The Economist (2022-01-08)

The Economist January 8th 2022 Business 57

tem to other operators. It is helping 1&1, a
German  web­hosting  company,  to  build  a
network.  “We  don’t  want  to  be  a  telco
cloud,  but  enable  operators  to  make  their
own,” explains Tareq Amin, who heads Ra­
kuten Symphony.
Existing  mobile  networks  will  not  be
replaced overnight. Rakuten’s faced delays
and  Dish’s  was  originally  scheduled  for
launch late last year. Some technical barri­
ers  remain.  Despite  being  seen  as  a  wel­
come  alternative  to  gear  from  Huawei,  a
controversial  Chinese  giant,  especially  in
Europe,  gear  based  on  o­ran specifica­
tions is not mature. Its European adopters
have therefore yet to install it in the most
vital parts of their networks. “It’s in an ex­
tended beta test,” sums up Dean Bubley of
Disruptive Analysis, a consultancy.
Another question is whether the cloud
can  completely  gobble  up  telecomsnet­
works, notes Stéphane Téral of LightCount­
ing, another consultancy. Controllinga 5g
base  station  is  hugely  complex  and in­
volves  keeping  tabs  on  hundreds  ofpara­
meters. The more flexible a carrier wantsto
be,  the  more  complicated  things  get.At
least for some time, the necessary control
software  may  need  to  run  on  specialised
gear near the antenna rather than ongen­
eralist servers in faraway data centres.
Then  there  are  the  political  and  finan­
cial  barriers.  European  governmentsfret
that America’s spooks will have evenmore
access to their country’s networks ifthese
run in American clouds (Europe hasnone
of  its  own  and  is  understandably even
warier  of  Chinese  ones).  Carriers,  inEu­
rope and elsewhere, fear losing businessto
the tech giants like Amazon, Google orMi­
crosoft, which have already skimmedmost
of  the  value  generated  by  4gmobiletech­
nology.  “If  all  this  is  not  financially  inter­
esting  for  [telecoms  firms],  they  willtry
something  else,”  says  Michael  Trabbia,
chief  technology  officer  of  Orange, a
French mobile operator.
However  this  plays  out,  the  telecoms
business  will  look  very  different  a few
years from now. The contest for controlof
the  telecoms  cloud,  and  particularly its
“edge” (tech speak for what remains ofthe
base station) will only heat up. Whoeveris
in charge of these digital gates will havethe
fastest access to consumers and theirdata,
the main currency in a world of newwire­
less services, from self­driving cars tovir­
tual­reality metaverses.
The cloud businesses have the techno­
logical edge for now, and will try to eatas
much  of  wireless  networks  as  possible.
The operators have relationships withcus­
tomers,  know  how  to  manage  networks
and  own  the  radio  spectrum.  Eventually,
cloud  providers  and  network  operators
will probably come to some kind of agree­
ment.  In  the  new  world  of  mobiletele­
coms, neither can do without the other.n

Labourshortages

Blue-collar

burnout

R

estaurantandhotelbosseshavehad

a toughyear.Some700,000hospitality

workersthrewinthetowelonaverageeach

monthinthepastyear. Bars,cafésandeat­

eriesare1.3mworkersshortrelativetothe

16.9memployedbeforecovid­19.OnJanu­

ary4ththeBureauofLabourStatisticsre­

portedthata record4.5mAmericansquit

theirjobsinNovember,9%upona month

earlier.Thequitrateinleisureandhospi­

tality jumpedby apercentage point, to

6.4%.UncertaintyfromtheOmicronvar­

iantmay make matters worse: as cases

surgedinDecember,restaurantfootfallfell

sharply,accordingtoOpenTable,anonline

bookingwebsite.

Asinotherindustries,workersinhos­

pitality  are  leaving  for  various  reasons,

from fear of infection to better opportuni­

ties elsewhere. But one big motive is burn­

out.  Psychological  exhaustion  is  more  of­

ten  associated  with  hard­charging  invest­

ment  bankers  and  other  professionals.

Amid  the  pandemic  it  has  afflicted  many

blue­collar workers, too.

Surveys  find  that  chronic  stress  is  a

growing concern across the labour market,

but  dissatisfaction  is  especially  high  in

service  roles,  where  hybrid  work  is  not

possible.  Data  collected  by  Glassdoor,  an

employment portal, found that employees

rate  the  hospitality  sector  as  one  of  the

worst  for  work­life  balance.  Mentions  of

“burnout”  in  reviews  of  employers  on  the

site  have  doubled  during  the  pandemic.

Workers report that new tasks such as deal­

N EWYORK

Whysomanyworkersarefleeingthe

hospitalitysector

Carmaking

Motor Sin City

S

ince2008,whenGeneralMotors’then

boss  delivered  a  keynote  speech  at  the

Consumer  Electronics  Show  (ces),  an  an­

nual  technology  jamboree,  Las  Vegas  has

offered a glimpse of carmaking’s digital fu­

ture.  This  year  nearly  200  automotive

firms  signed  up  for  the  event,  which  got

cracking on January 5th. That day gm’s cur­

rent  chief,  Mary  Barra  (pictured),  ad­

dressed  a  mostly  online,  Omicron­avoid­

ing  crowd.  Like  other  big  carmakers,  gm

did not show up in person. But Ms Barra’s

virtual  cesouting  signalled  how  rapidly

cars  are  evolving  from  oil­filled  lumps  of

metal into devices stuffed with silicon.

Ms Barra talked about gm’s transforma­

tion from “automaker to platform innova­

tor”,  extolled  its  advances  in  commercial

electric  vehicles  (evs)  and  autonomous

driving,  and  unveiled  a  battery­powered

version of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup.

Rival  firms  raced  to  appear  even  more  in­

novative. bmwdemonstrated a system that

changes a car’s paint colour at the press of a

button.  Mercedes­Benz  went  so  far  as  to

claim that its Vision eqxx concept, with in­

terior  materials  fashioned  from  bamboo,

cactus  and  mushroom,  and  a  battery­po­

wered range of 1,000km, was “reinventing

the  car”.  Not  to  be  outdone,  consumer­

electronics  giants  strutted  their  automo­

tive  stuff.  Sony,  a  Japanese  one,  surprised

many attendees when it announced a pos­

sible foray into carmaking (though it may

merely  use  the  experience  to  develop  ev

and self­driving tech to sell to others).

Other announcements were less flashy

but more telling when it comes to the dig­

itisation of carmaking. Mobileye, the self­

driving arm of Intel, which supplies chips

to many big car firms, announced expand­

ed deals with Ford, Geely and Volkswagen.

Qualcomm, another chipmaker, inked new

ones with Volvo, Honda and Renault. 

The  courtship  between  carmakers  and

chip  firms  will  only  intensify.  The  world­

wide chip shortage that knocked nearly 8m

units  off  global  car  output  is  thankfully

easing  and  annualised  global  car  produc­

tion  could  return  to  pre­pandemic  levels

by  the  second  half  of  2022,  according  to

Evercore isi, an investment bank. Still, car

bosses  are  desperate  to  avoid  a  repeat.

Many  look  enviously  at  Tesla,  whose  own

intimate rapport with semiconductor sup­

pliers  buoyed  its  full­yearoutputfor  2021

to a total of 930,000 vehicles.n

The digital future of vehicle technology

Pickup lines