Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (3467)	7/25/2001 8:48:03 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 46821

The FCC adopts new elements of collocation rules. multexinvestor.com ============= D.C. Buzz: FCC Adopts New Elements of Collocation Rules 2001-07-23 by John Filar Atwood After four years and more than 1,500 comments, the Federal Communications Commission has adopted what should be the final pieces of its collocation rules for incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs). The FCC began the process of strengthening those rules with 1998 proposals that were adopted in 1999. However, a portion of the rules were vacated and remanded by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in August 2000. In response to the court's ruling, the FCC proposed additional changes to the collocation rules. After nearly a year of considering comments on the proposals, the agency adopted them July 12. Collocation is an arrangement whereby a competitor leases space at an ILEC's premises for its equipment. The new rules are intended to ensure that competitors are allowed to interconnect with the incumbent carrier and are given access to unbundled network elements, while also protecting the incumbent's property rights. In general, the rules require an ILEC to allow requesting carriers to collocate switching and routing equipment. ILECs will not be required to allow collocation of very large traditional circuit switches. Under the new rules, an ILEC is no longer required to allow competitors to construct and maintain cross-connects outside of their immediate physical collocation space on the ILEC's premises. However, an ILEC must provide cross-connects between collocated carriers upon reasonable request. The FCC has eliminated the rule that gave competing carriers the option of choosing their collocation space from among the unused space on an ILEC's premises. Instead, the FCC has adopted principles designed to ensure that ILECs assign collocation space on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions.

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (3467)	7/28/2001 1:38:32 PM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 46821

I have 30 years experience in building telecoms networks all over the world. The implementation side of the deals have changed and will change even more. The US has always been different than the rest of the world. I remember in my days of microwave implementation -back in the 70's. European companies always implemented using their own staff. In the US, companies were hiring people with "truck and tools" to do the job. In the early eighties, Euro vendors -big multinationals that not existing in the US since ATT, pre-LU, didn't export telecoms eqt- started doing some sort of outsourcing. If a local company was in market downturn, such as Brazil in the period mentioned, they would take this Brazilian staff and placed where the market was hot. For instance in the oil exporting countries. That was only the start. In the next ten years, more and more projects were being executed by foreigners and the departments that existed in their HQs in Stockholm, Sweden, Paris or Tokyo, started being phased out. Nowadays, very few people are employed with the purpose of implementing a project. Too expensive. They have to work according to the rules of the country of origin. Things like 35-hour week, no overtime, six weeks of holiday, with no organization to back him up the guy is not productive etc. Not the people you could count on in a rollout with tight schedule and high penalties. The people from HQ still want to keep some jobs for the boys but in this downturn they will surely will be phased out forever. The next built out of telecoms will be built much like GSM projects, only by outsiders. From HQ you will have a project director, a sales director and a commercial person. What I am seeing in my crystal ball now is that perhaps ERICY, NOK or SI just sell the stuff to the operator and it goes around seeking companies to implement it. The people are everywhere but not in the vendors' headquarters. They just need to be contracted and managed by companies such as Wireless Facilities or IFCI or some small 'boutique' of some 20 people who have known each other from other projects The big buildout is already done. The next years will see only small scope projects. Time will come when it will be necessary to pull out all those BTS and BSC and replace them by new eqt. Time will come when it will be necessary to dismantle all those 5ESS, AXE, DMS and EWSD since they will become obsolete in the next ten years. Then perhaps there will be a big build out once again, but you will be retired Frank.

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (3467)	7/28/2001 1:39:32 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Telecom vendors have trotted out new strategies in preparation for a massive 3G build. In the scale envisaged by the vendors, the rollout would have been out of proportion with their own implementing capabilities. The necessity arose from the perception that all license holders would have built all 3G networks all at once. The reality is showing that 3G networks real rollouts are still in a distant future, and the build out, will prove to be not as massive as it was envisaged. UMTS rollout will be scaled down because the 3G regulations are changing due to the financial constrains and new proposals are being accepted. Ex: Some operators will delay rollout, network will be shared, coverage only in selected areas and not country wide. Not being as massive as vendors have originally expected, 3G rollout will be executed in a similar way 2G was built: managed by the vendors and executed by a small specialized firms and free-lancer contractors. Why ABB is baking at the wrong tree I have tried to dissected the on going strategies of telecoms vendors as related to networks' rollout which is important to us who work in the implementation side of the business. Lets leave aside all the hype the marketing people are putting out and the hot air surrounding this thing. Lets focus only on how the rollout was supposed to happen as by the end of last year. The charge of the UMTS brigade was supposed to take the world by storm. The whole thing was staged to happen. But the fact is that the projections fell very much short of the reality. Now that the true state of the UMTS is shown, we can have a better view of the market as rollout is concerned and how this is really going to happen: ************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** For Ericsson Annual Report "In preparation for an expected massive roll out of 3G networks starting at the end of year 2001, we entered a number of cooperation agreements with reputable construction companies such as ABB, SKANSKA and NCC. The objective is to safeguard sufficient capacity and competence to satisfy network build-out demand." ericsson.com ABB in new mobile telecom cooperation with Nokia and Ericsson Big business potential in building mobile telecommunications networks Zurich, Switzerland, October 05, 2000 – Global technology group ABB said today it has formed separate agreements with Nokia and Ericsson to build new-generation mobile telecommunications networks, highlighting ABB’s strategy to become a major player in IT infrastructure. ABB said both agreements are aimed at offering rapid execution of so-called 3G (3rd generation or UMTS) mobile communications networks currently under development in most European markets. ************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Those construction companies were brought on board under the assumption that the UMTS storm was going to happen at the pace envisaged by the how the market perceived it by Summer 2000. The market perception, at that point in time, was that all operators holders of licenses would be building all at once. Just for illustration's sake: Figures given by the Financial Times were: "Each operator's total network could be 15,000 cells or more.... Contrast this with GSM, where a typical network operator today might have 5,000 cells after nearly 10 years of operation". Under this perspective, telecom vendors would require all the help in the world to build UMTS networks. That's why they have brought those engineering companies to help them build networks. It is interesting to note that the vendors were not only eyeing subcontractors that could build UMTS networks, but had also the market clout and the banking contacts to finance the buildout. Because they knew that at that scale they would need to provide vendor financing and partners with contacts with the banking community would come in very handy. What next? For a while vendors and engineering companies will put a brave face and will pretend that what they planned is still going to happen since they had come out with a bang and cannot backstep without losing face. As time passes their initial plans will be forgotten and no one will ask about that any more. But UMTS is still going to be built, right? Yes, it will but we know that it is going to be built slowly and steadily. The fact is, rollout of wireless networks lends itself much more for an specialists type of work. And that was 2G! 3G more so. To integrate all those disparate technologies and functions is more feasible under a 2G type of rollout rather than the projects those large engineering those companies are used to deal with. They may well be good at building airports in Hong Kong or tunnel under the English Channel, but to build wireless is another story. The 2G buildout was done solely by telecom vendors with a constellation of small specialized firms and free lancer contractors. It has never had the scope of a large engineering project such a hydroelectric power stations and its ancillary systems.