Rumours about Spark NOC ?

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yitz

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#3411314 4-Sep-2025 20:04

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toejam316

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#3411316 4-Sep-2025 20:16

yitz:

I would imagine a lot of the 200 roles going would have been related to copper shutdown because copper ran on a completely separate access and transport network to fibre due to the Telecom/Chorus split. Not saying there was not additional restructuring or outsourcing to that but just shows how hands on copper technology was.

You would imagine incorrectly - barring the legacy PSTN Second Level support technicians who were entirely unaffected, all the people who were employed for PSTN function were running the legacy PSTN network alongside their other duties. Spark ran a multi-faceted multi-talented "agile" NOC, with PSTN NEAX function handled by the Power/Building Services team (of which I was previously a part of), DTLM and PCM equipment monitored and managed by the Transport team that managed OTN and Fibre, and PSTN to IP gateways managed by the IP Core team.

I cannot name a single staff member I'm aware of who has lost their role that I would say lost their role due to the copper shutdown, the teams were lean and able to run many functions, with many of us in those affected teams capable of turning our hands to the other functions to a greater or lesser degree of success.

All those legacy copper roles are just functions allocated to other roles that support the wider network, and continue to operate as the copper network continues to operate.

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Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

yitz

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#3411322 4-Sep-2025 20:38

Yeah that makes sense I suppose, you can't automate all the legacy in-house stuff. Thanks for clarifying this outsourcing is very much along vendor lines.

cokemaster

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#3411341 4-Sep-2025 22:06

I do feel sorry for those affected. It really sucks going through the re-orgs and it sucks even more when the re-org doesn't go your way.
Thankfully other industries are somewhat less re-org trigger happy and I hope those impacted find other roles.

My other advice is to also look at Australia. There are quite a few tech jobs over here, pay and conditions are significantly better than what you'd be getting otherwise.
Its a bit of a move but well worth it for job security and less of a culture shock than you'd think. On the flipside, your mobile plans are generally cheaper too.

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