Reboot

Telecom Equipment & Consulting is... well, just Harry Braithwaite.  

I've been working in telecommunications since 1983, shortly after the AT&T divestiture. Lots of things have changed in the industry since that time but the biggest changes have come about in the last decade.  The emergence of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) ended the careers of many "phone guys" as we lost our customers to "computer guys".  Now those same customers are abandoning local vendors and turning to national providers like Windstream and RingCentral and cable companies like Comcast and Charter for Hosted VoIP solutions that eliminate almost all the hardware once required to provide voice and data communications.

Until the last several years, I had always been one of those local vendors, working directly with my customers on a first-name basis.  My job was to install a system specifically tailored to the end-users’ needs, and then maintain and repair that system in an ongoing relationship with the customer.  In many ways, each system was uniquely built for the business, and for the people, who would use it. All of that changed with the emergence of Hosted VoIP as the dominant technology.

I no longer work directly for the end-user and I rarely get to see the same person twice.  My real customers are the support desks and operations centers that contract me to do their site work. Even when I work for a repeat customer, I'm really just talking with whoever is taking calls when I happen to check in.  Though the part I play in the process is crucial, I miss the satisfaction of exploring the unique challenges of end user operations and then devising and implementing a solution for that fit their needs. Much of the knowledge and skill I’ve accumulated over the years is no longer applied at the hands-on level where I operate.  Issues like circuit design, traffic volume management, call routing, and systems integration are now handled at a remote, centralized level and technicians like me are left feeling like a human commodity, interchangeable with any warm body capable of following relatively complex instructions.

I miss the sense that I’m solving problems and making a difference and I realize that I had come to depend on my customers for much of my social interaction and sense of connectedness. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not seeing this blog as just about technology.  It happens to be one of the things I’m best at so it will probably be mentioned often, but I’d also like to leave the occasional rambling thought here and see if anyone has a response. I hope you do...