Some ideas about telecom company

[choum]

Hi,

Not an easy question. As there are many things. As i'm a bad drawer i'll just describe it.
The easy way can be complex too. I suggest this for each telco :

A) 1 tab per city (or country if possible) with in each tab :
- coverage of each telco company for each tech on the left part of the screen and demand for each tech. (why deploy more 3G if users wants 4G now?) So it's near retail infos. And Quality of service.
- on the right part : sliders to invest more or less on each technology infrastructure (this is availability not quality) with % of population coverage (remember that the last 1% will cost more than the first 50% so use an exponential scale in your computation). So here a slider for DSL, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, Fiber, etc.
- a service cost associated to each service (you can use same system than for products in retail). Maybe with some checkboxes to add some features and bill more the users (firewall, AV, low latency, VoIP). (exemple users that want our VoIP should pay 1.25$ more per month)
- infos of quality of service (based on technology and maybe engineer skill level, yeah more training!). If i want to be sadistic here i'd point that a good DSL engineer can't help with 4G, it's different skills

B) another tab for external services like links to :
- advertising companies (like for existing internet companies)
- services link companies (like Vod). today users can pay an extra to their telco to access netflix (rather than to suscribe netflix directly). And how much the telco will charge the other companies to use their network. Exemple 0.1$ per Gb used. with an extra if users are in another countries. Here it's important to not fix things as a telco can work with 100 différent companies and charge different prices for each (or use a fix prices for all of them if easier to code). Another way is to fix a bandwidth allowed for the other companie (like peering) so if max is reach the other companie can't serve more users. So VoD companies and some others should have a tab to manage telco relation as well (maybe a price can be precalculated or it can be negociated like when we want to buy R&D from another companie)
Here it's a challenge to balance things as users and other companies pays

C) maybe a specifig tech or R&D integrated to increase quality of service (it's good to have a huge network, but improve backbone devices is mandatory too, train engineers, costumer service, etc). Develop new subtech, for exemple a better 4G antennas will reduce the cost to build 4G infrastructures by supporting more users per antenna, build cheaper antenna, increase range of each antenna etc Maybe add a reconvert option. In France buygues telecom stopped 2G services and used all their 2G antennas to cover 4G, so very few costs to deploy a big 4G network. Here R&D should need some scientis but money too (exemple improve density of 4G antenna cost 80 millions and 2 years (reduced by the number of scientists like other R&D but with extra funding too on a logarithme scale (1 can't pay 500 billions to discover cold fusion in a week LOL). Here maybe just propose a list of 50 or 100 projects to improve things on a looong subtab

D) telcom should have to pay a fee (or buy a licences as we can buy land for new city) to use some technologies like 3G or 4G. And only a number of this licences should exists (4 maybe). telco can't invest if there is too much competition. Sometimes it's a good way to buy a telco that have the licence that you want


remember that things must be based on technology progress and not on the date. Users can't want 4G if it doesn't exists (no company R&D it and begin to deploy it, you know tech can keep in boxes for years before be deployed)

that's my firsts ideas, we can discuss them (i have not the code not the schem of your datas)

[David]

Thank you for your inputs. I will forward them to the dev team.

[David]

One question that the dev team asked is how the suggested features will change the strategic decisions made by the player in competing with other telecoms. Will it still all come down to just spending more money to improve the telecom infrastructure, albeit with more bells and whistles? At its core, will the player be provided with more depth of strategic choices?

Would welcome any comments from anyone who have insights on this.

[choum]

Hello,

As i said, it would be a network QoL like for citys (we need something to make a real difference between companies avant a balance R&B/money. for exemple :
internet availability
telephony quality
telephony coverage
network security
network bandwidth
services (VoD, mails, television, applications, QoS, SD-WAN) (can be subdivided like education for towns)
customer service quality
IT skills
network worldwide coverage (as it must be very expensive it will motivate some companies that want to boost their quality of service, here peering with other telco can be an option (OPEX vs CAPEX)
etc

[David]

One quick question: How can the player increase the network bandwidth and telephony coverage?

[choum]

quick answer, i can develop it this WE if needed

the easiest way : money (as today for telco company, but with 2 sliders (bandwidth and coverage)
bandwidth means happier users, coverage means more max users

they can be increased by R&D too, better antennas can cover a better range, new switchs or routers increase bandwidth
so for the math something like : (base + "total investement")x"R&D ratio"

remember that the investement is not linear . I imagine :
- near exponential for bandwidth (as power of high end core network increase drascally)
- near logarithm for coverage (as last % of coverage would need massive ammounts of money)

the hard part is the balance this to make it viable but chanllanging. (i think about IA too, as the game is sadly not multiplayer yet (i can dream héhé))

[David]

internet availability
telephony quality
telephony coverage
network security
network bandwidth
services (VoD, mails, television, applications, QoS, SD-WAN) (can be subdivided like education for towns)
customer service quality
IT skills
network worldwide coverage (as it must be very expensive it will motivate some companies that want to boost their quality of service, here peering with other telco can be an option (OPEX vs CAPEX)

How do all these factors affect a telecom's competitiveness? Since there are a few of them, we will need to come up with a way to present them in a format that can be easily understood by the player. Do you think a UI like the city Quality of Life will serve the purpose well?

[choum]

yes of course, it's my idea since the begining, as explained

[David]

I wonder if anybody who is reading this post have ideas for more creative means for improving these attributes asides from setting a budget and doing research.

As much as I like this realistic list of attributes for a telecom, I'm concerned that it could be a bit boring if the UI for them is just an array of sliders for setting their development budgets. Any suggestions are welcome!

[baz]

very Interesting post.

i think we need to break down what Telecoms is, How it works briefly and then How telecoms works in the game and what mechanics are available to change, what would need to be added and what that actually gives you as a player, I agree with David that there's no point just having more sliders.

A Landline telecoms provider has to have experience in Voice and more now Data. They have to have Hardware, skilled engineers, marketing, an Infrastructure, large cash outlays, Have to invest in the latest technology, be competitive at pricing, and invest in current infrastructure.

Whats similar in the game, you need cash for the building, A budget for infrastructure and a pricing strategy. Along side cash to keep the company going it it's early years.

Whats missing is The Hardware, quality of staff, marketing, new technology, and infrastructure, The game has capacity but not the initial cost of the infrastructure.
How can we implement the parts that are missing that gives the game more interest.
IMO I think we need a computers to of been developed, Software O/s to be created, then I think we need a data Center to be allowed as a new building.
Data Center
How does this work?
The Data Center could be connected with how many Pc's there are or how many O/s are sold. I would suggest it's based on phones but that would then need another tab similar to software. I don't think that is required but I would like to see mobile phones and O/s the same as pc as then we could use mobile phone o/s and pc o/s for the amount of users.
The data center could have a budget, larger the more data can handle, more data, more money, better ratings, In fact what the telcom building is. the Telcom building would then buy it's services from the data center but offer Phone, Mobile, TV and internet services. Each could have a budget and could specialize in all or just one. You would be able to charge pricing for each.
How I would see the data center work is similar to farms. frozen food goes to retail at some stage farm can't create anymore frozen food, build new farm.
In this sense. Data center reaches capacity, you have to build another or maybe add another floor, The costs for the data center should include skilled engineers, tech budget and a capacity budget.
The higher the tech budget the lower the capacity the better the price, less cost of engineers, budget and capacity cost.
The telecoms could work on 4 services offered each has an income and cost, less admin costs for staff, cost of data center and new tech. they can use marketing to increase revenue or users but they will be dependent on the data center.
The Internet building could then buy internet services from the telecoms but could also buy from the data center direct if they have the money.
It's very basic but hopefully could be easily implemented in the game.
Ideally what I would like to see is a networking company, that can create Network infrastructure just like pc's but for Networks with a network O/s with routers then using the relevant o/s, and then you could use the relevant o/s numbers for a data center. I would also like to see this with mobile phones ect as then you would have several different data sources to use for telecoms, which would also open up android, Apple and windows phones for example.
Ideally you would have routers and o/s, mobile phones and o/s on top of pc's and o/s which we have. You could add TV's or like sky boxes virgin ect that have O/s then you would have 4 separate sources of data for the telecoms to truly work well.
From a user prospective you would have more data to work with, more competitiveness in that market, it would feel closer to Telecoms than it does, another layer to invest in when you really have the money.
At the moment I can buy telecoms set a budget and relax as long as my pricing and budget are fine, there is nothing more to do. Unlike any other part of the game.