If AT&T's recent decision to take back 2000 DSL tech support jobs was regarded as a victory for the Communications Workers of America, it's the kind of victory you feel when your butt lands solidly in a game of musical chairs. You made it through one more round, but the game's still going. And the game's end goal, make no mistake, is to reduce the number of players.

Verizon boasted to investors last month of the savings it expects to reap in operating expenses by pushing fiber all the way to the home: $110 per line per year. Part of that opex savings comes from hammering out best practices based on lessons learned, but it's also based largely on replacing copper and active electronics with fiber and passive equipment, thereby reducing the amount of network maintenance required. Outside plant trouble calls for Verizon's FiOS FTTP service are 80% fewer than for its voice and DSL services, Verizon said. AT&T is still committed to copper for now, but in the long run, it will follow Verizon's lead.

This is no surprise, of course. The entire equipment vendor community persistently offers to eliminate truck rolls and technician work. The latest example is Calient Networks, which promises its newest optical cross-connects allow network operations guys to pinpoint problems remotely via software rather than sending a technician out into the field. And upstream, network elements are increasingly built to reconfigure themselves. It's all about minimizing exposure to expensive human labor, taking one less chair out of the circle. Add another chair or two and another butt or two, and it doesn't mean the game has changed, just that there are slightly more players.