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    Predictions: Apple products that will be discontinued in 2022

    Every year, Apple discontinues a swathe of products, and 2022 will be no exception.This is a normal process for tech companies, so knowing ahead of time helps for two reasons: you can avoid buying products that will discontinued, and you will be aware if your own devices are headed for end-of-life.See also: Don’t waste your money on these Apple products: January 2022 editionA good way to predict what will be discontinued in 2022 is to look at what was discontinued in 2021. Here’s a list of 2021’s discontinued tech:iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro MaxApple Watch Series 6iPhone XRiPad 8th-geniPad mini 5th-gen21.5-inch iMaciMac ProHomePodApple TV 4K 1st-genBeats EP/Solo Pro/Powerbeats 3Some of these were to be expected to make room for new generations (iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watch). It’s logical, but some of the others were interesting — especially the HomePod, 21.5-inch iMac, and the iMac Pro. These point to a shift of priorities at Apple.So, what should we expect Apple to discontinue in 2022?

    Here are my predictions:iPhones 13 Pro, 13 Pro Max, and 12: These will be superseded by new iPhones in September.Apple Watch Series 7: Will be superseded by a new Apple Watch.iPhone SE: At almost two years old, this is heading towards the end of the line.iPad Air 4th-gen: By September 2022, this will be two years old and ripe for dropping.iMac 27-inch: This will get the M1 Apple Silicon treatment.Mac Pro: This will also get the M1 Apple Silicon treatment.AirPods Pro: Released in October 2019, these have had a good run; I’m expecting an updated version to land this year.iPod touch 7th-gen: Released in May 2019, this thing is now a complete dinosaur. I fully expect Apple to kill the iPod touch once the current one is discontinued, as it’s hard to see it being a viable product now.As usual, it looks like it’s going to be a big year for Apple updates. Stay tuned. More

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    Huawei expects 2022 challenges amidst tech politics, deglobalisation

    Huawei Technologies warns that it will see “serious challenges” in 2022, amidst an uncertain business environment, “politicisation of technology”, and further “deglobalisation”. It also reveals plans to streamline decision-making processes in its local offices next year, giving these outfits more autonomy. The Chinese tech vendor is expecting to close the year with 634 billion yuan ($99.45 billion) in revenue, a 28.88% dip from 891.4 billion yuan in 2020. Its carrier business had stayed “stable” and its enterprise unit saw growth, said Huawei’s rotating chairman Guo Ping, in his new year message Friday to employees. He added that digital transformation in global economies had become a major growth engine and there were new opportunities in green and low-carbon technologies, but warned of uncertainties in the year ahead, 

    “An unpredictable business environment, the politicisation of technology, and a growing deglobalisation movement all present serious challenges,” Guo said. “Against this backdrop, we need to stick to our strategy and respond rationally to external forces that are beyond our control.”He noted that Huawei would push ahead with its focus on infrastructure and smart devices, and look to respond more quickly to customer needs with shorter “management chains”.  This meant creating “integrated teams” and “domain-specific subsidiaries”, he said. Specifically, Huawei in 2022 would look to streamline its business decision-making processes by giving more autonomy to local offices. This would see these outfits assuming the authority to make certain decisions previously held by its Shenzhen headquarters. Further tweaks to its organisational structures could see business integration across its local offices worldwide. Huawei has business operations in more than 170 markets, including 14 offices in the Asia-Pacific region outside of China. 

    The main objective of its organisation-wide transformation efforts was to enhance operational efficiencies and customer service delivery, Guo said. Elaborating on its product development plans, he noted that Huawei’s software offerings would revolve around EulerOS while its device portfolio would be driven by HarmonyOS. “These two ecosystems will adhere to an open source strategy, allowing all software developers to use them, contribute to them, and benefit from them,” he said. “We will continue to build and contribute to online developer communities as well as brick-and-mortar innovation centres.”He added that Huawei would increase its investment in HarmonyOS and EulerOS, but gave no details on what these entailed. EulerOS is pitched as Huawei’s infrastructure platform that supports both on-premises and cloud computing services. It runs on Huawei’s version of Linux OS. HarmonyOS currently supports more than 220 million Huawei devices and there are more than 100 million devices developed by third-party vendors that currently run on HarmonyOS, according to Huawei. More investment also would be poured into its digital power business, according to Guo. Set up as a business unit in June 2021, Huawei Digital Power Technologies aims to digitalise traditional energy and build products that integrate digital and power electronics capabilities.He also pointed to growth potential in the automotive industry, where he aimed for Huawei to be a “preferred provider” of new components in intelligent vehicles. The Chinese vendor this year would spend $1 billion in research and development (R&D) for intelligent automotive components.US President Joe Biden last month passed a legislation that banned companies such as Huawei and ZTE from getting approval for network equipment licences in the US. The Secure Equipment Act of 2021 would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt new rules stating it would no longer review or approve any authorisation applications for networking equipment that posed national security threats.The FCC in 2020 labelled Huawei and ZTE as national security threats, pointing to both companies’ close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and China’s military.Huawei previously called out the US government’s move to restrict semiconductor exports as another attempt to stem foreign competition. The Chinese vendor had been added to the US government’s Entity List, prohibiting US companies from transferring goods to companies on the list unless they had procured a licence from the US government. The move prompted Huawei to increase its research and development investment by 30% as well as invest in reengineering its products, Guo then said. This had led to redesigns of more than 1,800 boards and rewrites of some 16 million lines of its software codes, with the company looking towards alternative sources for many of its materials.The trade and export bans had led to sluggish earnings in recent years, including dips in profits and smartphone sales, as well as disruptions to Huawei’s supply chain, prompting the vendor to diversify its product focus and chip suppliers.RELATED COVERAGE More

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    Here's how 2022 will bring us faster internet

    When I started networking, 300 bits per second (BPS) was the best you could do from home and our brand new 802.3 Ethernet gave us a big 10 Megabits per second (MBPS) at the office. I wanted more. Today, with cable gigabit to my home office and 2 Gigabit per second (GBPS) in my office. I still want more. Everyone wants faster, better networking. In 2022, we’ll get what we want. 

    First, 5G is finally going to actually make a difference. To date, most of what we’ve been getting is 5G hype. You see 5G has three major different network approaches. Only one of these — millimeter-wave (mmWave) — can give you gigabit speeds. But, and it’s a big but, mmWave, which Verizon calls 5G Ultra-Wideband, has a range that’s better measured in feet instead of yards and it can be blocked by ordinary window glass. In short, you can forget about getting gigabit speeds for all practical purposes.  So, why is Verizon advertising it has 5G everywhere? Because it offers another 5G approach: Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS). Verizon 5G DSS performance is the same as you’ve already been getting from Verizon 4G LTE. In short, it’s a pure advertising gimmick with no real speed advantage. DSS does, however, deliver much better latency than 4G LTE. As more and more 4G phones are replaced with 5G models, DSS-based 5G will start delivering more speed. It will never be gigabit speeds, but it will be better than old-style 4G.However, 4G is also getting a speed boost. Verizon is using a new frequency range, Citizen Band Radio Service (CBRS)–which has nothing to do with the CB radio of truckers and Burt Reynolds movies–can increase 4G speeds up to 800 Megabits per second (Mbps). So, don’t be in too much of a hurry to move to 5G. 4G may work better for you in 2022.Another 5G technology, mid-band, is another story. This one, which today is mostly deployed by T-Mobile, has an average speed of 162 Mbps. Now that doesn’t sound fast, but that’s only because you’ve been drinking 5G marketing kool-aid. It’s the fastest average 5G internet in the US today. The real reason why T-Mobile’s mid-band 5G matters isn’t so much its speed as its range. Instead of feet or yards, it has a range in miles. This makes it ideal for bringing broadband to users who don’t live in cities. If you live in the country, T-Mobile is probably your best choice for your smartphone, office, and home. With 41% 5G coverage of the country, T-Mobile out-distances its 5G rivals.  

    Another big advance is that while some of us are lucky enough to live in places with fast broadband, many of us are still stuck with DSL or even–shudder–dial-up internet connections, things are finally changing for the better. Jessica Rosenworcel, a net neutrality proponent, is now the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair. What’s even more important is that Congress passed President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This act included more than $65 billion to build out broadband networks and make broadband more affordable. How this will be spent depends on each state, but the bottom line is it will end up paying to get broadband deployed to places that have never dreamed of seeing real internet speed.Some of that money will be spent on broadband that doesn’t need new, expensive cable buildouts. Instead, it will go to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites such as SpaceX’s Starlink. Starlink is finally moving from beta to production. While Starlink isn’t as fast as the top cable or fiber networks, it’s still much faster than most rural users have ever seen. For all the buzz Starlink has generated, keep two things in mind. First, Starlink terminal production has gone much slower than originally planned. For example, I’ve been on the waitlist for nine months now and I was recently told I can’t expect to see my unit until some time in the summer of 2022. If you were to order one today, you can expect to wait until the end of 2022 or early 2023. Ouch!Another problem is that because of the demand, Starlink’s average download speed has declined from 97.23 Mbps during Q2 2021 to 87.25 Mbps in Q3 2021. That’s still a lot faster than what my friends and family currently get back in Calhoun County WV and other rural areas, but it’s still a disturbing trend.Finally, if you’re still using 3G, and I know some of you are, get ready for your old phones to stop working. All the major cell companies are turning off their 3G services. AT&T is shutting down its 3G services in February 2022; T-Mobile flips the switch on March 31, 2022; and Verizon will hold off the longest and pull the plug in December 2022.All-in-all, next year should see most of us get faster internet no matter where we live or what services we use. We’ll still want more, of course, we always do, but 2022 will still be a good one for internet users.Related Stories:

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    Avaya shows evolution to cloud at Engage user conference

    This week the International Avaya User Group (IAUG) is holding its annual user event, Engage, in Orlando, Florida. I attended the event and found it interesting for a couple of reasons: The first is that it returned to an in-person format after a one-year hiatus due to the pandemic, so it was nice to see the enthusiasm from an audience that seemed to be excited about seeing colleagues again. Second and more importantly, it was the first Engage held post-Avaya’s transition to a cloud company. 

    The transformation of Avaya has been well underway for several years. It had evolved its business model to subscription-based, cut a deal with RingCentral for a cloud communications solution, and built a communications platform as a service (CPaaS) platform. Last year the company launched its cloud contact center product and most recently announced its Experience Builders program to build an ecosystem of “experience creators” that use Avaya’s platform.The proof of its success in this transition was highlighted in the keynote delivered by Avaya’s CEO, Jim Chirico. He reported that the company has had six consecutive quarters of accelerating growth, and all of its cloud-related metrics are up. The biggest measure of its cloud growth is the annual recurring revenue (ARR), which was up 180% from 2020 to 2021. However, while numbers certainly tell one story, more meaningful to me is customer use cases to highlight success.What is interesting about Avaya is that its definition of cloud bucks the trend of most of the cloud communications industry. The majority of communications vendors use the term “cloud” as a euphemism for “UCaaS” (unified communications as a service) or “CCaaS” (contact center as a service), and while these are indeed cloud offerings, there is more to cloud than public cloud — cloud can also mean private and hybrid clouds. It’s this ability to deliver a cloud in any format (public, private, or hybrid) that makes Avaya unique because it doesn’t force any customer into a particular deployment model. At the event, I caught up with the following customers that were using the different flavors of Avaya’s cloud.Skybridge Americas is a business process outsourcer (BPO) that supports contact center-heavy verticals, such as financial services and retail. The company had been on a hosted platform for several years and is in the process of migrating to Avaya’s OneCloud Private Cloud for Contact Center. The organization has about 1,000 total agents and moved to a cloud model so it could rapidly scale up and down as needed due to seasonality in its customers’ businesses. I asked why Skybridge chose to go private cloud, and CIO Bryant Richardson told me: “We wanted control over updates and wanted to ensure we are able to manage the environment ourselves.” The customers I work with consider control is one of the most common reasons businesses choose private cloud over public. Engagent Health is a BPO with a speciality in healthcare payers. It provides a variety of services, such as commission payments, CRM, agent onboarding, and others. The company chose Avaya’s OneCloud CCaaS solution, which is the public cloud version of its contact center technology. I met with Austin Ifedirah, founder and managing partner, and asked why they chose a SaaS model for its approximately 600 agents, and he told me it was a matter of economics. Given that the company is only a couple of years old, the public cloud model allowed him to start with very little upfront cost and then cost-effectively ramp up as needed. He did tell me that he chose Avaya because its strong brand in the contact center would help him attract customers. “Everyone knows Avaya in contact centers, and when I’m talking to healthcare executives, they don’t question the quality or reliability of the product,” Ifedirah said. He also said he believes the use of the public cloud was transitional and thought it would be more cost-effective to use the private cloud when they got to about 6,000 agents. Avaya having both public and private would make the transition easier, he said. Liberty Mutual is the sixth-largest global property and casualty insurer in the U.S. and ranks 71 on the Fortune 100 list of the largest American companies. The company currently has about 11,000 agents that run on an Avaya hybrid cloud. I won’t get into the technical details regarding the hybrid architecture; the more important point is why Liberty Mutual chose to go hybrid. Josh Hoium, Director of Engineering and Global Network Communications, told me: “We have a mix of legacy and new systems all around the globe, so we had to go hybrid. We use public cloud where we can and then keep on-prem what we need to control.” One of the interesting aspects of the deployment is Liberty Mutual’s use of Twilio Flex. The “roll your own” CCaaS model was hyped a couple of years ago and viewed as a killer to companies like Avaya. Hoium told me, while they use Twilio, it’s been marginalized to a handful of countries where they are just trying to keep the costs down because it’s a “dirt-cheap deployment model” and does not offer the best experience. Where voice quality and experiences matter, the Avaya cloud is used. 

    Avaya’s unique capabilities in offering UCaaS, CCaaS, and CPaaS in various configurations is due to its new Media Procession Core (MPC), which creates a hub-and-spoke model between the services by offering a single set of channels into the platform, regardless of use case. This enables Avaya to deliver services such as voice or video as part of the contact center, in a meeting tool, or even APIs in any cloud configuration. To date, much of the hype around cloud communications had been around public cloud, and that makes sense because early adopters were smaller companies — many of whom had no contact center. Looking ahead, as more large enterprises plan to move UC and CC to the cloud, the definition of what constitutes a true SaaS offer has evolved. Whether an organization deploys in a public cloud, a dedicated instance, or a hybrid approach, the benefits of the solution, not where it’s operated, will be crucial. With very few providers having the capacity to offer all flavors of cloud, Avaya’s ability to deliver to the customer’s needs is something they should continue to amplify. While it’s fair to say Avaya was a latecomer to cloud communications, the company has done a nice job of building a platform, OneCloud, that can deliver a cloud any way the customer wants. More

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    Telstra fined AU$2.5 million in part for not making 50,000 phone numbers silent

    Telstra has paid a AU$2.5 million fine levelled at it by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) after the regulator found what it described as large-sale privacy and safety breaches. The first was Telstra failing to mark a customer’s phone number as silent in the Integrated Public Number Database (IPND) 50,000 times, which allowed them to be published in phone directories. The second was Belong failed to update IPND data on its customers on more than 65,000 occasions. Australian telcos are required to upload a customer’s phone number, name, address, and whether the number is silent to the IPND. The IPND can also be used by Triple Zero, emergency services, and law enforcement. “When people request a silent number it is often for very important privacy and safety reasons, and we know that the publication of their details can have serious consequences,” ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin said. “The provision of these critical services can be hampered and lives put in danger if data is missing, wrong or out of date. It is alarming that Telstra could get this so wrong on such a large scale.” O’Loughlin said although Telstra self-reported the violations, ACMA chose to level the fine due to the telco failing to update IPND data in 2019. Alongside Telstra, other telcos that were handed a remedial direction at the time included Optus, Vodafone, AAPT, Agile, Chime Communications, PowerTel, Primus Telecommunications, Symbio Networks, and TransACT.

    In May, ACMA issued Lycamobile with a AU$604,800 infringement notice after it failed to pass on emergency info on 246,000 lines. Two days later, ACMA issued formal notices to Telstra, Optus, and Aldi Mobile for not verifying new customer information. Medion Mobile, which powers Aldi Mobile and is owned by Lenovo, was caught out on 53 occasions, Telstra was found to have breached its obligations 52 times, and Optus was pinged for one violation. Related Coverage More

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    AWS misfires once more, just days after a massive failure

    At approximately 10:26 AM US Eastern time, Amazon Web Services (AWS) started having serious network problems. According to reports on the Outages mailing list, the central mailing list for ISP and network operators to report and track major internet problems, AWS-hosted services started to go “wonky” this morning. 

    Numerous AWS-based business services, such as Duo, the two-factor authentication endpoint security service; Zoom, the video-conferencing platform; and Slack, the messaging service, were affected. Entertainment services, including Hulu, Xbox Live, and Halo, also went down. DownDetector also showed AWS having a failure surge this morning. Since then AWS reported that the problem was with internet connectivity in the US-West-1 and 2 Regions. “We have resolved the issue affecting Internet connectivity to the US-WEST-1 Region. Connectivity within the region was not affected by this event. The issue has been resolved and the service is operating normally.”Outage administrators are still reporting that “it looks to have stabilized somewhat but still seeing some unusual errors.” Hang in there, folks. It looks like the AWS trouble isn’t done messing us over yet.  More

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    TPG Telecom picks up AU$4.8 million contract to upgrade Adelaide free Wi-Fi

    Image: Cisco
    The City of Adelaide has picked TPG Telecom to replace its free Wi-Fi network at a cost of AU$4.8 million. Since 2014, the network was built and run by hometown telco Internode, with Internode’s parent winning the contract for an initial five years.TPG is set to replace the “current mix of mesh-wireless, fibre, and copper-based technology” with a fibre network built on the Ten Gigabit Adelaide network that TPG built, and increased the number of access points by 25%, taking the total over 250. “ADL Free powered by TPG will be an integral service for the community as Adelaide prepares to welcome back more tourists and international students, whilst also servicing the needs of all city users and residents,” Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor said. “Not only will the new Wi-Fi assist businesses in the CBD and help position Adelaide as a leading centre of investment.” The funding for the network upgrade is co-funded by the Commonwealth and City of Adelaide under the 10-year AU$699 million Adelaide City Deal, and work will commence in early 2022.Late Tuesday night, it was announced a AU$60 million digital technologies academy was approved at Lot Fourteen under the Adelaide City Deal.

    “At a time where more and more high-tech jobs are coming online here in South Australia, it’s absolutely vital we can train the talent to take these jobs,” Premier Steven Marshall said.”South Australia is unashamedly the space, defence and cyber state — it’s my aim to create a pipeline of jobs in these industry’s [sic] so we can put the brain-drain behind us and be the country’s beacon for major companies in these areas.”Construction is pencilled in for commencing in late 2023.Last week, TPG landed a five-year deal with Qantas to handle fixed and mobile voice services. That deal included new fibre to carry voice and data between the airline’s head offices, and airport terminals in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth, and Darwin. The telco has already shifted the airline’s 1300/1800 inbound customer support numbers to its mobile network. TPG said it already handles 90% of the mobile services for Qantas. On Tuesday, TPG reshuffled and reduced its executive structure, with 11 positions being cut down to seven. The company announced it was merging its fixed and mobile networks, IT, and digital functions under a CTO, with Giovanni Chiarelli to fill the role in January. Heading out the door is TPG Telecom new business development executive and former TPG COO Craig Levy, whose responsibilities are parked under the consumer function led by Kieren Cooney; CIO Rob James will depart; as will TPG Telecom wholesale executive and former Vodafone Australia chief strategy officer and director of corporate affairs Dan Lloyd. “By bringing networks and IT into the same department, we will create a better end-to-end technology experience for our customers,” TPG Telecom CEO Inaki Berroeta said.”Migrating customers off the NBN and onto our own infrastructure is one of our biggest opportunities, and now that 4G and 5G home wireless has launched across our brands, business development will find a natural home in the consumer unit where we will continue to expand and innovate. “Wholesale will come under Jonathan Rutherford, who is currently leading the enterprise and government function.” Related Coverage More

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    Speedtest.net owner Ookla acquires RootMetrics

    Networking

    Ookla, the company best known for its Speedtest.net and Downdetector services, has acquired RootMetrics, a firm specializing in mobile network performance measurement services.Both companies have long been a favorite of mobile network operators: their names frequently show up in broadband providers’ and carriers’ communications whenever a given company’s network performs well. RootMetrics’ RootScore is a particularly popular measurement tool for gauging network performance across the US. Ookla CEO and co-founder Doug Suttles claims the transaction will provide customers of both companies with “the network assessment trifecta of crowd measurement, controlled testing and consumer perception.” Ookla plans to continue operating RootMetrics as an independent brand. It will, however, begin offering combined analytics packages that bring together network diagnostic offerings with software products, crowdsourced testing capabilities, and data science services. Ookla noted that the combined firm’s goal will be to leverage the assets of RootMetrics and the recently acquired WINd suite of mobile performance testing tools to help clients “better understand, market, deploy, and optimize their networks.” RootMetrics CEO Kevin Halsey said the transaction “completes the vision that Doug [Suttles] and I had when we first met years ago.” As carriers across the country continue jockeying for 5G mobile supremacy and home broadband dominance, reports provided by combined companies will be integral to attracting both customers and investors.  

    No financial terms for the transaction were disclosed. 

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