Networking

A reference design for Qualcomm’s next-gen Immersive Home Platform. 
Qualcomm

Qualcomm Technologies launched its next-generation mesh networking platform that will integrate WiFi 6 and 6E and offer an architecture that’ll better handle packets of data.
The Qualcomm Immersive Home Platform is designed to deploy gigabit-speed wireless throughout the home.
The COVID-19 pandemic and move to remote work and education proved how home networks weren’t up to multiple people streaming and holding video meetings.
Best mesh Wi-Fi systems for the office and home: Netgear, Google, and more | Speed up your home office: How to optimize your network for remote work and learning
According to Qualcomm, there will be four product tiers for its Immersive Home Platform, which has reference designs currently being sampled.
Here’s a look at the various flavors of Qualcomm’s Immersive Home Platform and networking capabilities.
Qualcomm Immersive Home 318 Platform will include 8-stream Tri-Band in a configuration for 2.4GHZ, 5GHz and 6GHz with a total of 7.8 Gbps available. The platform also includes 160 MHz channels in 5 and 6GHz bands as well as a Wi-Fi 6E configuration.
The Immersive Home 316 Platform has a 6-stream Tri-Band setup and lacks the WiFi 6E configuration in the 318.
Qualcomm Immersive Home 216 Platform has a 6-stream WiFi 6 configuration with 5.4 Gbps available. There’s also support for 160 MHz channels in 5GHz bands.
The Immersive Home 214 Platform has a 4-stream WiFi 6 configuration across 2.4GHz and 5GHz with a total of 3 Gbps available.
Qualcomm said the new mesh platforms also deliver 2.5x throughput per watt compared to the previous generation, broad WiFi mesh support, smart home integration and low-latency support.
Here’s a look at the specs of the 318. More

This week, many fans of classic holiday cartoons got some awful news — the entire archive of Peanuts specials, including my wife’s own favorite, It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown — has been purchased by Apple, over 45 shows and 20 documentary specials in all.
For the past 51 years, the adventures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Linus, Sally, and their friends have been broadcast on network television — on CBS until 2000, and then on ABC until last year. Now, all of this intellectual property is exclusively available on the Apple TV Plus streaming service. 
The Great Pumpkin never shows up at the end, bringing voluminous bags of candy. He. Never. Does. Not in the nearly five decades I’ve been watching that show, time and time again.

But Poor Blockhead Charlie Brown does always get one thing, every single year. Instead of a bag of Halloween treats, he gets stiffed with a rock. Repeatedly.
I think we all were promised a lot of things with streaming TV and cord-cutting and got the proverbial rock instead. Let’s talk about what happened.
Life’s a streaming content circus, Charlie Brown! 
In 2014, I decided that I had enough cable TV bundling, so I cut the cord. I was spending about $132 per month at AT&T for a package that, at the time, included all the premium channels. This didn’t include my broadband internet service, for which I was paying an additional $74 a month for a 24Mbps DSL connection. 
When I cut the cord, I also switched over to another broadband provider to get a higher quality of service, 100mbps, to accommodate higher-quality video streams. Naturally, I had to pay more for it. 
With cable, though, that bandwidth for the video was guaranteed separate from my internet bandwidth. And with the DVR I was using, I could record those premium shows at off-hours to not interfere with my work, as I’ve been home-based for many years. So with cord-cutting, I was just shifting my problem entirely to my internet bandwidth.
To watch the content I wanted to watch, I had recurring costs for services I needed to take on. Netflix, Hulu+, Amazon Prime, and an estimated four “premium” rentals a month would cost me roughly $45 a month, or $650 a year.  
But flash-forward to 2020. Yes, my internet bandwidth has improved a lot. I’m now back at AT&T, paying $90 a month for 1Gigabit fiber. But guess what? Now that everyone is at home, we all need that guaranteed bandwidth because the shows are now streaming at 1080p or higher. To pull this off, we need more sophisticated edge networks built out for content caching by the telecom providers — and that cost is being passed down to the consumer.
There’s no DVR in this equation; everything needs to be pulled down from the streaming box. And no, I can’t use a TiVo or equivalent device with a broadcast TV antenna to record to a DVR because I am in a lousy coverage area.
And now, I am also paying for more services. Want Star Trek? You’re paying for CBS All Access — that’s $5.99 a month, but it’s $9.99 with no commercials. Want Disney with all the Star Wars and Marvel stuff? You’re adding another $70 a year. Want all the DC Comics shows like Doom Patrol and HBO stuff like WestWorld? HBO Max costs $14.99 a month, assuming that you aren’t getting it as a bonus for being an AT&T Broadband or higher-end wireless plan customer. 
All in all, I am now paying over $200 more a year in services and extra broadband costs than I was in 2014. Sure, if you are willing to get smart with bundles like Disney, which includes ESPN and Hulu for $12.99 a month, or Apple, which combines CBS and Showtime for $9.99, you can save a little bit, but it’s still frustrating.
Come home, Comcast, come home!
Technically, I am still spending less than I was four years ago. Instead of spending over $1500 a year on cable, I am spending about $800 or $900 a year on equivalent streaming services — mainly because I don’t buy sports streaming content that used to be built into my cable TV service plan or purchase any pay-per-views. There are plenty of people that still pay more if they want those things.
But here’s the rub:
Four years ago, virtually all of the content we wanted to watch was still available on cable or broadcast television. But because media giants like Apple, Disney, AT&T/WarnerMedia, NBC/Comcast, Netflix, and Amazon are buying up catalog content or are producing all the new and better quality unique content, we can’t go back to bundle cable plans. 
We’re stuck with the streaming services now for better or for worse.
And because we are now stuck with the streaming services and moving data over the public internet and edge networks, we’re at the mercy of the internet streaming infrastructure back-end and content delivery networks (CDNs) to serve everything up. 

ZDNet Top Picks: Streaming services

A fair amount of this stuff is now sitting in a handful of hyper-scale clouds as well. And suppose one of these cloud providers has any kind of an issue. In that case, a number of these streaming services can be affected all at once, depending on geography, the service’s SLA and resiliency, and geo-redundancy plans, et cetera. And individual telecom provider glitchiness and snafus also come into play, as well. Downtime happens.
This is especially problematic given that we are in a pandemic and many people are still at home. For the most part, the clouds have been pretty resilient during all of this, but I’ve had my share of technical hiccups.
Happiness is a warm Roku
Let’s start with the number of times per month you have to re-authorize your accounts on certain services because they’ve experienced some glitch or purposely do this in order get a better census of active users, or to drive down fraudulent use. It drives me bananas. You’d think these guys would figure out how to implement some kind of single sign-on (SSO) technology by now, but they haven’t. 
They’ve all got their unique sign-on or authorization form, or they have agreements with the device manufacturers to do pass-through billing, like Amazon, Roku, and Apple do. So if you’ve got multiple TVs, or you want to watch some of these services on different device platforms — you can’t. You have to watch it on the platform you activated it on.
Oh, and finding shows? It’s now a game of jump the app. Half the time, I don’t remember what service a particular show is on. Sure, the discovery of programming has improved with new products like Chromecast with Google TV and Apple TV, which have created aggregated search and content surfacing user experiences. But you still have to switch from one app to another. Even on the fastest streaming device products, it can take 10-15 seconds to load up, especially if you’ve exited out of one to the main menu. On slower devices, that can take a lot longer, depending on the app that needs to be loaded.
Also: Best free video streaming services in 2020: Crackle, IMDb TV, Pluto TV, and more 
Then there is the inconsistency of video and audio playback. Last week, I attempted to diagnose a problem with my Dolby Digital setup on my Sonos Beam and wireless living room surround speakers. I noticed that Star Trek: Discovery was only playing in 2.0 stereo and thought something was wrong with my equipment. 
It turns out that the CBS All Access app has known issues with different streaming device platforms and many subscribers are unable to switch audio tracks from stereo to 5.1 surround sound, and CBS doesn’t provide 5.1 tracks on all of its content. On a Roku, it’s apparently doable with the asterisk (*) on the remote, provided the show supports it, but on the latest Chromecast with Google TV and some other devices, you’re out of luck. 
In short, you’re at the mercy of the performance of a particular device and app combo, the quality of your internet connection at any moment, as well as what the content provider decides to do with a specific show. There’s absolutely zero consistency of experience with streaming. Lucy will pull the football away from you, and you’ll never see it coming.
Yes, cable TV may have been more expensive, but having to debug this kind of stuff was never an issue with the supplied cable TV equipment and my home audio setup. The video stream’s quality was also never a problem, either; you didn’t have to contend with the complexities of Wi-Fi interference or access point throughput or the disposition of your internet connection. The boxes were all hooked up through rock-solid coax or Cat5 connectivity, and all the content was being broadcast over the cable provider network. The stuff just worked.
But hey, It’s still cheaper, right? Well, now that the movie theaters are all going bust, the premium content that used to be in the theater is going to cost you extra on top of what you’re paying for the base streaming products if you expect to see them anywhere near their release dates. But you planned for that $30 movie rental once a month, right?
AAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! Tell me how you feel and I’ll share the poll results next week.

See also More

Image: Chris Duckett/ZDNet
The company responsible for running the National Broadband Network (NBN) around Australia said on Tuesday it is beefing up the number of hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) lines that are capable of getting speeds over 500Mbps.
In May, the company said it would have all of its HFC customers capable of receiving its 250Mbps superfast tier by June next year, with only an initial 7% of HFC customers able to get its ultrafast tier.
Although nominally a 500-1000Mbps plan, HFC ultrafast is configured to provide 750Mbps with the potential to burst up to 990Mbps, with burst durations to occur “between 1 to 50 seconds at least once a day”.
On Tuesday, NBN said by the end of November, it would have over 25% of its HFC footprint able to get an ultrafast plan.
“The company expects that by June 2021 over two-thirds of premises in the HFC network footprint will be able to order NBN ultrafast broadband, and it forecasts that by the end of 2021 nearly the entire HFC network footprint should be able to order NBN ultrafast broadband,” it said.
At the same time, the company announced the beginning of construction to provide upgrades from fibre-to-the-node to full-fibre connections on demand.
The first 100,000 premises will be situated in Belmont North, Charlestown, and Toronto in the Newcastle suburbs; Carramar, Castle Hill, Holsworthy, Liverpool, and Wetherill Park in Sydney; Osborne in South Australia; Cannington and Double View in Western Australia; Lyndhurst and Narre Warren in Victoria; and Acacia Ridge, Browns Plains, Eight Mile, and Oxenford in Queensland.
“The footprint for the 100,000 eligible premises has been designed by NBN Co where we anticipate strong demand for higher speeds; where NBN Co has established construction and delivery partners with an existing workforce in place following the recent completion of the initial build of the NBN network; where it can deploy with speed and agility; where it is cost-effective to start work now; and in a way that the investment is most likely to spread and multiply economic activity across the nation,” the company said.
“NBN Co will work closely with internet retailers over the coming months to define the process by which eligible customers can express their interest in ordering a higher speed broadband service and acquiring a fibre lead-in to their premises.”
In order complete the upgrades, NBN is building what it calls local fibre networks that take fibre along street frontages.
As expressed last week by NBN representatives at Senate Estimates, when a customer orders a service that their copper connection cannot handle, NBN will at that point build the fibre lead-in to the premise.
The end goal of the network upgrade will be to ensure that for a cost of AU$4.5 billion, 75% of NBN’s fixed-line network will be able to access 1Gbps speeds by the end of 2023, which will also include HFC and fibre-to-the-curb. Fibre-to-the-basement is not part of the upgrade.
The money for the project to upgrade 2 million premises will be sourced from private debt markets.
Speaking to journalists while launching the NBN 2021 corporate plan last month, NBN CEO Stephen Rue said the on-demand upgrade plans were previously planned to begin when NBN became cashflow positive on the other side of 2023, but he would not be drawn on whether it would be to the same scale as its new plan.
It is expected that the first fibre-to-the-node users will be able to order upgrades in the second half of next year.
Related Coverage More

The newly-formed TPG Telecom is set to kick off its 5G fixed wireless service in the first half of 2021.
Speaking to the CommsDay Summit on Tuesday, TPG Telecom CEO Iñaki Berroeta said the method of delivery of broadband, whether via fixed line or mobile, is increasingly irrelevant.
“Customers have different speed, usage and budget requirement,” he said.
“For some time now we have been selling 4G fixed wireless services under the Vodafone brand. This has been offered in areas where we have excess 4G capacity, and we have connected thousands of customers on this product.
“5G will take our fixed wireless offering to a new level and provide customers with further choice.”
The entrance of TPG into the 5G fixed wireless space follows the 2019 launch of Optus 5G Home, and the current invite-only service offered by Telstra.
See also: Not in America? Forget about a mmwave 5G handset this year
Following the merger of Vodafone and the former TPG, the new company has been integrating its technology teams and bringing its fixed and mobile networks together.
“This ‘one network’ approach will allow us to enhance the capabilities of our fixed and mobile technologies and deliver the maximum benefits of the merger to our customers and shareholders,” he said.
“We have some fantastic fibre products on our TPG and iiNet brands which we intend to offer to more customers.”
Berroeta said while he welcomed the move from NBN to begin upgrading fibre-to-the-node connections, he laid into the company for its long-pilloried CVC charge.
“To unleash the full potential of the NBN for households, we need a sustainable pricing model,” he said.
“The CVC charge is like driving a lap at Bathurst stuck in second gear.”
Like many others who have criticised the charge, the CEO has pushed for the introduction of a flat rate charge for each speed tier
With the charging of AU$7.10 a month to consumers who can get fast broadband without being on the NBN — who are mostly on TPG lines — to pay for the Regional Broadband Scheme to begin shortly, Berroeta called on NBN to avoid overbuilding existing enterprise fibre.
“It is critical that we have the right environment to support private infrastructure investment,” he said.
“To achieve this, we encourage NBN to partner with operators which already have enterprise fibre and other high-speed networks in place.”
Related Coverage More

Special Feature

Corning is betting that a little box can make a big difference in accelerating 5G deployments.
The company rolled out its Evolv Hardened Connectivity Solutions with Pushlok Technology. The building blocks are designed to simplify fiber deployments for networks.
Corning’s bet is that its Evolv boxes can make it easier for wireless carriers and enterprises to stand up 5G terminals and connectors. The goal: More fiber in tighter spaces.
What is 5G? Everything you need to know about the new wireless revolution | Wiring for wireless: 5G and the tower in your backyard | Compared: 5G data plans from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile
Evolv with Pushlok Technology gives engineers connectors that are half the size of existing offerings and can connect to smaller terminals.

Corning’s Evolv HC Terminals can be mounted on strands, facades, and poles .
Corning
Here’s why it matters: 5G deployments have been held up by permits and tighter spaces. Small cell sites can be placed on light poles, buildings and other that are exposed to the elements. With a smaller footprint, these 5G sites are more likely to save money and get approvals. 
Bob Whitman, vice president of market developer carrier networks at Corning, said 5G requires more radios and access points “in locations that could be novel like congested spaces, streetlamps and facades on buildings.”
Also: FreedomFI: Do-it-yourself open-source 5G networking
To get a feel for how Evolv can make a difference see the following building facade. The red arrow points out the Evolv box and 5G small cell.

Find the 5G-fiber connector. We’ll make it easy for you. 
Corning
In many ways, the Evolv connectors are akin to Lego blocks. Corning developed the smaller connectors as an extension of its gear to run fiber-to-home networks, said Whitman. Ultimately, the Evolv connectors will be part of converged networks that can be used for 5G and other use cases such as edge computing.
Corning estimates that network operators can save up to $500 per terminal location with the smaller connectors and ability to reduce fees to attach them to poles. More

Image: Apple
If there is one thing that 5G does not need, it’s an extra layer of confusion to be added from handset makers.
For the layperson that has heard about the next fastest phone generation — and hopefully doesn’t believe it spreads coronavirus — there is plenty to digest, and pitfalls at every turn.
There are various forms of 5G — which are definitely under the 5G umbrella, but do not provide the blazing fast speeds the next generation is touted to provide — and then there’s a form that will have to be called something like “Full 5G” that actually can deliver over 1Gbps reliably.
The confusion really kicked off when AT&T decided to label its LTE Advanced network as “5GE”.
Then there are the actual 5G definitions, such as using 5G radios with a 4G core, labelled non-standalone 5G, and then replacing the core with a 5G one, called standalone 5G.
Following that, if John Q Citizen wants a new phone, they will also need to know about sub-6Ghz 5G, which is when you use 5G protocols on low and mid-band spectrum that are also used for LTE, which is still proper 5G but just not the blazing fast type.
Above the low and mid-band is the millimetre wave (mmWave) spectrum; this is where the top speeds live. Recent testing has shown Verizon’s network in the US is a global leader, offering just shy of 500Mbps in real-world tests. The problem with millimetre wave, however, is that its coverage footprint is tiny, so in order to take advantage of it, you currently need to track down a small cell and stand under it.
The other problem with mmWave is that many countries haven’t allocated the spectrum for it yet, which brings us back to Mr Citizen looking for a phone. The sad thing is ol’ John has probably seen some telco advertisement pushing the new network.
If Mr Citizen is lucky enough to be in the United States, and in particular, a Verizon customer, then he’s off to the races — as well as spotty coverage in 2020 can allow one to do so, anyways.
But if Mr Citizen lives outside the United States, things are trickier to navigate.
Whether it’s one of the new Samsung S20 devices, the Pixel 5, or any of the new iPhone 12 models, for non-US customers, 5G is more than likely to mean the device only supports sub-6Ghz 5G.

Google makes it easy to see what non-Americans cannot have.
Image: Google
So while the phone uses 5G protocols, it will not deliver all the promises that consumers have been told about. It’s easy to understand why handset makers do this to keep manufacturing costs down a little bit, especially as some countries have yet to make mmWave available, but it’s hardly future-proofing the handsets to any extent.
It’s akin to thinking you’re buying a twin-turbo car, only to find one of the turbos is blown and the car dealer tells you that’s just how they made that particular model this year.
I currently have a Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G on my desk, and after using and enjoying the Pixel 4a a couple of months ago, I can provide the following warning: Don’t bother buying these phones for 5G internationally. The 5 has a massive battery and a cheaper price compared to the 4 which could entice you, but skirt the 4a 5G altogether and just head straight for the 4a if that’s the price point you are at.
As if to reinforce the point that skipping sub-6Ghz 5G phones for this handset cycle was a good idea, Telstra CEO Andy Penn told ZDNet that users who stay on LTE would see a benefit in performance as some people switch to the newer network.
“They’ll get very good speeds on 5G phones, they’ll get two to three times what they’re getting on 4G,” he said.
“What will also happen is that as customers move to 5G, those early customers will be the early adopters; they’ll typically be large data users, they’ll be going onto the 5G network — which [has] relatively not as many customers on it now because it’s relatively new — that takes volume of traffic off the 4G network, that just improves the 4G experience, so all boats rise in this tide.”
On the issue of future-proofing, Penn said it was a standard problem with technology.
“I think it is always the dilemma, isn’t it? In the world of technology, whenever you buy something there’s always something coming around the corner that’s going to have a little bit more enhanced functionality, gonna be a little bit better. 
“But people will see a big change if they come into 5G now partly because of the handsets. We’re on second-generation chipsets now, and also because at least in Telstra’s case, we’re starting to get to the serious end of the coverage that we’re providing,” he said.
Another point against the current crop of handsets is that in the iPhone and Pixel, making use of a second SIM will restrict the phone to LTE only, unless one of the SIMs is disabled — which really defeats the point of both 5G and dual-SIMs.
Unless you are positively pining for in excess of 200Mbps mobile network speeds, and in a pandemic-induced recession have the spare change to pay extra for sub-6Ghz 5G, the most prudent thing would be to skip the handsets late 2020 has on offer and wait to see what the next batch has on offer.
And if you’re in America, enjoy finding the small cells for those superfast downloads.
ZDNET’S MONDAY MORNING OPENER
The Monday Morning Opener is our opening salvo for the week in tech. Since we run a global site, this editorial publishes on Monday at 8:00am AEST in Sydney, Australia, which is 6:00pm Eastern Time on Sunday in the US. It is written by a member of ZDNet’s global editorial board, which is comprised of our lead editors across Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America.
PREVIOUSLY ON MONDAY MORNING OPENER: More

No one asked Microsoft to port its Edge browser to Linux. Indeed, very few people asked for Edge on Windows. But, here it is. So, how good — or not — is it?

Open Source

First, you should know that the experts always knew Edge would run on Linux. Today’s Microsoft Edge isn’t the one that first shipped. This model, which went into beta on Windows last year, is built on the open-source Chromium codebase. Besides being the foundation for Google Chrome, Chromium is the bedrock that almost all web browsers, with the exception of Firefox, are built on these days.  So, bringing Edge over to Linux isn’t anything as difficult as, say, bringing on-premise Microsoft Office to Linux.
Now, the first beta of Edge on Linux is here. The new release comes ready to run on Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and openSUSE Linux distributions. It should run on any Linux using DEB or RPM packaging. Microsoft is planning to release weekly builds, just as it does with the Dev Channel builds for other platforms.
To get started, users can download and install a .deb or .rpm package directly from the Edge Insider site. This also configures a system to get future automatic updates. If you don’t trust Microsoft that much, you can also install Edge via Microsoft’s Linux Software Repository for Microsoft Products. More detailed instructions are available on Microsoft’s Edge-on-Linux blog post. 
This initial release is meant for developers who want to build and test their sites and apps on Linux. It’s not meant for ordinary users. This preview does come with the key web platform and developer tools features. These include core rendering behaviors, extensions, browser DevTools, and test automation features. These should work just as they do with Edge on macOS and Windows.
Some end-user features and services aren’t fully enabled. In particular, the initial release only supports local accounts. It doesn’t support signing in to Microsoft Edge via a Microsoft Account or Azure Active Directory (AAD) account. Therefore, you also can use features such as syncing your settings and bookmarks, which require you to sign in to a Microsoft service. These features will appear in a future beta.
Since I’ve been benchmarking web browsers since Mosaic rolled off the bit assembly line, I benchmarked the first Edge browser and Chrome 86 and Firefox 81 on my main Linux production PC. This is a Dell Precision Tower 3431. It’s powered by an 8-Core 3GHz Intel Core i7-9700. For graphics, it uses a built-in Intel UHD Graphics 630 chipset. On this, I run my favorite Linux desktop distribution, Linux Mint 20. For networking, the system uses a 100Mbps internet connection via a Gigabit Ethernet switch. 
JETSTREAM 2
First up: JetStream 2.0, which is made up of 64 smaller tests. This JavaScript and WebAssembly benchmark suite focuses on advanced web applications. It rewards browsers that start up quickly, execute code quickly, and run smoothly. Higher scores are better on this benchmark.
JetStream’s top-scorer — drumroll please — was Edge with 136.971. But, right behind it within the margin of error, was Chrome with a score of 132.413. This isn’t too surprising. They are, after all, built on the same platform. Back in the back was Firefox with 102.131.
KRAKEN 1.1
Next up: Kraken 1.1. This benchmark, which is based on the long-obsolete SunSpider, measures JavaScript performance. To this basic JavaScript testing, it added typical use-case scenarios. Mozilla, Firefox’s parent organization, created Kraken. With this benchmark, the lower the score, the better the result.
To no great surprise, Firefox took first place here with 810.1 milliseconds (ms). Following it was Chrome with 904.5ms and then Edge with 958.8ms.
OCTANE 2.0
Octane 2.0, Google’s JavaScript benchmark, is no longer supported, but it’s still a useful benchmark thanks to its scenario testing for interactive web applications. Octane is not Chrome-specific. For example, it tests how fast Microsoft’s TypeScript compiles itself. In this benchmark, the higher the score, the better.
On this Google benchmark, Edge took the blue ribbon with a score of 52,149. Right behind it in second place was Chrome with 51,389. Then, way back in last place, you’ll find Firefox at 37,405.
WEBXPRT 3.0
The latest version of WebXPRT is today’s best browser benchmark. It’s produced by the benchmark professionals at Principled Technology This company’s executives were the founders of the Ziff Davis Benchmark Operation, the gold-standard of PC benchmarking.
WebXPRT uses scenarios created to mirror everyday tasks. These include Photo Enhancement, Organize Album, Stock Option Pricing, Local Notes, Sales Graphs, and DNA Sequencing. Here, the higher the score, the better the browser.
On this benchmark, Firefox shines. It was an easy winner with a score of 272. Chrome edges out Edge 233 to 230. 
HTML 5 WEB STANDARD
You’d think by 2020, every browser would comply with the HTML 5 web standard, which became a standard in 2014. Nope. You’d be wrong. This “test” isn’t a benchmark. It just shows how close each browser comes to being in sync with the HTML 5 standard. A perfect score, which none got, would have been 550.
Here, Chrome and Edge tied for first with 528. Firefox scored 511.
FINAL RESULTS
Oddly, Edge, which turned in a poor performance when I recently benchmarked it on Windows, did well on Linux. Who’d have guessed?
That said, I can’t see myself moving to it. No, it’s not because I’m still mad at what Microsoft did to Linux as revealed in the Halloween documents of 1998. It’s that Chrome is more than fast enough for my purposes and I don’t want my information tied into the Microsoft ecosystem. For better or worse, mine’s already locked into the Googleverse and I can live with that. 
Honestly, I don’t see any compelling performance reasons to switch from Chrome or Firefox to Edge on Linux. I’ve been happily using Chrome for years now across platforms, and I won’t be changing. If you’re happy using Firefox or one of the others, go ahead and stick with it. There’s no compelling reason to switch to Edge. 
That said, Edge is a good, fast browser on Linux. If you’re a Windows user coming over to Linux or you’re doing development work aimed at Edge, then by all means try Edge on Linux. It works and it works well. 
Related Stories: More

AT&T has reported Q3 2020 earnings driven by an increasing subscriber base for premium services, but the current pandemic has still had a material impact on the balance sheet. 

On Thursday, the Dallas, Texas-based telecoms giant published its third-quarter financial results (statement) (.PDF).
AT&T reported revenues of $42.3 billion, or $0.39 diluted earnings per share (EPS). Adjusted EPS earnings were $0.76 per share.
See also: Verizon, AT&T settle overcharging whistleblower case for $116 million
Analysts expected $0.76 earnings per share on sales of $41.61 billion. The consensus EPS estimate was $0.77. 
The company’s second-quarter earnings were $0.17 per share (adjusted EPS $0.83) on revenues of $41 billion. 
EPS has continued to suffer this year due to COVID-19. AT&T says that the impact of the pandemic is down $0.21; $0.02 associated with business costs and $0.19 due to “estimated revenue impacts.”
However, subscriber growth continues to climb. AT&T said that over Q3 2020, 5.5 million net adds were recorded. In total, over one million postpaid net additions — including 645,000 postpaid phones — 245,000 prepaid net adds, 357,000 fiber net additions, and 158,000 total broadband net additions were added. 
CNET: iPhone 12 deals highlight a renewed battle between wireless carriers
5G rollout efforts and premium services — such as AT&T Unlimited Elite with HBO Max and FirstNet — are considered as drivers for this growth, while service revenues declined by 0.3% as fewer of us are now traveling and require roaming contracts or subscriptions. 
Total domestic and international HBO and HBO Max subscribers have now topped 38 million and 57 million, respectively. 
Operating expenses were $36.2 billion, a reduction from Q3 2019’s operational expenses of $36.7 billion. Operational income was reported as $6.1 billion in comparison to $7.9 billion last quarter, a figure AT&T says has been impacted by COVID-19-associated disruption and costs. 
Free cash flow is now pegged at $8.3 billion. Net debt declined by $2.9 billion.
TechRepublic: AT&T traffic report: Voice calls, IMs, and text messages are up, email and web traffic are down
The company has also adjusted its annual outlook. Over FY 2020, AT&T expects a free cash flow of at least $26 billion, as well as gross capital investment in the $20 billion range, with a focus on expanding and improving fiber, 5G, FirstNet, and HBO Max. 
“We delivered a solid quarter with good subscriber momentum in our market focus areas of connectivity and software-based entertainment,” said John Stankey, AT&T CEO. “Wireless postpaid growth was the strongest that it’s been in years with one million net additions, including 645,000 phones. We added more than 350,000 fiber broadband customers and are on track to grow our fiber base by more than 25% this year. And we continue to grow and scale HBO Max, with total domestic HBO and HBO Max subscribers topping 38 million well ahead of our expectations for the full year.”

Previous and related coverage
Have a tip? Get in touch securely via WhatsApp | Signal at +447713 025 499, or over at Keybase: charlie0 More