Networking

Investment in 5G infrastructure is expected to make up 21.3% of the wireless infrastructure market by the end of 2020. 

The coronavirus pandemic has caused disruption down the IT supply chain, causing supply shortages, transport issues, office closures, and in some cases, either staff redundancies and restructuring or the liquidation of companies.
See also: IBM, Verizon partner to develop 5G enabled IoT technologies for industrial sector
The disruption caused by COVID-19 has resulted in the revision of anticipated global IT market value this year from $3.8 trillion to $3.5 trillion, with devices and data center growth hardest hit. 
Investment in 5G infrastructure, however, is still going strong. 

As consumer demand for high-speed broadband and mobile connectivity grows, Communication Service Providers (CSPs) and other vendors in the networking equipment space have carried on with projects, many of which launched last year, to upgrade their networks in order to support the next-generation technology. 
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On Tuesday, Gartner released new estimates for estimated investment in this space, which will reach 21.3% of the wireless infrastructure market this year, an increase from 10.4% in 2019. 
However, the research agency also expects an overall decline in wireless revenue of 4.4% to $38.1 billion. 

China will pick up the lion’s share of 5G investment — potentially due to Huawei’s early investment in the communications technology — accounting for 49.4% of all worldwide investment in 2020. 
However, by 2023, Gartner expects 15% of all vendors to operate standalone 5G networks that do not borrow from existing 4G infrastructure, and coverage is expected across 95% of populations in the Asia/Pacific region, US, and Japan in the same year. 
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Gartner added that 5G investment will outstrip LTE/4G in 2022 as more vendors move away from legacy architecture and adopt 5G setups. 
“Investment in wireless infrastructure continues to gain momentum, as a growing number of CSPs are prioritizing 5G projects by reusing current assets including radio spectrum bandwidths, base stations, core network and transport network, and transitioning LTE/4G spend to maintenance mode,” said Kosei Takiishi, senior research director at Gartner. “In addition, governments and regulators are fostering mobile network development and betting that it will be a catalyst and multiplier for widespread economic growth across many industries.”
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Google on Tuesday announced its fourth private subsea cable, connecting the US, the UK and Spain. Named for the computer science pioneer Grace Hopper, the new subsea cable will be the world’s first to incorporate novel optical fiber switching that allows for increased reliability in global communications. 
The new cable will be Google’s first investment in a subsea cable route directly to Spain. Last month, Google announced it will be opening up a new Google Cloud region in Madrid and partnering with the telecommunications giant Telefonica to advance 5G mobile edge computing. 
The Grace Hopper cable will also be one of the first new cables to connect the US to the UK since 2003, adding capacity across the busy route. 
Google already has three other private subsea cables: The Curie cable connects the US to Chile and Panama, the Dunant connects the US and France, and the Equiano connects Portugal to Nigeria and South Africa. Private cables help Google maintain better resiliency and security for its services while allowing the tech giant to plan for future capacity needs. 
The Grace Hopper cable will include 16 fiber pairs (32 fibers). Google signed a contract earlier this year to build the cable with Eatontown, NJ-based subsea cable provider, SubCom, and the project is expected to be completed in 2022. More

F5 Networks on Monday delivered better-than-expected third quarter financial results. The company reported non-GAAP net income of $134 million, or $2.18 per diluted share, on revenue of $586 million.

Wall Street was looking for earnings of $2.03 per share on revenue of $572.4 million.
F5 CEO François Locoh-Donou noted in his prepared remarks that the company has continued to see an increase in demand for capacity as customers scale remote access capabilities for employees working from home. 
“Customers continue to look to F5 to enable their mission-critical application needs and increasingly, are deploying a combination of F5 solutions spanning our F5, NGINX and Shape multi-cloud application services portfolio,” said Locoh-Donou. “In a challenging COVID-19 environment, our deep incumbency and close alignment with customers’ investment priorities are proving distinct competitive advantages and driving resiliency in our business.”
For the current quarter, F5 has set a revenue goal of $595 million to $615 million with a non-GAAP earnings target of $2.30 to $2.42 per diluted share. Wall Street is expecting revenue of $598 million and EPS of $2.26.

F5 shares were up a little over 2% after hours. 

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Mobile network operators in the UK have been urged to help put an end to internet gaps on the country’s railways with new antenna technology that could improve mobile connectivity for thousands of passengers.
The UK government has offered £200,000 in funding to operators who can develop a new prototype antenna that can be attached to existing infrastructure on Britain’s railways.

It is hoped that new equipment housing small cells and wireless antennas can be attached to electrified overhead line equipment (OLE) installed over roughly a third of Britain’s railways, similar to techniques successfully used in Austria to improve railway connectivity challenges.
Telecoms service providers have been called on to work with Network Rail to come up with innovative designs for trial phase of project.
Grant Shapps, the UK’s Transport Secretary, said the project could pave the way to a “railway of tomorrow” while putting an end to a problem that has blighted rail passengers’ journeys for years.

“It is just not good enough that passenger’s mobile connectivity experience is still poor, blighting our efforts to work, shop and communicate on everyday journeys,” said Shapps.
“By harnessing innovation and updating existing infrastructure, we can build the railway of tomorrow and find affordable solutions to improve travel for passengers. I urge telecom operators to match our ambition and we can commit to working closely together to design equipment and move forward in the next stage of this exciting trial.”
SEE: Guide to Becoming a Digital Transformation Champion (TechRepublic Premium)
The new programme coincides with new research commissioned by the UK government’s Department for Transport (DfT) and published by independent watchdog Transport Focus, which found that passenger’s experience of internet connectivity on trains fell well below their expectations.
Data gathered by researchers suggested that roughly 96% of the data traffic generated while passengers travelled on trains was carried over mobile network connections, while only around 4% was carried over the on-board Wi-Fi.
The average internet download throughput of on-train passengers’ connections was a measly 3.3Mbps for 3G and 4G compared to 1.4Mbps for Wi-Fi connections. In comparison, consumers generally achieve 6.8Mbps and 10.6Mbps respectively across the country.
Rather than investing in additional and expensive track-side masts, research funded by the Department for Transport found attaching antennas to existing infrastructure could effectively boost speeds while reducing costs.
Mobile operators are now being encouraged to develop technology for the next phase of the trial, which will test how antennas can be safely applied to a functioning railway. It is hoped a suitable prototype can be trialed by March 2021.
SEE: Crowdsourcing a better commute in the age of coronavirus
Charlene Wallace, Network Rail’s director of passenger and customer experience, said: “We are keen to work with government and train and telecom operators to deliver more consistent and reliable mobile coverage that improves passengers’ journeys in an efficient and affordable way.”
Other recent attempts to make UK railways more passenger-friendly include a £9.4m project launched by the DfT in mid-June aimed at bringing in such innovations as 5G Wi-Fi, hydrogen-powered freight trains, seat swapping apps and self-heating concrete slabs to prevent passengers from slipping on icy platforms.

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The National Broadband Network (NBN) has once again extended its 40% capacity boost at no charge for retailers, this time pushing it out to September 19.
The company responsible for deploying the NBN across Australia this time said the offer would be withdrawn after the new extension ends. Satellite users will recieve their 45GB boost until September 30.
“The additional capacity offers have resulted in NBN Co providing almost AU$80 million so far in financial relief credit to participating internet retailers to help support increased levels of data use during COVID-19,” the NBN said.
NBN has faced criticism for wanting to return to regular pricing once the CVC holiday passed, with Aussie Broadband managing director Phil Britt saying earlier this month that traffic patterns of Australians have changed.
“NBN’s extra 40% CVC bandwidth to cope with peak demand during COVID certainly cushioned the impact, but once it’s gone, we don’t believe traffic levels will return to original forecasts,” Britt said at the time. “Given that telcos pay overage for CVC usage above the amount bundled into their NBN wholesale products, this puts them in a difficult situation.

“They will either need to raise retail prices to keep the service levels the same in peak time speeds, or lower peak time speeds to maintain at least some level of margin — which is almost non-existent as is.”
Britt has called for NBN to bin the CVC capacity charge since the bandwidth consumed is now outstripping bundled predictions when NBN changed its pricing last year.
NBN has said its latest extension would give retailers time to “adjust to national growth in data demand and provision their capacity accordingly”.
“This is the right thing to do,” NBN chief customer officer Brad Whitcomb said.
“It is also important to recognise that the underlying annual growth in data demand has maintained a consistent trajectory, and it is this sustained growth, aside from any COVID-19 related impact, that requires a long-term, well-considered, industry-wide response.”
The company said last week that it had seen a new downstream throughput peak, recording 14.8Tbps on Saturday July 11.
“The record peak that occurred last Saturday night coincided with 89 per cent concurrent usage across NBN-connected homes in Melbourne,” Whitcomb said.
Previous traffic peaks have coincided with updates to the game Call of Duty.
Peak upstream throughput is still just below the 1Tbps mark.
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Special Feature

AT&T’s adjusted earnings for the second quarter were ahead of estimates, but the company had a bevy of moving parts due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The telecom and media giant reported second quarter earnings of 17 cents a share on revenue of $41 billion. Adjusted earnings were 83 cents a share.
AT&T was expected to report second quarter sales of $41.1 billion with non-GAAP earnings of 79 cents a share.
Throughout the earnings report, AT&T had a bevy of caveats. Even postpaid additions had some moving parts. The company lost 151,000 net postpaid phone subscribers, but that tally includes 338,000 accrued disconnects that are still getting service under the Keep America Connected program. Back those disconnects out and AT&T added 190,000 postpaid subscribers in the second quarter.
AT&T did add 135,000 prepaid phone additions.

The company added 225,000 AT&T Fiber net additions and ended the second quarter with 17.7 million premium TV subscribers with a net loss of 886,000 accounts in the quarter (91,000 attributed to the Keep America Connected program).
AT&T’s Warner Media group also saw lower content and advertising revenue. 
According to AT&T, the company is focused on a bevy of transformation efforts to cut labor costs, utilized software defined networking and streamline IT. The company ended the quarter with $152 billion in net debt.  More

Megaport CEO Vincent English has used the delivery of the company’s fourth quarter results to state it will have non-negative earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) in a year’s time.
“Profitability remains a company-wide priority. We will focus on achieving EBITDA breakeven by the close of fiscal year 2021 by driving further customer growth across all regions,” English said.
“With our SDN reaching over 700 enabled data centres across 23 countries, we are well positioned to capture the demand for elastic interconnection to support the ever-increasing surge of data powered by the digital economy.”
In dollar terms, the company reported it had taken in AU$17 million in revenue for the fourth quarter ended June 30, up 12% on the same time last year, with AU$5.7 million of that being monthly recurring revenue, up 4%.
For the full year, revenue was AU$58 million, up 66% on the AU$35 million posted last year.

Once operational costs are taken into account, Megaport burned through AU$2 million and AU$23.4 million in cash for the fourth quarter and full year, respectively. The company still has almost AU$167 million in cash and cash equivalents at year-end.
As of June 30, Megaport now has 16,700 total services consisting of 1,840 customers and 5,770 ports. The company has enabled its services in almost 670 data centres worldwide and has a point of presence in 366 data centres.
On Thursday, Superloop also reported a trading update. Superloop was spun out of Megaport in 2014.
For the fiscal year, Superloop said it hit the middle of its EBITDA guidance, at AU$13.5 million, from a 37% year-on-year increase in revenue to AU$107 million.
The company said it saw 46% year-on-year growth in fibre connectivity sales, improving from AU$11.2 million last year to AU$16.4 million.
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Inmarsat and Farmbot have entered into an agreement that will enable the agtech startup to deliver its water monitoring software-as-a-service solution to farmers located anywhere in Australia.
Under the agreement, Inmarsat will provide satellite connectivity services to Farmbot through the deployment of its IsatDataPro services, a two-way messaging service designed for machine-to-machine communication.
Farmbot managing director Andrew Coppin said the support will help Australian farmers based in remote locations overcome frequent cellular network connectivity challenges.
“We are really excited about the opportunities that our alliance with Inmarsat and real-time, two-way communications can bring to rural Australia and other regions. Affordable satellite-controlled pumps and machinery is a first for the Australian agriculture industry,” he said.
“This partnership has the potential to significantly improve the management of critical water resources for rural farmers worldwide, resulting in tangible productivity gains.”

Last August, Farmbot had deployed 1,700 of its remote monitoring units to farms across Australia. Each monitor sits on top of a water source, such as a water tank or dam, and delivers near real-time, event-driven reports to farmers when algorithms detect abnormal behaviour, such as when the water falls too quickly, rises too quickly, or stops moving altogether.
Farmers can also use the data to compare the tracking of water levels on their farms year-on-year, removing any unnecessary guess work.
In other satellite news, Orion Satellite Systems has announced a AU$3 million investment over the next six to 12 months to upgrade its systems from Hughes to UHP networks across three gateways in Kalgoorlie, Broken Hill, and Auckland. The upgrade will also coincide with the company’s plans to grow its headcount across its Sydney, Perth, and Auckland office by 30%.
Kacific to deliver broadband connectivity to Tuvalu
Image: Kacific
Kacific Broadband Satellites Group has won a five-year contract with the Tuvalu government to deliver satellite broadband connectivity across the nation’s nine islands.
Under the agreement, Kacific will provide 60 1.2-metre VSAT terminals to be used for schools, medical clinics, government agencies, and small businesses; 400Mbps to 600Mbps of satellite capacity, depending on the size of the terminal; 40 outdoor Wi-Fi access points to support community connectivity; three maritime antennas to connect ferry services; and one 4.5-metre, one 2.4-metre, and nine 1.8-metre Ka-band antennas for backhaul services for the mobile phone network.
Total capacity of 150MHz will be available to Tuvalu through Kacific’s Kacfic1 satellite.
“Tuvalu’s agreement with Kacific is a game-changing project that will transform the lives of many Tuvaluans,” said Tuvalu Minister for Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs Simon Kofe. 
“Through this type of agreement, the government is currently working to majorly reform Tuvalu’s telecom sector in order to provide the widest possible range of efficient, reliable, and affordable telecommunications and information services to all of Tuvalu. It is hoped that these reforms will promote socio-economic development and create a modern enabling environment that encourages innovation, investment, and job creation.”
Tuvalu is a Pacific Island nation with a population of approximately 11,000, and has a total land area of 26 square kilometres, making it one of the world’s smallest nations in terms of land territory. 
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