It impacts on staff morale and retention. And it makes it very difficult to attract the talent required to service operational growth. The challenges for competitive carriers are enormous. Some have already found solace in outright capitulation to acquisitive suitors. Expect to see more competitive carriers succumb to cashed-up foreign telcos such as Deutsche Telekom, NTT, Singapore Telecom and Telstra.
Hackers remain an elusive quarry for telcos despite the major costs they impose on bottom lines.
But they are by no means geeky loners. Hacker culture is sufficiently developed that it could be termed a community. One hacker magazine sells 50,000 copies an issue, while hacker conventions held the length and breadth of the nation are consistently well attended. Although most telcos maintain antihacker operations, there has been surprisingly little research into what drives hackers to do what they do. We decided to do something about that by assigning our assistant editor, Patrick Neighly, to get inside the hacker community and find out what makes them tick.