WCA January 2019

From the Americas driver shortage by raising wages. And so far, she wrote, it is working out. (“J B Hunt Says 10 Per Cent Raises Are the Antidote to the Truck-Driver Shortage,” 16 th October) To recruit new drivers, J B Hunt Transport Services Inc (Lowell, Arkansas) said on 15 th October that its contract-services unit had raised wages by around 10 per cent over the previous 12 to 18 months. According to Labor Department figures cited by Ms Foster, that compares with a 2.8 per cent increase in average hourly earnings for all US private-sector workers in the 12 months through to September, and 4.3 per cent over the 18-month period. “We have been recruiting drivers very well in this difficult market because of the pay that we’ve been able to price into our deals for our drivers,” Nicholas Hobbs, president of the contract-services business, said in a conference call following the company’s third-quarter earnings release. Bloomberg sees such comments as adding to “anecdotal signs” that wages and perks in the industry are picking up as customers seek shipping services to meet solid demand amid the lowest unemployment since the 1960s. But Ms Foster noted that it may be premature to declare the emergency at an end, as official data from the Labor Department have yet to show such a strong pickup in pay. Average hourly earnings for long-distance general freight trucking employees were up just 1.9 per cent in September 2018 from the year earlier. A shortage of land for expansion is driving data centres to consider burrowing deep rather than going wide According to the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC), with headquarters in the US state of Hawaii, while building underground data centres has never been seen as a mainstream option, that may be changing – especially in the Pacific Rim. The PTC noted that, from repurposing abandoned bunkers and natural caves to creating man-made underground spaces, the telecom industry is no stranger to building underground facilities. In the early 1960s the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), originally built to protect communications systems against attack, moved into an underground bunker in the Cheyenne Mountain range of the US West. Now, a pressing space shortage has led to serious consideration of “going underground” around the Pacific Rim. In Singapore, consistently rated the leading data centre location, centre developers and operators must contend with a lack of land for building outwards – and the correspondingly high cost of available space. Said the PTC, “Underground data centres allow the compact island nation to continue to expand.” (“Are Data Centres Going Underground in the Pacific Rim?,” 11 th October) Telecom

Space constraints are problematic in other Pacific Rim countries as well. In 2013, California-based Google abandoned plans to take space in the Tseung Kwan O industrial estate in Hong Kong, citing an absence of available land for expansion. “Probably not coincidentally,” wrote the PTC, at about that time the Hong Kong government started exploring the use of man-made underground caverns for data centres and other commercial purposes. Meanwhile, across the Pacific, developers have unveiled the West 7 Center, the largest underground data centre in Los Angeles, which advertises its ability to provide secure Internet infrastructure to the clients of its tenants. The owners of the facility hope to serve the needs of Internet of Things (IoT) providers seeking data storage for cloud services, as well as security-conscious Asian telecom companies looking to enter the USA market.  Optimised land usage is not the sole reason for data centre operators to consider underground options, said the PTC. Power consumption and cooling issues are top-of-mind for many, especially in areas where summer heatwaves can be intense. According to reports referenced by the PTC, Australia’s energy rating body determined that, in 2013, data centres consumed nearly four per cent of the country’s electricity; while estimates for the USA are at around two per cent. Data from Forbes places the global figure for 2017 at approximately three per cent. But, given the increasing data-centre hunger for storage space and processing power, consumption can be expected to double every four years. Elsewhere in telecom  As reported by Steven Williams in Washington Newsday (5 th October), a group of concerned Guyanese have asked a subcommittee of the US Senate to look into the operations of an American-owned telecommunications company operating in Guyana, and to determine whether the company is engaged in unlawful practices aimed at ensuring its monopoly on the country’s telecom sector. In particular, the Guyanese want the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to examine whether there are grounds for an investigation into the company for indiscretions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The company in question is Atlantic Tele-Network (ATN) which owns the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Co (GTT) and is the only entity licensed to offer landline telephone and data services in Guyana, under a deal the complainants say may have been corrupt from its inception. “Moreover,” wrote Mr Williams, “Guyanese are contending that they are fed up with the one-man show that is being offered up by the company, whose charges for data services are believed to be among the highest in the world.”

Dorothy Fabian Features Editor

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Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2019

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