Frqy3
Joined 13 years ago
Joined 13 years ago
One of the first projects I was given as a junior engineer was to measure signal strengths of our and competitor mobile networks at the local airport. This was pre September 11, but I was still amazed at the access we got carrying a signal analyser and just flashing our employee badges got us.
For inbound roaming users, absent particular partner network preferences (which were less common back then), the mobile device would select the local network to use based on relative signal strengths when turned on. Capturing those inbound roaming fees was a high priority for the product managers and hence a lot of effort and infrastructure investment went into this.
https://www.academia.edu/2808187/What_Explains_the_Fall_in_W...
Aspects we can see emerging (and mentioned in the article) include: submission to and no questioning of the leadership/apostles; there being only one absolute truth; a persecution complex; control of actions through indoctrination and isolation; group think; and cognitive dissonance.
Good for short term revenues, but not good for long term reputation. Part of the reason I am no longer working there.
Justifying the business case to cover the low value (i.e. few customers) areas is another story. However, even here, it might be possible to justify it if the rest of the customer base sufficiently values wide coverage to pay a premium. Particularly if the competitors don't have the same level of coverage.
> Except when an important person or a doctor’s family member is on the table, that is. “They call and say, ‘Dr. Jones’ wife is having surgery,’”
This also gives better public control of who receives the subsidised housing, usually a combination of needs assessment to qualify and then a queue system.
The important thing we have learned from the 70s/80s (different timing in different countries) is to spread the public housing throughout the community, rather than concentrate it into a single location. That is, rather than have a large apartment building that is purely public housing, have a requirement that a certain percentage of properties of every new development will be made available as government subsidised public housing.
Imagine if every single law on the books is enforced 100% of the time. No leeway, no margin for discretion.
I started in medicine when I went to university (parent pressure), but swapped to a computer science/engineering combination from the second year. The impact on my dating prospects at that time was very significant.
[0] http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2053761,00...
One of the key principles in telco regulation is ensuring any-to-any connectivity. It is now established in most jurisdictions that telcos have a monopoly over connecting to their end-customers (i.e. the only was to call a T-mobile customer is for T-mobile to accept the call into their network). Hence regulators not only mandate interconnection, but require it to be done on fair terms and conditions, including a fair wholesale price, which is often set by the regulator.