Networking

Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile wireless business is now profitable, and the company added 280,000 new subscribers in the second quarter as the company’s broadband-wireless bundles are resonating. On a conference call with analysts following Comcast’s second quarter earnings report, CEO Brian Roberts said the company is seeing a payoff from reprioritizing wireless across its sales channel. Roberts said the 280,000 wireless subscriber lines are the highest of any quarter since Xfinity Mobile launched. Roberts added Xfinity Mobile was seeing the “fastest sales momentum we ever had” with gains to come due to unlimited plans for families and small businesses.Indeed, Comcast’s wireless business had second quarter revenue of $556 million, up 70.4% from a year ago.  Comcast’s wireless unit runs on Verizon’s network and appears to be working out for both parties. Comcast is using wireless to create new bundles for the 60 million homes and businesses in its footprint. Verizon on its earnings call didn’t mention Comcast by name, but CEO Hans Vestberg noted he was happy with his MVNO customers. For Comcast, the general idea to focus on customer connectivity and using its virtualized network to add services as well as automate. Roberts added:Currently, there are typically 25 connected devices in the home, with 8 active at any one time, and this increases every year. That drives in-home Wi-Fi usage to 15x that of wireless, delivering huge amount of data at consistent speeds and reducing latency is what’s powering our growth. And we’re doing this in a cost-efficient way. Virtualizing our network, combined with our suite of digital tools, also allows us to continue to improve the customer experience while identifying additional cost savings. And the progress we’ve made is evident in our results. During the second quarter, total agent calls decreased by 10% and total interactions were down by 7%. We also saw a 22% reduction in truck rolls, despite an over 5% increase in our customer base.

Add it up and Comcast is faring well with broadband revenue up 14.3% and business services sales up 10%. Even video was up 2.6%. Comcast reported second quarter earnings per share of 80 cents a share on revenue of $28.55 billion, up 20.4% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were 84 cents a share compared to Wall Street estimates of 67 cents a share. More

Lundmark stepped in as CEO in March 2020, while company shares were losing value at speed, and a few months later launched a brand-new model to restructure Nokia.  
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After a tough few years, Nokia is bouncing back. The company posted some better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter of 2021 and a positive outlook for the remainder of the year, largely thanks to a successful operating strategy driven by the company’s new CEO Pekka Lundmark, which resulted in some big wins particularly in the sale of 5G equipment. The Finnish company generated €539 million ($640 million) in the last quarter, up 71% from the same time last year, when profits reached €316 million ($375 million).  

Looking at the first half of 2021, the boost to profits is even more striking: with €914 million ($1.08 billion), Nokia performed 153% better than the €348 million ($413 million) generated in H1 2020. “We are already seeing the benefits of our new operating model which helped us to deliver such a strong financial performance,” said Lundmark. “Overall, I am very happy with the progress made in the first half,” he continued, citing constant currency net sales up 9% year-on-year and a comparable operating margin of 12.8%. Nokia sustained double-digit growth in network infrastructure, but Lundmark stressed that the highlight of the second quarter was with the mobile network division of the company, which is dedicated to mobile network products, network deployment and technical support services, with a focus on 5G, ORAN and vRAN. In 5G particularly, Nokia is competing against telecoms giants the likes of Ericsson, Huawei and Samsung. The Finnish company has, to an extent, gained from the geopolitical tensions surrounding Huawei, which have led a number of countries to drop contracts with the Chinese company for the deployment of critical 5G infrastructure.  

This has provided an opportunity for competitors like Nokia to step in. For example, the UK’s largest provider of fixed-line, broadband and mobile services BT recently picked Nokia to build more 5G networks across the country, after a long-established partnership with Huawei. In addition to favorable geopolitical circumstances, Nokia has also benefitted from a new operating strategy implemented by Lundmark last year.Lundmark stepped in as CEO in March 2020 and a few months later launched a brand-new model to restructure Nokia in three phases, with the objective of better positioning the firm for changing markets and better respond to customer needs. This involved cutting up to 10,000 jobs to save €600 million by the end of 2023 – to be re-invested in the firm’s 5G networking business, but also into new products and research and development. Only four months into the execution of Lundmark’s re-structuring plans, it seems that the bet is paying off.  “The drastic changes and improved performance under Pekka’s stewardship are clearly evident,” Paolo Pescatore, analyst at PP Foresight, tells ZDNet. “Opportunities in 5G, misfortunes of others and focus on key products have helped reignite the business.” “Nokia’s latest and greatest 5G RAN kit will put it in good stead for future growth, which will help further cement its turnaround strategy.” The company effectively published an outlook for 2021 that was revised upwards, expecting net sales to reach up to $22.7 billion ($27 billion), up from the originally anticipated €21.8 billion ($25.9 billion).  Nokia nevertheless recognized that there remain headwinds in what is an increasingly competitive industry with few leading players, which is likely to build up pressure on the company to accelerate product roadmaps and cost competitiveness through additional 5G investments. “A Nokia resurgent is good and very much needed in an industry dominated by very few players,” says Pescatore. “However, it cannot rest on its laurels given the cut-throat nature of the networks business.” The pace of the economic recovery following the COVID-19 crisis was also cited as an element of concern; as well as the on-going shortage of semiconductors, which has the potential to cause trouble when it comes to procuring certain standard components.  More

I’ve been a Google Chrome user for, oh, a very long time. I switched to it because the competition had become stagnant and bloated.

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Now I’ve switched away from Google Chrome because, well, it’s become stagnant and bloated. The RAM usage and the way Chrome burns through battery life on laptops is insane and has gone to the point where it’s unacceptable. So, I’ve switched. I’ve switched to Brave. Brave is fast, secure, packed with privacy features, has a built-in ad-blocker, supports most of the Google Chrome extensions available, and there’s even an optional (paid-for premium) VPN. It’s a fully functional browser with everything you’d expect from a modern browser. Must read: Why you need to urgently update all your iPhones, iPads, and Macs – NOW!

Now, there are some downsides to switching to Brave, and I’ve detailed some of them here. These are less related to web browsing itself and more to do with the interface between Brave and the cryptocurrency community. The more I use Brave, the less this bothers me. One thing that I’m happy with about this shift is that I don’t feel like I’m losing much — especially where it comes to browser extensions. Basically, they just work. You go to the Google Chrome web store, find the extension, and download it.   I’ve heard from people in the past who have had problems with certain extensions, but I’ve not come across that. I imagine there are outliers, and if you know of any, let me know. It’s weird how browsing with Brave feels very much like browsing with Google Chrome, except I get far better performance (the speed with which pages load up has to be seen to be believed), better battery life (a good hour on my laptop), and far better privacy protection. Also, switching from Chrome to Brave was a snap. Everything worked, and because the two browsers share the Chromium heritage, everything felt familiar and easy to use. After a day or so, I’d totally forgotten that I wasn’t using Google Chrome. If you’re looking for a change from Google Chrome — or any of the other incumbent browsers — then take a look at Brave. I came to it having heard about it but with low expectations, and now I’m a total convert to the browser. Brave is available for Windows 64-bit, Windows 32-bit, macOS Intel, macOS ARM64 and Linux, and can be downloaded for iOS and Android from the relevant app stores. I highly recommend it. More

The company responsible for the National Broadband Network said on Thursday it would provide AU$5.2 million in the form of a “COVID-19 relief credit payment” to cover overage charges due to bandwidth spikes caused by lockdowns in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. NBN said the credit would cover July and be allocated on each retailers’ share of total national overage. It added it would waive charges for ISPs breaching CVC utilisation conditions for the final week of July. The company reiterated it was still introducing its Superfast Plus rebate to lower the price to get users onto 250Mbps and 1Gbps plans. After lockdowns were imposed in NSW and Victoria, NBN said it saw peak bandwidth of almost 20.4Tbps on the Saturday night of July 17, which represented an 8% increase on the week prior. On July 24, NBN said it saw bandwidth top out at 19.93Tbps. The company took the opportunity to also bat away ideas to reinstate the CVC holiday for retailers introduced last year. “NBN Co’s previous offer of additional capacity at no additional costs to internet retailers, which was in market from March 2020 and transitioned out by 31 January 2021, was originally intended as a short-term measure to assist retailers’ adjustment to the initial increase in customers’ data consumption at the onset of COVID restrictions,” NBN executive general manager for commercial Ken Walliss said. “It was the right thing to do at the time, but it came at a cost, some of which was borne by taxpayers. If this had continued, it would have potentially impacted NBN Co’s ability to invest in network upgrades to deliver faster speeds and additional capacity to meet the historical annual growth in data demand.” The company pointed to higher CVC inclusions, the ability to nationally pool CVC, and its current pricing and Special Access Undertaking processes as ways it was supporting the industry. Related Coverage More

Cisco Systems said it would roll out a hybrid working plan that has no mandates for how often employees go into the office. The networking giant said its employee base was familiar with working hybrid and remote and expects that less than a quarter of its workforce will want to be in an office three or more days a week going forward. Before the COVID-19 pandemic about half of Cisco’s employees, were in the office four to five days a week. Cisco said it would leave it up to teams to determine the best way to work and how often they go to the office. For Cisco, its hybrid approach to work is also a selling point. The company makes WebEx, a collaboration platform, as well as the infrastructure needed to power networks and enterprises. In addition, Cisco can use its hybrid approach to recruit talent. In a blog post, Fran Katsoudas, Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer of Cisco, said the purpose of physical space must change. Offices will be retooled to be centers of collaboration and purpose. Katsoudas added that the hybrid work approach would also help the company meet its sustainability goals.Todd Nightingale, general manager of Cisco’s enterprise networking and cloud business, said the company’s culture has revolved around hybrid work before COVID-19 and there are a few technology issues that need to be ironed out. For instance, Cisco has used its own WebEx as a collaboration suite and networking for secure access has to be in place. In addition, wireless connectivity will be key in the new normal at the office, which will revolve around meetings.

“Hybrid work changes the way you look at tooling because it has to account for home and office,” said Nightingale. Automation will also become key to agility for technology teams. Nightingale said, “technology groups are stretching for some more flexible version of work.” More

Boost Mobile will stay on the Telstra network in Australia for another 10 years, the company announced on Thursday. Saying it doubled its customer base in “recent years”, the virtual operator added the new deal would allow it to expand into postpaid mobile, mobile broadband, and NBN plans. “This is a major moment in Boost Mobile’s history as we further expand our longstanding relationship with Telstra,” Boost Mobile founder Peter Adderton said. “It has never been more important to have fighting brands like Boost Mobile in the industry, and today’s renewal and new benefits of this agreement will allow us to fight for the consumer on a whole new level. It will enable us to offer consumers more choice in more areas of the market than ever before.” In September last year, Boost Mobile killed off its international roaming option; it was one of the few virtual operators to offer that functionality. At the time, Boost said it was re-designing its roaming package, and would have a new product in the middle of 2021. However, given the continuing pandemic and delta surges leading to recent lockdowns across Australia, notwithstanding the nation’s borders not being open, Boost now has more time to ponder its changes. In November, Optus announced it was paying AU$250 million for Amaysim and its remaining mobile business, as well announcing it would launch its Singtel parent digital-only brand Gomo in Australia.

Elsewhere on Thursday, TPG announced it would be boosting the capacity of its PPC-1 Australia to Guam subsea cable to 12Tbps. The cable has two fibre pairs covering 7,000 kilometres with repeaters around 92 kilometres apart. “We are increasing the capacity of this vital international link by 50% to meet the growing data requirements of our customers, which is being driven by booming demand for cloud computing and video streaming,” TPG Telecom executive general manager for mobile and fixed networks Barry Kezik said. TPG will be using Infinera kit for the upgrade. Earlier in the week, Hawaiki announced it sold itself to Singapore-based BW Group. The sale price was not disclosed. “Three years after Hawaiki’s commercial launch, it is time to write a new chapter of the company’s history and we believe BW is an ideal shareholder for this fast-growing business,” executive chairman of Hawaiki Rémi Galasso said. More telco coverage More

Mobile chip giant Qualcomm this afternoon reported Q4 revenue and profit that topped analysts’ expectations, and an outlook for the current quarter that was higher as well. The report sent Qualcomm shares up 3% in late trading. CEO Cristiano Amon remarked that “in addition to leading the 5G transition,” Qualcomm is “on pace to deliver $10 billion of annual revenues across RF front-end, IoT and Automotive as our business continues to diversify.”Added Amon, “Our solutions are fueling the connected intelligent edge that is enabling the cloud economy, and we are seeing unprecedented demand for our technologies as the pace of digital transformation accelerates.”Qualcomm reaffirmed its existing view for the cellular market outlook: “For calendar 2021, we are maintaining our forecast for high single-digit-growth for global 3G/4G/5G handsets, with an upward bias to 5G forecast of 450 to 550 million 5G handset shipments.”During the conference call with analysts Wednesday evening, Amon was asked about the risk of Apple displacing Qualcomm’s modem chip with Apple’s in-house chip. Said Amon, “We’re very happy with a relationship with Apple. We’re just on their first phone. We have other phones to go, and we’re very happy with the way things are progressing.”Revenue in the three months ended in June rose 63%, year over year, to $7.99 billion, yielding a net profit of $1.92 a share, excluding some costs.

Analysts had been modeling $7.53 billion and $1.91 per share. The adjusted, non-GAAP revenue number excludes Qualcomm’s QSI, or “Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives,” segment, which the company plans to divest.Within the results, sales from Qualcomm’s chip business, “QCT,” rose 70%, year over year, to $6.47 billion, while revenue from the licensing division, “QTL,” rose by 43% to $1.5 billion. Qualcomm’s sales into handsets rose 57% to $3.86 billion. The company attributed the rise to “the adoption of our 5G products in premium and high-tier devcies across all major OEMs.”Sales of radio frequency “front-end” chips more than doubled to $957 million. Sales into the automotive market and sales into the IoT market both rose by 83%, to $253 million and $1.4 billion, respectively, The IoT revenue was $100 million higher than Qualcomm had forecast. On the IoT front, Qualcomm said sales benefitted from “demand across consumer, edge networking and industrial platforms,” including, on the consumer side, emerging products such as XR, meaning, “extended reality,” including VR, and consumer wearables. In addition, the buildout of edge networking, including mobile broadband contributed, said Qualcomm, including “Continued momentum driven by the enterprise transformation of the home and the second wave of enterprise demand driven by return to the workplace” and “a rapid adoption of Wi-Fi 6 and increased demand for both 4G and 5G mobile broadband devices.” Industrial uses of IoT, via 5G, is just getting underway, the company said. For the current quarter, the company sees revenue of $8.4 billion to $9.2 billion, and EPS in a range of $2.15 to $2.53. That compares to consensus for $8.46 billion and $2.03 profit per share.That includes $7 billion to $7.5 billion of QCT chip sales.  

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Mobile chip giant Qualcomm this afternoon reported Q4 revenue and profit that topped analysts’ expectations, and an outlook for the current quarter that was higher as well. The report sent Qualcomm shares up 3% in late trading. CEO Cristiano Amon remarked that “in addition to leading the 5G transition,” Qualcomm is “on pace to deliver $10 billion of annual revenues across RF front-end, IoT and Automotive as our business continues to diversify.”Added Amon, “Our solutions are fueling the connected intelligent edge that is enabling the cloud economy, and we are seeing unprecedented demand for our technologies as the pace of digital transformation accelerates.”Qualcomm reaffirmed its existing view for the cellular market outlook: “For calendar 2021, we are maintaining our forecast for high single-digit-growth for global 3G/4G/5G handsets, with an upward bias to 5G forecast of 450 to 550 million 5G handset shipments.”During the conference call with analysts Wednesday evening, Amon was asked about the risk of Apple displacing Qualcomm’s modem chip with Apple’s in-house chip. Said Amon, “We’re very happy with a relationship with Apple. We’re just on their first phone. We have other phones to go, and we’re very happy with the way things are progressing.”Revenue in the three months ended in June rose 63%, year over year, to $7.99 billion, yielding a net profit of $1.92 a share, excluding some costs.

Analysts had been modeling $7.53 billion and $1.91 per share. The adjusted, non-GAAP revenue number excludes Qualcomm’s QSI, or “Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives,” segment, which the company plans to divest.Within the results, sales from Qualcomm’s chip business, “QCT,” rose 70%, year over year, to $6.47 billion, while revenue from the licensing division, “QTL,” rose by 43% to $1.5 billion. Qualcomm’s sales into handsets rose 57% to $3.86 billion. The company attributed the rise to “the adoption of our 5G products in premium and high-tier devcies across all major OEMs.”Sales of radio frequency “front-end” chips more than doubled to $957 million. Sales into the automotive market and sales into the IoT market both rose by 83%, to $253 million and $1.4 billion, respectively, The IoT revenue was $100 million higher than Qualcomm had forecast. On the IoT front, Qualcomm said sales benefitted from “demand across consumer, edge networking and industrial platforms,” including, on the consumer side, emerging products such as XR, meaning, “extended reality,” including VR, and consumer wearables. In addition, the buildout of edge networking, including mobile broadband contributed, said Qualcomm, including “Continued momentum driven by the enterprise transformation of the home and the second wave of enterprise demand driven by return to the workplace” and “a rapid adoption of Wi-Fi 6 and increased demand for both 4G and 5G mobile broadband devices.” Industrial uses of IoT, via 5G, is just getting underway, the company said. For the current quarter, the company sees revenue of $8.4 billion to $9.2 billion, and EPS in a range of $2.15 to $2.53. That compares to consensus for $8.46 billion and $2.03 profit per share.That includes $7 billion to $7.5 billion of QCT chip sales.  

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