Is Reliance on Public Cloud Dangerous for Telcos?

How big a threat are hyperscale cloud computing suppliers to the connectivity service provider customers they serve? Not much, if at all, some argue. Others think the danger is significant. 

"Let's be honest, they could run the whole network for probably half the cost," said John Giere, Optiva CEO. Giere seems to be referring only to the cost of server resources, though. "Sixty-five percent of servers are bought by five companies in the world.”

The implication is that the sheer cost of compute infrastructure could be much lower than any single connectivity provider could obtain. 

As always, the analysis of total cost is much more complicated than the cost of acquiring server capacity to run software. There are personnel costs, software costs, maintenance, power and redundancy costs, for example. 

And the complex analysis arguably turns on value. Would you prefer a 50 percent return on investment on an investment that improves 5 percent of your cost structure, or a 25 percent return on investment on an investment that improves 20 percent of your cost structure? 

In other words, connectivity providers have to understand where their costs are created. 

Consider thinking about 5G-based edge computing networks. Some might see costs centered in the core network while others believe it is at the edge. As networks become more virtualized and disaggregated, those perceptions might prove equally correct or incorrect, no matter which view presently holds. 

Perhaps the biggest difference right now is thinking about return on investment in core networks, as, by definition, much network investment for edge computing must happen “at the edge.” 

source: IBM Institute for Business Value 

At some volume level, the economics of using public cloud services on an outsourced basis rather than running owned compute infrastructure might even reverse. For enterprises, at some level of volume, it virtually always makes sense to buy and own rather than lease and pay for services. 

But there are other considerations. Some might say the task of managing the network is not where the value lies. Rather, it is in the ability to tap the latest and most-advanced compute capabilities to build new services at the customer-facing level. 

If you think about the problem as a matter of operations support systems--not strictly “compute resources”--you get a glimpse of the difference between a platform to “run the network” and a platform to create new services. ” 

Simply all operations support and compute platforms exist to support business outcomes, but those outcomes also hinge on go-to-market skill.

Simply, one cannot create a customer-facing service unless the underlying network can support it. But creating a new customer-facing service relies on much more than the compute or connectivity platforms. 

Much of the effort and skill centers on domain knowledge, code-writing capabilities, marketing skill and an internal organization that does not slow down or block such development. Add capital resources, depth of ecosystem partners, a lack of distracting other issues and organizational agility to that list of requirements. 

In other words, using a hyperscale partner as the compute platform is less about the cost of managing the core network and more about  leveraging a platform for creating new services that require the use of the network, at the “my platform can support that” level. 

Such capabilities arguably apply most to services enterprise customers value, deploy and buy. That applies to capabilities enterprises themselves require for internal consumption as well as the products they create and sell to consumers. 

Perhaps the biggest connectivity provider fear is losing control of key capabilities in the network technology or customer-facing markets. That is not an insignificant risk. 

Still, in an increasingly open, disaggregated, layered ecosystem of value creation, revenue models and functions, it is hard to argue against the proposition that the hyperscalers will always be able to innovate at the platform support level faster than connectivity providers can accomplish.

Telcos used to build their own consumer devices; their own switches (special purpose computers), their own operating systems, billing systems and so forth. They rarely do so anymore. 

As the architecture of computing changes, connectivity providers simply are changing with those evolutions.

"Blaming the Victim" When Surveys Don't Work as Expected

Some might call the effort people put into their survey responses as “satisficing.” As applied to survey response data, the term means some people are not thinking too much about the actual responses they are giving to the poll questions. That might be akin to "blaming the victim" of a crime for crime's commission.

Some of us might argue the term "satisficing" is quite misapplied. To the extent "satisficing" can be said to apply, most of it already has been applied in the design of the polls or surveys.

To be sure, the definition os “satisfice” is to “pursue the minimum satisfactory condition or outcome.” 

As used to describe survey respondent behavior, it connotes “choosing an alternative which is not the optimal solution but is a solution which is good enough.” 

source: FourweekMBA 

But that is precisely what multiple choice survey instruments require. As often stated, respondents are told to “pick the answer that most represents your views.” As most of us can attest, oftentimes none of the available options actually represents our “true” opinions. No matter. 

Also, unlike Simon’s search for understanding of decision making, he challenged the notion that human thinking actually could encompass all possible solutions. The whole point is that humans cannot do so, so a “good enough” solution always is chosen. 

In a multiple-choice survey instrument, the designers already have eliminated all but a set of choices. Respondents do not have to choose the “best possible” response, only that response presented to them, which is a handful of choices. 

The “satisficing” already has occurred, but it does not represent  respondent behavior: it represents all the simplifying decisions made by the designers of the survey instrument. 

One must indicate which answer “best” fits one’s views. The term “satisficing” was created in 1947 by Professor Herbert Simon  n his 1947 book Administrative Behavior. 

His argument was that humans cannot be fully rational when making decisions. So-called  rational choice theory, which asserts that this is how decisions are made, is unrealistic, Simon argued. 

Instead, what humans actually use is a process he called bounded rationality. What humans actually do, since they have limited data, limited time and limited capabilities, is seek a workable solution to a problem, not technically the “best possible” solution. 

The concept is that humans do not have unlimited time, resources or capability to rationally consider all possible solutions to any problem, and then choose the optimal solution. Given all the constraints, they search for a limited number of solutions that will work, that are “good enough” and proceed. 

As applied to survey design or survey response, bounded rationality--known as “satisficing”--already has been employed. Survey designers already have chosen a very-finite set of “solutions” or “answers” to problems, issues, attitudes or choices that might possibly be made in real life. 

Perhaps the real answer--from any respondent--is that they would choose “none of the above,” all of the time, for reasons they have no way to communicate to the survey design team. 

Perhaps it is understandable that survey instrument designers fault their respondents for providing “bad data.” Some of us would submit that is not the problem. The problem is the faulty architecture of thinking about the issues for which answers are sought; the explicit choices offered to respondents; the forcing of responses into a predetermined framework; using language not nuanced enough to capture actual choices, beliefs, preferences or possible actions. 

If the data does not fit one’s assumptions or existing beliefs, whose fault is that?

Social Media Free Speech has no Legal Standing, Unfortunately

“Fixing” the issue of censorship on any social media will be quite difficult. 

The U.S. First Amendment to the Constitution only bars action by government entities. One might actually go further and note that the First Amendment only bars Congress from making laws that infringe on free speech.

The protections actually were not meant to constrict what private entities might publish or say. Nor, for that reason, is there a clear legal framework relating to private entities and First Amendment protections. Basically, they do not exist.

source: Teach Privacy 

All of which is a problem for those who believe freedom of speech should be enforced or enabled for social media platforms. 

That is part of a growing concern in some quarters about how freedom of expression is protected not from government action but by the actions of platforms. 

If we assume that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect freedom of expression in a democratic society, then new media formats and new platforms can raise new issues. And, as is common, the matter is complicated, especially because the First Amendment protection of free speech rights only prohibits the government from infringing. 

Private entities may “infringe or restrict speech” all they like. And ordinary citizens--as opposed to media firms, for example--actually have circumscribed “rights of free speech.” You may not exercise that right anywhere, anytime, for example. You do not have the right to dictate what any media entity chooses to publish or restrict. You have no right to exist on a social platform. 

You certainly have no right “to be heard” on media. When First Amendment protections have been upheld by courts, they have virtually always upheld the rights of media to act as speakers without government censorship. 

There is no similar history of rulings supporting private actor speech or censorship, as the rights belong to the “speaker” who owns the asset. 

The First Amendment has generally been interpreted to protect the rights of “speakers. But the owners of new platforms (social media, in particular) say their users are the “speakers,” not the platforms, when arguing for protection against claims of defamation, for example. 

Even if jurists wished to extend some First Amendment protections beyond “government” entities, legal concepts would have to come to a decision on who the “speaker” is, to protect the speaker’s rights.

The problem is that precedent favors the view that the platform is protected from government censorship, but not the individual users of any platform from private censorship. It might seem arcane, but “defining who the speaker is” underpins the freedom from government censorship. 

But there is no established right of users of social media to be free from the platform’s censorship. Government may not infringe. No such limitation exists for private entities of any sort. Citizens have the right to create their own media and “speak” that way. They have no comparable standing as users of any private entity’s platform. 

In other words, are the users of a platform the speakers, the platform itself, or some combination. Worse, is it the speakers or the audience whose “free thought” rights are to be respected?

Traditionally, citizens are to be protected from government restriction of free speech. 

But the places where “speech” occurs also matter. Public forums--such as public parks and sidewalks--have always been viewed as places where citizens have the right of free speech. 

Nonpublic forums are places where the right of free speech can be limited. Examples are airport terminals, a public school’s internal mail system or polling places. 

In between are limited public forums, where similar restrictions on speech are lawful, especially when applied to classes of speakers. However, the government is still prohibited from engaging in viewpoint discrimination, assuming the class is allowed. 

The government may, for example, limit access to public school meeting rooms to school-related activities. The government may not, however, exclude speakers from a religious group simply because they intend to express religious views, so long as they are in a permitted class of users. 

Those protections have been limited to state action, It is government entities (local, state, or federal) that are enjoined from infringing the right of free speech. Protections have not been deemed applicable to private entities.

There has generally been in other words, no First Amendment right of free speech enforceable on private firms or persons, with some exceptions. 

What cannot be said? What ideas cannot be thought? What implications may not be drawn? What does intolerance look like, in the context of thinking and ideas?

It is not easy to explain how freedom of thought and content moderation are to be harmonized. What is the difference between “community standards” moderation and outright banning of thoughts and ideas?

It is not easy to understand how “ideas” are different from “actions.” 

Nor is it easy to explain where “free speech” rights exist and by whom those rights may be exercised, as simple as the notion of freedom of thought, speech and political views might seem. 

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously noted,  "if there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought: not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate." 

The problem is that the freedom of free thought and speech does not include the right to be heard on a social media platform. How that can be fixed necessarily includes defining the free speech rights of entities and users of entities, even when those rights clash. 

Why Low Market Share Can Doom an Access Provider or Data Center

There is a reason access providers with double the share of their closest competitor lead their markets. 

Profit margin almost always is related to market share or installed base, at least in part because scale advantages can be obtained. Most of us would intuitively suspect that higher share would be correlated with higher profits. 

That is true in the connectivity and data center markets as well. 

source: Harvard Business Review 

But researchers also argue that market share leads to market power that also makes leaders less susceptible to price predation from competitors. There also is an argument that the firms with largest shares also outperform because they have better management talent. PIMS researchers might argue that better management leads to outperformance. Others might argue the outperformance attracts better managers, or at least those perceived to be “better.”

Without a doubt, firms with larger market shares are able to vertically integrate to a greater degree. Apple, Google, Meta and AWS can create their own chipsets, build their own servers, run their own logistics networks. 

source: Slideserve 

The largest firms also have bargaining power over their suppliers. They also may be able to be more efficient with marketing processes and spending. Firms with large share can use mass media more effectively than firms with small share.

Firms with larger share can afford to build specialized sales forces for particular product lines or customers, where smaller firms are less able to do so. Firms with larger share also arguably benefit from brand awareness and preferences that lessen the need to advertise or market as heavily as lesser-known and smaller brands with less share. 

Firms with higher share arguably also are able to develop products with multiple positionings in the market, including premium products with higher sales prices and profit margins. 

source: Contextnet 

That noted, the association between higher share and higher profit is stronger in industries selling products purchased infrequently. The relationship between market share and profit is less strong for firms and industries selling frequently-purchased, lower-value, lower-priced products where the risk of buying alternate brands poses low risk. 

The relationships tend to hold in markets where firms are spending to gain share; where they are mostly focused on keeping share or where they are harvesting products that are late in their product life cycles. 

source: Harvard Business Review 

The adage that nobody gets fired for buying IBM” or Cisco or any other “safe” product in any industry is an example of that phenomenon for high-value, expensive and more mission-critical products. 

For grocery shoppers, house brands provide an example of what probably drives the lower relationship between share and profit for regularly-purchased items. Many such products are actually or nearly commodities where brand value helps, but does not necessarily ensure high profit margins. 

On the other hand, in industries with few buyers--such as national defense products--profit margin can be more compressed than in industries with highly-fragmented buyer bases. 

Studies such as the Profit Impact of Market Strategies (PIMS) have been looking at this for many decades. PIMS is a comprehensive, long-term study of the performance of strategic business units  in thousands of companies in all major industries. 

The PIMS project began at General Electric in the mid-1960s. It was continued at Harvard University in the early 1970s, then was taken over by the Strategic Planning Institute (SPI) in 1975. 

Over time, markets tend to consolidate, and they tend to consolidate because market share is related fairly directly to profitability. 

One rule of thumb some of us use is that the profits earned by a contestant with 40-percent market share is at least double that of a provider with 20-percent share.

And profits earned by a contestant with 20--percent share are at least double the profits of a contestant with 10-percent market share.

This chart shows that for connectivity service providers, market share and profit margin are related. Ignoring market entry issues, the firms with higher share have higher profit margin. Firms with the lowest share have the lowest margins. 

source: Techeconomy  

In facilities-based access markets, there is a reason a rule of thumb is that a contestant must achieve market share of no less than 20 percent to survive. Access is a capital-intensive business with high break-even requirements. 

At 20 percent share, a network is earning revenue from only one in five locations passed. Other competitors are getting the rest. At 40 percent share, a supplier has paying customers at four out of 10 locations passed by the network. 

That allows the high fixed costs to be borne by a vastly-larger number of customers. That, in turn, means significantly lower infrastructure cost per customer.

Interconnection Regulation on Cusp of Major Change?

“Who” should be covered by common carrier regulation relating to network interconnection has gotten murkier in the internet era, as have many other older concepts. We used to leave “data services” largely unregulated. Telcos were highly regulated, though less so these days than in the past. 

Debates about “sending party pays” policies for interconnection are an example. In the past, only retail-facing telcos were subject to clear interconnection obligations, Internet domains interconnect on a voluntary basis. 

But “sending party pays” rules extend those obligations to new parties: a few hyperscale content or app providers. That moves beyond public common carrier interconnection and towards rules for internet domains with no obligations to serve the public. 

Such arguments also implicitly raise issues about which regulatory regime ought to hold: common carrier or data networks;  internet or "telecom. 

All arguments about universal service and now access network infrastructure upgrades necessarily entail rules about who should pay. To an extent, the answer could be “shareholders.” More often the answer is “customers” but sometimes the answer is “business partners.” 

The point is that universal service or network upgrades typically entail some contribution by all customers of communication networks; payments by service providers (whether they pay or simply collect is an issue), financial support from all taxpayers or shareholders. In some cases, debt holders can wind up paying, especially if a firm goes into voluntary bankruptcy. 

Basically, the argument that a handful of hyperscale app providers should make payments to access providers is of the “make business partners pay” argument, even if, in practice, there are no formal business relationships between app providers and ISPs. 

ISPs do have such direct relationships with other internet domains and connectivity providers. Adding a few hyperscale app providers to the interconnection framework essentially treats those hyperscalers as though they were “carriers.” Historically, such agreements were between “telcos” and other public communications service providers. 

Perhaps the difference now is that both ISPs and content domains now interconnect--directly or indirectly--to the internet fabric. So one way of framing the “sending party pays” discussion about internet traffic is to view the issue as a new form of debate over interconnection. 

source: Wayback Machine 

The idea is not unprecedented. Internet domains have used both settlement-free peering and transit fees when setting up business relationships. Peering is easy to justify when traffic flows are roughly equivalent. 

It is harder to accomplish when traffic flows are unequal. And that is among the problems with proposals to charge a few hyperscale app providers for unequal traffic exchange volumes.

The bigger question is whether rules for common carriers should be extended to data service providers. In the past, the answer has unequivocably been "no." But that seems to be changing.

Will Social Media Free Speech Hasn't Be Brought Within the "First Amendment" Orbit?

The shift from analog to digital for all forms of content and communications raises questions we have not had to think about, namely the misfit between traditional regulatory and legal norms with internet-based “everything.”

The tensions are broad. Where most people do not have to think about the difference between “common carrier” or “utility” regulation and realms of life that should not be so regulated, most people seem aware of thorny issues related to media and social media.

Some issues relate to civility, but that necessarily has implications for content moderation. And content moderation requires some imposition of “values” that have potential “freedom of thought” or “freedom of speech” consequences, even if the stated view is simply to control spam, rude and obnoxious or threatening speech. 

source: freespeechhistory.com 

Without content moderation, spam can overrun sites, for example. Without enforcement of civility rules, sites become dangerous places where bullying happens, not just rudeness. 

Worse, even where freedom of speech is guaranteed by law, such laws only protect private actors from government action. The U.S. First Amendment to the Constitution only bars action by government entities. The protections actually were not meant to constrict what private entities might publish or say.  

So it is not so clear--or easy--to apply the desire for free thought and speech in a practical way to private actors who cannot be compelled to do so. Some might note that a comprehensive theory of free speech protections as applied to government has not been developed. 

A growing concern in some quarters is how freedom of expression is protected not from government action but by the actions of platforms. Indeed, some call for greater restriction of free speech on platforms, in the name of so-called hate speech. Others say the restrictions are not equally applied to all speech, and result in the suppression of some political ideas. 

If we assume that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect freedom of expression in a democratic society, then new media formats and new platforms can raise new issues. And, as is common, the matter is complicated. 

The First Amendment has generally been interpreted to protect the rights of “speakers. But the owners of new platforms (social media, in particular) say their users are the “speakers,” not the platforms. Even if jurists wished to extend some First Amendment protections beyond “government” entities, legal concepts would have to come to a decision on who the “speaker” is, to protect the speaker’s rights. 

In other words, are the users of a platform the speakers, the platform itself, or some combination. Worse, is it the speakers or the audience whose “free thought” rights are to be respected?

Traditionally, citizens are to be protected from government restriction of free speech. 

But the places where “speech” occurs also matter. Public forums--such as public parks and sidewalks--have always been viewed as places where citizens have the right of free speech. 

Nonpublic forums are places where the right of free speech can be limited. Examples are airport terminals, a public school’s internal mail system or polling places. 

In between are limited public forums, where similar restrictions on speech are lawful, especially when applied to classes of speakers. However, the government is still prohibited from engaging in viewpoint discrimination, assuming the class is allowed. 

The government may, for example, limit access to public school meeting rooms to school-related activities. The government may not, however, exclude speakers from a religious group simply because they intend to express religious views, so long as they are in a permitted class of users. 

Those protections have been limited to state action, It is government entities (local, state, or federal) that are enjoined from infringing the right of free speech. Protections have not been deemed applicable to private entities.

There has generally been in other words, no First Amendment right of free speech enforceable on private firms or persons, with some exceptions. 

Common carriers--such as telcos--must allow communications between any users who are willing to pay the tariffs. Telcos cannot censor what those users say. Such regulation--including public accommodation, water and electrical utilities or railroads--is not generally regarded as a direct “free speech” issue, but an issue of commerce.

A common carrier is a person or company that transports goods or people for a fee, the principle being non-discrimination. A common carrier must provide its service to anyone willing to pay its fee, unless it has legitimate grounds for refusal.

If state governments decide to create laws protecting free speech from social media or other private firms, that would at the very least raise an issue: Can the federal government, acting under the guise of the First Amendment, move to restrict state action extending the zone of free speech to include dominant private platforms? 

That might involve a novel regulation of social media platforms as common carriers of a sort. As voice service providers are not, as a rule, allowed to censor what their customers and users may say, so platforms might be barred from such censorship as well. 

That would clearly be a principle that it is the users--not the platform--which has “free speech” protections, as it relates to posted content. Platforms would not surrender their political rights as entities. 

That would plow new ground, but First Amendment law has evolved over the years in an ad hoc way, all along. It would be a contentious argument, to be sure. In the case of social media platforms, we would have to decide who the speaker is, to determine whose rights are to be protected. 

Alternatively, some cases have essentially concluded that it is the audience--the listeners--whose rights are to be protected. That has happened mostly with radio and TV broadcasting, and with cable TV regulation to any extent. But that is arguably not the general principle. 

Generally, courts have decided it is “speakers” whose rights are to be protected. There are caveats. It has generally been the owners of assets whose rights are protected, in a practical sense: printing press owners, early on; then magazine or newspaper publishers; then radio broadcasters; TV broadcasters; then cable companies and networks.

Social media has not yet been addressed. But issues seem to be mounting. And that generally leads to court cases, which leads to Supreme Court action, which might set new precedents.