The article is big on buzzwords but really light on the details. The only way I can see an organization like that spending a half-million monthly on telecommunications is if every single line was direct from the CO.
If this is the case, a traditional PBX system could have probably saved a similar amount of money, albeit with a higher monthly cost but a much lower initial outlay of money.
VoIP is great technology and is due to go a long way, but 802.11 is far from being the be-all-end-all solution to our wants and needs. The fact is that user density you can get from a single AP just isn't even close to being adequate enough to support a large user base.
You know what it's like on a cell phone network when you're trying to make a call in a metro area during peak use times. Can you imagine what it will be like on an 802.11 network with CSMA/CD?
This attitude is one of the reasons why IT in general has gotten such a bad rap for so long -- and why many companies don't blink twice at the concept of canning every single one for a nameless, faceless outsourcing firm.
When you're a senior IT supervisor, and you have to counsel one of your employees, do you know all the laws regarding the proper way to do it? The forms that are required to be filled out? Who signs what on which pages? How to make sure that it becomes a solid record of a failure to perform so that if you eventually fire the individual, you can't be sued for wrongful termination?
Of course you don't. That's why you have HR people. It's their *JOB* to know. You don't see them snickering behind your back about how lame you are because you didn't understand Dept of Labor regulations.
The PHB mentality is also one reason why companies bring in non-tech folks to be managers. IT pros are so condititioned to hate management and all it entails that they limit their success -- and also limit the success of their departments. Believe me, a competent COO or VPO would much rather bring in a business-saavy tech hand as their point of contact rather than a [barely] tech-saavy business hand. However, such individuals are pretty hard to come by.
Don't believe me. Check around. What pays more. Someone with ten years of IT experience and an MBA, or someone with ten years of experience and a masters in mathematics.
The reason for this is pretty simple. 3 hours is the maximum cut-off time that studios will accept movies in most circumstances -- especially movies that will appeal to more popular people. The reason? Well...at 3 hours runtime, plus trailers, load-in, and clean-up time, you have about 3:30 at a breakneck pace. That leaves the following times available for post-matinee showings
4:00 7:30 11:00
Three showings a night, per screen. A mere additional 30 minutes of footage would push any third showing to midnight, getting out at 3:30 This would ridiculiously decrease ticket sales -- especially during the week.
More ticket sales = more money.
Quintin Tarrintino recently ran into this problem with Kill Bill, his 5-6 hour opus that he was trying to push to the studios to show as a single film. Yeah, right!
The arguement about the free speech issue not withstanding, there is a very fact about this bill that makes the law completely irrelevant in the far term.
This is because of two loopholes that exist in the law. For one, you have the issue of the pre-existing business relationship. While this is not presently a problem, what you're going to see happen is many companies that were previously not in the business of telemarketing opening new subsidiaries solely devoted to offering their "valued customers" "valuable offers" from their "valued partners."
The second loophole really isn't a loophole per se, but a simple and unfortunante fact that US law does not affect those overseas. Already, a large portion of telemarketing is being pushed to overseas locations -- much like the rest of US jobs. Calls originating in India from a corporation headquartered in the Bahamas won't be affected by this law.
In short, all this law will do is cause a major shift in the telemarketing industry. Banks and grocery stores will become the new telemarketing companies, but in the long term, we'll just be annoyed by Indians and Cambodians.
Unfortunately, there are two distinct exemptions already in place that will, over the next two years or so, make the do-not-call list irrelevant.
The first is the pre-existing business relationship clause. Businesses that have nothing to do with telemarketing now will up the ante and start to offer their customers "value-added services" for an additional fee. This will most likely occur with many smaller online retailers and providers of various online services (read: pr0n sites).
The second is the fact that the do-not-call list only affects calls originating in the United States. The move of telemarketing jobs to lower-paying foreign labor has already started, this will merely accellerate the process until the only way to stop a telemarketer is for us to invade their country.
How is consumer VoIP not a service? True, if I buy a pair of VoIP boxes and connect them on broadband connections in two branch offices, yeah, that's a product.
Vonage and their competitors are most definitely a SERVICE. They provide the call routing and billing for the individual consumer, as well as act as the VoIP-PSTN gateway.
The product/service article is extremely flawed and misleading. While it is true that the RBOCs and ILECs still price-gouge the consumers to an excessive degree, they still provide a service, not a product.
Should Vonage be taxed? Well, odds are, they probably already are. I would assume that they pay tax on their own incoming trunks at their VoIP-PSTN gateway locations, and those are taxed accordingly and the costs passed on to the consumer in the form of their monthly contracts.
The decision to tax a service over a service (consumer VoIP over an ISP conneciton) is the contention here.
I hit the fleet in early 98 and saw exactly what you saw. I was so excited I couldn't wait, seeing sergeants get out making 80,000-90,000 right off the bat. All I saw was dollar signs.
Then my EAS [6 months early because of medical] hit in 2001 right after the tech bubble burst...strugging to find a minimum wage job. Oh, the joy. Doing well as a contractor, now, but it took awhile.
Since graduating high school over six years, ago, I've spent a majority of my time in the defense sector (sans a short stint in a commercial job), either in uniform or as a contractor, so I'll try and give both sides of that story.
I received excellent training and experience as a Small Computer Systems Specialist (MOS 4066) in the US Marine Corps. However, the opportunities for IT-related MOSes in all branches of the service are rapidly dwindling.
The reason is that all "white", or garrison, networks and IT support is being contracted out to civilians. Whether its Team EITC for USSOCOM bases, or NMCI for all Navy/Marine Corps bases, there is no sign of this ever stopping.
The reasons for this are relatively simple. With uniformed servicemembers in charge, there is a turnover rate of 2-4 years, average of about 3. This means that every 3 years you lose someone who's got the experience and bring in a greenhorn. Many military installations felt this was unacceptable and felt permanent staffing was more appropriate. As civil service was too expensive (yes, they're paid less, but their overhead is ridiculious), contractors were used in their place.
What does this leave for a servicemenber? This isn't to say the only work left will be fixing airplanes or carrying a rifle, there are plenty of opportunities available to learn IT in the serivce, and that's on the tactical, or "green" side of things. Setting up networks in the field, satellite communications systems, crypto, its all still in high demand. There's also need in the Navy to manage shipboard networks -- something a civlian would not be able to do. Sure, contractors are even taking some of these billets on the battlefield (applied for one not too long ago myself...), but you can have your chance -- just be careful and listen to everything the recruiter is telling you before you buy off on an MOS you're not entirely sure of. Keep in mind, though, that IT and communications are one in the service -- either the SC branch in the Air Force, or S-6/G-6 in the Army and Marines. You may be managing switches and routers on one tour, and doing sat-comm another, and doing cryto yet again after that. Keep this in mind -- there is no guaranteed "you're a data-dink".
The key advantage in being in comm in the service is twofold. One, you get a security clearance. This is solid gold in any kind of government position. To obtain even a SECRET clearance nowadays takes over a year -- time a company can not afford to waste on a new employee before putting him to work. TOP SECRET takes even longer. If you manage to come out of the service with a TOP SECRET/SCI clearance, or even better, NSA/CIA authorization, you'll have a great deal of marketability.
There is also another, less tangible benefit. You'll be a member of "the club". Government contractors are far more likely to hire prior servicemembers than they are civilians off the street. No, this isn't discrimination, its simple business. Their customer is the military. It takes a long time for a civilian to understand how things work in the military -- and someone coming straight from that environment will be more likely to adapt far more quickly to the quasi-military/quasi-civilian world of the contractor.
Then, there are those benefits the recruiters love to talk about. Honestly, my four years in the Marine Corps were some of the best in my life. Sure, I bitched and moaned, had some headaches, but being in the civilian world for the last two and a half years, I quickly learned that all the headaches I had in the Corps are here on the other side of the fence, too, just a little bit different in nature. You'll get to do things no one else can do, experience things you'll never get another chance to. And, you'll get other experience that can be relevant in finding a non-IT job if, after four years, you decide IT just isn't for you.
And maybe, just maybe, the economy will turn around by the time you get out.
Linux is, of course, the driving force behind the open source movement. Would the open source movement have continued? Probably. Albeit, not in nearly the force it has.
Most open source software is limited to small, specific applications tailored to certain purposes. Not only that, but aside from Linux, there are relativly few "big time" open source programs out there.
All movements need a flagship. The French Revolutionaries had freedom, the Grange had gold and silver, the Hippies had pot and sex. The Open Source movement has Linux. Something probably would have taken its place, but probably later and probably not as effectivly.
Would Linux be the same without the open source aspect? Of course not. Look at OS/2. OS/2 is/was, in all respects, a superior operating system and networking environment to NT. However, the Microsoft clout (in addition to braindead IBM marketting people...don't include Win95 support...what a bunch of morons) killed it. Literally the only thing that keeps Linux alive is the fact that its Open Source. Try and put Linux under the same marketting model as NT, and it would go over like a lead balloon.
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Lets get this straight.
When it's *their* [RIAA] copyrights, it's a bunch of evil corporations persecuting innocent music lovers.
But when it's *our* copyright [GPL] at stake, then we're all for legal action against the infringers.
Give me a break you bunch of hypocrites.
The article is big on buzzwords but really light on the details. The only way I can see an organization like that spending a half-million monthly on telecommunications is if every single line was direct from the CO.
If this is the case, a traditional PBX system could have probably saved a similar amount of money, albeit with a higher monthly cost but a much lower initial outlay of money.
VoIP is great technology and is due to go a long way, but 802.11 is far from being the be-all-end-all solution to our wants and needs. The fact is that user density you can get from a single AP just isn't even close to being adequate enough to support a large user base.
You know what it's like on a cell phone network when you're trying to make a call in a metro area during peak use times. Can you imagine what it will be like on an 802.11 network with CSMA/CD?
This attitude is one of the reasons why IT in general has gotten such a bad rap for so long -- and why many companies don't blink twice at the concept of canning every single one for a nameless, faceless outsourcing firm.
When you're a senior IT supervisor, and you have to counsel one of your employees, do you know all the laws regarding the proper way to do it? The forms that are required to be filled out? Who signs what on which pages? How to make sure that it becomes a solid record of a failure to perform so that if you eventually fire the individual, you can't be sued for wrongful termination?
Of course you don't. That's why you have HR people. It's their *JOB* to know. You don't see them snickering behind your back about how lame you are because you didn't understand Dept of Labor regulations.
The PHB mentality is also one reason why companies bring in non-tech folks to be managers. IT pros are so condititioned to hate management and all it entails that they limit their success -- and also limit the success of their departments. Believe me, a competent COO or VPO would much rather bring in a business-saavy tech hand as their point of contact rather than a [barely] tech-saavy business hand. However, such individuals are pretty hard to come by.
Don't believe me. Check around. What pays more. Someone with ten years of IT experience and an MBA, or someone with ten years of experience and a masters in mathematics.
The reason for this is pretty simple. 3 hours is the maximum cut-off time that studios will accept movies in most circumstances -- especially movies that will appeal to more popular people. The reason? Well...at 3 hours runtime, plus trailers, load-in, and clean-up time, you have about 3:30 at a breakneck pace. That leaves the following times available for post-matinee showings
4:00
7:30
11:00
Three showings a night, per screen. A mere additional 30 minutes of footage would push any third showing to midnight, getting out at 3:30 This would ridiculiously decrease ticket sales -- especially during the week.
More ticket sales = more money.
Quintin Tarrintino recently ran into this problem with Kill Bill, his 5-6 hour opus that he was trying to push to the studios to show as a single film. Yeah, right!
The arguement about the free speech issue not withstanding, there is a very fact about this bill that makes the law completely irrelevant in the far term.
This is because of two loopholes that exist in the law. For one, you have the issue of the pre-existing business relationship. While this is not presently a problem, what you're going to see happen is many companies that were previously not in the business of telemarketing opening new subsidiaries solely devoted to offering their "valued customers" "valuable offers" from their "valued partners."
The second loophole really isn't a loophole per se, but a simple and unfortunante fact that US law does not affect those overseas. Already, a large portion of telemarketing is being pushed to overseas locations -- much like the rest of US jobs. Calls originating in India from a corporation headquartered in the Bahamas won't be affected by this law.
In short, all this law will do is cause a major shift in the telemarketing industry. Banks and grocery stores will become the new telemarketing companies, but in the long term, we'll just be annoyed by Indians and Cambodians.
Unfortunately, there are two distinct exemptions already in place that will, over the next two years or so, make the do-not-call list irrelevant.
The first is the pre-existing business relationship clause. Businesses that have nothing to do with telemarketing now will up the ante and start to offer their customers "value-added services" for an additional fee. This will most likely occur with many smaller online retailers and providers of various online services (read: pr0n sites).
The second is the fact that the do-not-call list only affects calls originating in the United States. The move of telemarketing jobs to lower-paying foreign labor has already started, this will merely accellerate the process until the only way to stop a telemarketer is for us to invade their country.
How is consumer VoIP not a service? True, if I buy a pair of VoIP boxes and connect them on broadband connections in two branch offices, yeah, that's a product.
Vonage and their competitors are most definitely a SERVICE. They provide the call routing and billing for the individual consumer, as well as act as the VoIP-PSTN gateway.
The product/service article is extremely flawed and misleading. While it is true that the RBOCs and ILECs still price-gouge the consumers to an excessive degree, they still provide a service, not a product.
Should Vonage be taxed? Well, odds are, they probably already are. I would assume that they pay tax on their own incoming trunks at their VoIP-PSTN gateway locations, and those are taxed accordingly and the costs passed on to the consumer in the form of their monthly contracts.
The decision to tax a service over a service (consumer VoIP over an ISP conneciton) is the contention here.
Semper fi from another 4000...[4066 to be exact]
I hit the fleet in early 98 and saw exactly what you saw. I was so excited I couldn't wait, seeing sergeants get out making 80,000-90,000 right off the bat. All I saw was dollar signs.
Then my EAS [6 months early because of medical] hit in 2001 right after the tech bubble burst...strugging to find a minimum wage job. Oh, the joy. Doing well as a contractor, now, but it took awhile.
Since graduating high school over six years, ago, I've spent a majority of my time in the defense sector (sans a short stint in a commercial job), either in uniform or as a contractor, so I'll try and give both sides of that story.
I received excellent training and experience as a Small Computer Systems Specialist (MOS 4066) in the US Marine Corps. However, the opportunities for IT-related MOSes in all branches of the service are rapidly dwindling.
The reason is that all "white", or garrison, networks and IT support is being contracted out to civilians. Whether its Team EITC for USSOCOM bases, or NMCI for all Navy/Marine Corps bases, there is no sign of this ever stopping.
The reasons for this are relatively simple. With uniformed servicemembers in charge, there is a turnover rate of 2-4 years, average of about 3. This means that every 3 years you lose someone who's got the experience and bring in a greenhorn. Many military installations felt this was unacceptable and felt permanent staffing was more appropriate. As civil service was too expensive (yes, they're paid less, but their overhead is ridiculious), contractors were used in their place.
What does this leave for a servicemenber? This isn't to say the only work left will be fixing airplanes or carrying a rifle, there are plenty of opportunities available to learn IT in the serivce, and that's on the tactical, or "green" side of things. Setting up networks in the field, satellite communications systems, crypto, its all still in high demand. There's also need in the Navy to manage shipboard networks -- something a civlian would not be able to do. Sure, contractors are even taking some of these billets on the battlefield (applied for one not too long ago myself...), but you can have your chance -- just be careful and listen to everything the recruiter is telling you before you buy off on an MOS you're not entirely sure of. Keep in mind, though, that IT and communications are one in the service -- either the SC branch in the Air Force, or S-6/G-6 in the Army and Marines. You may be managing switches and routers on one tour, and doing sat-comm another, and doing cryto yet again after that. Keep this in mind -- there is no guaranteed "you're a data-dink".
The key advantage in being in comm in the service is twofold. One, you get a security clearance. This is solid gold in any kind of government position. To obtain even a SECRET clearance nowadays takes over a year -- time a company can not afford to waste on a new employee before putting him to work. TOP SECRET takes even longer. If you manage to come out of the service with a TOP SECRET/SCI clearance, or even better, NSA/CIA authorization, you'll have a great deal of marketability.
There is also another, less tangible benefit. You'll be a member of "the club". Government contractors are far more likely to hire prior servicemembers than they are civilians off the street. No, this isn't discrimination, its simple business. Their customer is the military. It takes a long time for a civilian to understand how things work in the military -- and someone coming straight from that environment will be more likely to adapt far more quickly to the quasi-military/quasi-civilian world of the contractor.
Then, there are those benefits the recruiters love to talk about. Honestly, my four years in the Marine Corps were some of the best in my life. Sure, I bitched and moaned, had some headaches, but being in the civilian world for the last two and a half years, I quickly learned that all the headaches I had in the Corps are here on the other side of the fence, too, just a little bit different in nature. You'll get to do things no one else can do, experience things you'll never get another chance to. And, you'll get other experience that can be relevant in finding a non-IT job if, after four years, you decide IT just isn't for you.
And maybe, just maybe, the economy will turn around by the time you get out.
Linux is, of course, the driving force behind the open source movement. Would the open source movement have continued? Probably. Albeit, not in nearly the force it has.
Most open source software is limited to small, specific applications tailored to certain purposes. Not only that, but aside from Linux, there are relativly few "big time" open source programs out there.
All movements need a flagship. The French Revolutionaries had freedom, the Grange had gold and silver, the Hippies had pot and sex. The Open Source movement has Linux. Something probably would have taken its place, but probably later and probably not as effectivly.
Would Linux be the same without the open source aspect? Of course not. Look at OS/2. OS/2 is/was, in all respects, a superior operating system and networking environment to NT. However, the Microsoft clout (in addition to braindead IBM marketting people...don't include Win95 support...what a bunch of morons) killed it. Literally the only thing that keeps Linux alive is the fact that its Open Source. Try and put Linux under the same marketting model as NT, and it would go over like a lead balloon.