This post investigates the telecom synchronization logic by connecting infrastructural power with the actual stack of global financial telecommunications. It shows how spreadsheet capitalism’s logics operates through three stratified but interdependent layers: physical, network, and value-added — the telecommunicative architecture of global monetary coordination.

Telecom synchronization is the third and most infrastructural logic of spreadsheet capitalism. Suppose semiotic substitution abstracts value into symbols, and symbolic computation turns those symbols into executable models. In that case, telecom synchronization ensures that those models and values move together across the globe — instantly, verifiably, and continuously. Telecom synchronization binds operations together across space and time.

In spreadsheet capitalism, telecom synchronization refers to the global grids of simultaneity that allow markets, models, and machines to operate as one coordinated system. It is the infrastructural condition that makes symbolic computation real-time. These grids have a physical layer, extending from undersea cables, microwave transmission towers, orbiting satellites, and fiber networks through a network layer of digital protocols such as TCP/IP, DNS, and HTTP to a value-added network of financial terminals and now distributed ledgers.

Layers of Coordination and Power

In practice, this logic is stratified across three interconnected layers that together form the operating system of global finance.

The Physical Layer — The Substrate of Connection

This is the material infrastructure through which synchronization becomes possible: fiber-optic cables, satellites, microwave towers, undersea conduits, and connected data centers. These are owned or maintained by global telecommunications firms such as AT&T, Verizon, Orange, NTT, China Telecom, etc. These systems form the chronometric skeleton of the financial world by enabling the nanosecond transmission of trades, clearing signals, and pricing updates.

In Foucauldian terms, this layer provides the “conditions of possibility” for simultaneity — the way capital escapes locality by inhabiting an infrastructural present tense. At this layer, power is infrastructural: whoever controls the bandwidth, the latency, and the data sovereignty controls the temporal regime of capital. In spreadsheet capitalism, this physical layer is the hidden foundation of the grid — the reason all the world’s ledgers can appear on one screen, showing the price of USD, updated in real time.[2]

The Network Layer — Routing and Synchronizing Data

Above the physical substrate sits the network layer, managed by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) regionally, and global backbone operators connected via Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) and Tier 1 ISPs like AT&T, Level 3, NTT, and Google.
.
This layer functions to packetize, route, and synchronize data flows among nodes of global finance. It connects trading hubs, cloud services, regulatory servers, and devices such as financial terminals, as well as applications on smartphones and other devices.

The network layer governs the movement of data rather than its meaning. It ensures that spreadsheets, ledgers, and blockchains remain temporally aligned across jurisdictions. Protocols such as TCP/IP, Domain Name System (DNS), Network Time Protocol (NTP), and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) provide the universal syntactic grammar that enables different financial platforms (Bloomberg, Aladdin, Wind, LSEG Workspace) to interoperate worldwide, yet within the same time-space continuum.

This layer provides the governance of circulation, not content — the ability to manage systems by regulating flows rather than commanding actors. The spreadsheet here becomes a live, networked entity — each cell potentially referencing a live data feed through an API. Capital thus lives in continuous synchronization, a recursive loop between computation and transmission.

The Value-Added Layer — Financial Messaging and Settlement Systems

The uppermost layer translates telecom synchronization into monetary order. Here, specialized financial organizations provide the value-added services that transform raw data into authorized transactions.

Key institutions at the value-added layer include:

SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) provides messaging and authentication of international payments.

CHIPS (Clearing House Interbank Payments System) is for large-value US dollar settlements.

Fedwire (Federal Reserve Wire Network) is a real-time gross settlement system run by the Federal Reserve for US institutions, including the US Treasury.

CIPS (China International Payment System) is Beijing’s cross-border yuan settlement alternative to SWIFT.

TARGET2, SEPA, and Euroclear: European equivalents for euro-denominated transfers and securities clearing.

These systems are not simply utilities — they define the protocols of trust, verification, and sequencing that make digital money “real.” They establish the symbolic grammar of payment — deciding what counts as a legitimate transaction, whose time counts as real time, and which currencies synchronize as reserve standards. In this sense, telecom synchronization culminates in governance. It is the control of the networked grid and thus becomes control of financial temporality, settlement order, and geopolitical hierarchy.[4]

Synchronizing the Rhythms of Global Valuation

Telecomunications thus performs three epistemic functions:

Coordination — it aligns calculations across nodes, ensuring that a pricing model in London, a trading algorithm in New York, and a blockchain validation in Shanghai share a synchronized temporal reference. This simultaneity creates the illusion of a single, continuous global market.

Verification — it secures the legitimacy of symbolic operations by time-stamping and broadcasting them. Every transaction, from currency swaps to smart contracts, becomes part of a synchronized ledger of truth — a techno-semiotic archive.

Control — it enables governance at a distance, a cybernetic governmentality.[3] Power flows through feedback loops: dashboards, APIs, and spreadsheet terminals that monitor, compare, and optimize in real time.

Telecom synchronization transforms the grid from a visual metaphor into a world-machine — a planetary spreadsheet where the economy operates as a continuously updated database. Under this condition, spreadsheet capitalism becomes chrono-political. It governs temporality through synchronization. Whoever controls the timing, bandwidth, and data flow — from Aladdin’s real-time risk dashboards to SWIFT and CIPS settlement protocols — controls the rhythm of global valuation itself.

Thus, telecom Synchronization completes the logic of spreadsheet capitalism as the infrastructure of coordination and the medium of epistemic power. It is where information becomes circulation, and circulation becomes control.

Conclusion

Telecom synchronization is not just about speed or efficiency; it is about the production of a global temporal order. Through these three layers, spreadsheet capitalism achieves its totalizing coherence: a world where the financial grid and the communications grid are one and the same.

The physical layer makes connection possible.

The network layer maintains synchronization.

The value-added layer defines legitimacy, trust, and enables trading.

Together, they transform calculation into circulation and circulation into power — completing the operational unity of semiotic substitution, symbolic computation, and telecom synchronization.

In the next part of this analysis of telecom synchronization, I will explore the integration of blockchain and the crypto environment. It will show how telecom synchronization bifurcates into two interdependent temporalities. One is the institutionalized telecom grid that is centralized, high-speed, and hierarchically trusted. The other is the distributed grid — decentralized, cryptographically insured, and publicly auditable.

Citation APA (7th Edition)

Pennings, A.J. (2025, Oct 12) Telecom Synchronization in Spreadsheet Capitalism. apennings.com https://apennings.com/technologies-of-meaning/telecom-synchronization-in-spreadsheet-capitalism/

Notes

[1] As a undergraduate I did an internship with the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) in Honolulu that gave me a pretty good understanding of telecommunications companies, that, combined with self-study, graduate classes at the University of Hawaii, and a senior thesis on ISDN and allowed me to add a Telecommunication major to my degree.
[2] This past summer, I took Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things on a trip through Italy where we got engaged 25 years ago. Relaxing and reading on the beaches of Tropea and quick looks while hiking in the Dolomites helped me formulate an overall conception of the three logics of power in financial grids.
[3] Cybernetic governmentality is a term I used in my dissertation on Symbolic Economics and the Politics of Global Cyberspaces (1993) for one of my chapters and refers to techniques of governance, primarily information technology but goes back to the development of political arithematic and “state-istics.”
[4] Financial institutions like banks and investment firms are considered Content Providers that use CDNs to deliver secure and fast content to customers. They use CDNs for their websites, mobile apps, and trading platforms, which require high security and low latency for services like account information, market data, and transaction processing. Providers like Cloudflare, Akamai, and Amazon CloudFront are often used by financial services due to their robust security and performance feature

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Not to be considered financial advice.

---

Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is a Professor at the Department of Technology and Society, State University of New York, Korea and a Research Professor for Stony Brook University. He teaches AI and broadband policy. From 2002-2012 he taught digital economics and information systems management at New York University. He also taught in the Digital Media MBA at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, where he lives when not in Korea.

Related

Category: blockchain, smart new deal, space systems, strategic communications, sustainable development, technologies of meaning, telegraphic political economy
Tags: AT&T > China Telecom > CHIPS > CIPS > Fedwire > Internet layers > NTT > SWIFT > TARGET2

Comments

Comments are closed.