT&T eSIM alongside Verizon and they have the same bars in the same places.
Wow! It sounds like Hans used the same playback he used to take down Ericsson.
10 years ago. The company was a beacon in the wireless industry. Every existing employee needs to understand the big picture. The company with the most debt will always become the smallest player in the game. The BOD memebers do not want to fix it. They want the highest return for the sale that will come. You need to plan for it. Best of m luck to your futures.
@k9 Please don’t spread misinformation! Backhaul has been continuously upgraded and isn’t a bottleneck at all. It’s actually one of the strengths of Verizon. The overwhelming majority of cell sites are on dark fiber and many are on Verizon owned fiber.
Lowell & co decided not to bid on the FirstNet contract and I can’t fault them for that. AT&T pays billions a year for the privilege of providing this service. There are pros and cons to it. It’s not clear that it’s been a net positive for AT&T.
@hk either Verizon is playing such a long game with wireless spectrum that they still look stupid for neglecting backhaul, or they never intend to fix the root issue of their connectivity problems. But I promise you, it’s NOT the cell-to-tower connection, nor does it need to be reinvented every other year and require Verizon to touch every tower.
I still think they’re butt hurt from missing out on FirstNet because they were too busy acquiring failing companies to fail even harder.
@j6 Our AD seemed to believe that having to work day in and day out with buggy, unstable tools like Fuze SPM builds character! He didn’t want us going soft by getting used to software systems that work as intended.
@j6 The South Asian Mafia controls the RF game for VZW now.
@bx I remember how awful the developers was with tools like automated plumbing ( took 3/4 years and produced nothing and need manual fix) , a tool to compare coverage between 2/3 candidates to produce complete picture what candidate to select (still nothing except adding garbage features) .. Cr-ppy atoll tool to build a site with all required information rather than "fix" with all manual correction. I don't give a cr-p of how the existing RF engineers are working ( Favoritism based on skin color , religion in GA/AL/FL) but they have to really give all may be 200% to complete daily tasks.
@hk exactly!
@d0 For as far as I can remember New England RF was led by people with only a superficial knowledge of RF. Many ADs and SDs only had one year of RF experience during which they were being told what to do and several had no RF experience whatsoever! It takes a lot longer than a year to master this subject especially that Verizon doesn’t have a good system in place. They are mostly reactive and short term oriented.
The net result is that you have a bunch of people running around like chickens with their heads cut off but not achieving results commensurate to the amount of effort and money being spent. They outspend the competition by a significant margin but their Rootmetrics results are either a tie or a loss.
@ek Verizon has already identified a target of automating away job functions of engineers up to the Principal Engineer level. We can now upload a PCAP into Gemini and have it sp-t out a formal RCA for a customer. ETMS can already search call records from customer-completed templates. All that’s needed now is scripted packet captures from NetScout and the NOC is running by itself.
Prior, this would take the initial trouble ticket being created with repair teams, a request for RCA to the account team, and waiting on that to be provided, which may involve management of the repair teams for a detailed post-mortem.
@eg interesting. We already have people managing jeopardy renewals - internally at the market levels, plus a contract with MD7 at the HQ level. It sounds like they are looking for someone to build automation so they can eliminate those roles.
Thanks to the rumor mill on here, I started my search almost a year ago after hearing rumblings of the November layoffs. During that time, I only saw one IC role for Real Estate. I can answer for RE as there was a Sr Engr (Spec) / RE position posted as of late. I inquired and basically right now they are using AI to skim the contracts from American Tower, etc. to perform abstraction, i.e. boil it down to a few bullet points or action items. The engineer would ultimately be responsible for on-time renewals and mitigating any penalties, late fees, etc.
There was a desired qualification for someone who was experienced in Google NotebookLM, if that tells you where things were headed.
Yawn.. The point was .
@bd lol, sure, why not? The more the merrier! Or misery loves company?
@d1 NE kept theirs and added new ones.
@d0 AFAIK in the markets I work with, the RF contractors were all let go right after the layoff.
@bx everyone is drowning. RF got to add contractors after the November layoffs. Other teams that were already short-staffed before the layoffs didn’t are working with a skeleton crew now. I’m not sure why RF always seems to think they are the only ones who are under water.
@ag All the RF Engineers I talk to are drowning in more work and re-work than they could ever finish in a 100 hour workweek. Many them look outright exhausted and have been completely demoralized by the layoff and the AI cramdown. Looks like they're all being set up to be replaced by AI tools, built by the same people who built the company's other tools. This won't end well.
Sounds like CARTN should merge with OPW and New England!
I’m kidding!
Alpharetta is a dumpster fire.
I think these issues are nation wide in GN&T. It’s the same in New England. The merger with OPW has been a disaster. Everything is a mess. We can’t get consistent direction on anything. Processes are constantly changing. We have stuff that’s been on hold for months because we need to justify expenditures but the ADs and SDs can’t agree on what the process for that should be. Our SD thinks we shouldn’t pay rent for increased loading so we are torching positive, years long relationships with landlords and putting projects on hold. Different teams barely speak to each. RF has fully retreated and simply will not touch anything that doesn’t immediately benefit them, which has resulted in more work stagnating.
I’ve never seen morale this bad anywhere. I cope by doing just enough to outperform my team and then I spend the rest of the day mentally drafting my resignation letter and dreaming about winning the lottery. It’s really too bad. This place could be great if the C-suite cared about anything.
@OP in our group there was no much issue with people leaving and we too had several gone, but there is a sh-t show as well due to the "Brilliant" reorgs that our leadership came up with....and my group is none of those you mentioned. So it looks like the chaos is everywhere I guess
Don't worry, Dan said the network was good enough. None of the clowns in middle management and the boot lickers on up the chain corrected him. Prepare yourself to move on when the opportunity comes. Enjoy your life and let the d-mbasses fail. It is a sorry shame.