Networking

Your information technology gear is going to get more expensive due to component shortages, supply chain woes and a demand spike. Cisco Systems’ third quarter results tell the tale. The company is a bellwether for IT demand and typically is an early indicator of what other tech suppliers will see in the future. Gartner has projected that the global semiconductor shortage will run through the second quarter of 2022. Keep the comments from Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins in mind as Dell Technologies, Lenovo and Hewlett Packard Enterprise all report earnings next week. Component inflation is real, and enterprises may accelerate buying to get ahead of rising prices. US inflation grew at a 4.2% rate in April over the last 12 months, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.While Cisco’s quarter was solid, inflation worries lingered over the company’s outlook. Cisco projected fourth quarter revenue growth of 6% to 8% with non-GAAP gross margins of 64% to 65%. Non-GAAP earnings in the fourth quarter will be 81 cents a share to 83 cents a share. Wall Street was modeling non-GAAP earnings of 85 cents a share and gross margins pushing 66%. Cisco executives said the company has locked in supply and pricing with component makers, but shortages will be an issue through the end of 2021. Robbins also acknowledged that the supply chain issues may push prices higher amid strong demand for networking and return to work software. Robbins said:What we do know is that if we come to the conclusion that any of these cost increases or this inflation are going to be more sustained then we will look at strategic price increases where we have to. That work is already underway. There are already some decisions that we’ve made. So, we will do that. It’s a pretty dynamic situation. It’s going to be pretty obvious that if a customer has extended lead times, they’re probably going to place order sooner than when they would. That just makes sense.Later, Robbins was asked to elaborate on price increases. He added:On the pricing front, I think we have made some decisions on certain products that we will be making price increases on, and we’re looking surgically at the rest of the portfolio based on where we have costs that we believe are going to be sustained. But we’re erring hard right now on taking care of our customers and trying to get, optimize our ability to deliver to them right now because we think that improves our relationships and it improves our position over the long term with these customers. Indeed, Cisco is No. 1 in Gartner’s supply chain ranking for 2021.

Cisco is seeing industries like hospitality bounce back, strong demand for 5G networking gear and multi-cloud deployments. Toss in security technology and software like WebEx and Cisco is seeing a demand spike just as component costs have surged. “If we didn’t have the supply chain challenges, we would have been guiding higher on revenue,” said Robbins. The comments from Cisco are the most direct about component inflation in tech gear and how those costs may be passed along. Cisco is one big player, but inflation is going to impact a wide range of technology gear. Last month, enterprise technology suppliers noted shortages and supply chain issues, but stopped short of predicting a margin hit or price increases. For instance, Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim said the company had long-term pricing contracts, but the company would see some impact. However, Juniper, which said it was working to fortify its supply chain, stuck to its full year gross margin target of 60%.Arista on May 4 also cited supply chain woes on its first quarter earnings conference call. Arista CEO Jayshree Ullal said:The supply chain has never been so constrained in Arista history. To put this in perspective, we now have to plan for many components with 52-week lead times. COVID has resulted in substrate and wafer shortages and reduced assembly capacity. Our contract manufacturers have experienced significant volatility due to country specific COVID orders. Naturally, we’re working more closely with our strategic suppliers to improve planning and delivery.Customer demand and visibility, though, has improved in the past few months. We are working with our customers to understand the timing of their deployment needs. We do not believe at this time that our customers are pre-ordering. However, we do think they’re exercising prudent planning for second half of 2021 and even into 2022. With this as a backdrop, we believe supply chain will remain a pain point for the balance of this year as a result of all these shortages.Add it up the component squeeze is challenging three large networking giants. Next week, we’ll get the server and storage side of the equation. It’s highly likely that supply chain issues, strong demand and potential price increases will be a hot topic. More: More

The future Australian telcos dream of
Image: Optus
Optus has announced it has hit 1 million devices capable of using its 5G network, and that 80% of its handset sales are now 5G-capable devices. At the same time, the telco announced it has switched on its first six millimetre wave (mmWave) sites. Optus said the sites made use of the 800MHz spectrum it recently purchased in the mmWave auction for AU$226 million. The six sites are at Kings Cross, Surry Hills, North Ryde, and Optus HQ in Sydney, as well as Huntingdale in Melbourne and Strathpine in Brisbane. The telco added it would be switching on more mmWave at its 1200 5G sites in the coming weeks. “We’ve been testing mmWave for many months, harnessing and pushing its capabilities so that once commercial devices enter the market our customers will truly be able to benefit from the capacity and speeds that this incredible technology delivers,” Optus managing director for networks Lambo Kanagaratnam said. “In fact, mmWave is set to blow current mobile and home internet speeds out of the water, with the potential for multi-gigabit speeds which is much faster than what Australians are used to getting today.” Earlier this month, Optus introduced the ability for customers with an eSIM device to switch to the telco through the My Optus app for those signed up to its pre-paid Flex plan, and forgo a trip to a store or having to purchase a physical SIM.

“Finding ways to practice sustainability and being environmentally friendly is of the utmost importance for our customers,” Optus managing director of marketing Matt Williams said. “We are keen to make these changes as simple as possible to integrate into their everyday lives, and by selecting to activate digitally, customers can save another bit of plastic from our oceans and another delivery truck on our busy roads.” Last week, Telstra announced it was increasing the number of invites to trial its 5G fixed wireless service. The telco said it was seeing typical evening speeds sit between 50Mbps and 600Mbps, with a speed test average of 378Mbps. It also said it was doubling the data quota on 5G fixed wireless plans to 1TB, after feedback from users. Telstra said it was working with Casa Systems on a mmWave-capable 5G modem for fixed wireless, and was working on switching on mmWave at “selected sites in 5 capital cities”. Related Coverage More

Cisco on Wednesday published third quarter financial results slightly above expectations with growth across categories. The company reported 10 percent year-over-year total product order growth, representing the strongest demand in nearly a decade. At the same time, supply chain challenges are impacting Cisco’s expectations for this quarter’s adjusted gross margins. “We’ve locked in both supply and pricing with some of the key component providers that we’ve got going ahead, that’s what you see built into the margin guide,” CFO Scott Herren said on a Wednesday conference call. “And I think the supply chain issues will stay with us at least through the end of this calendar year.”CEO Chuck Robbins added,”If we come to the conclusion that any of these cost increases… are going to be more sustained, then we will look at strategic price increases where we have to. That work is already underway. There’s already some decisions that we’ve made… It’s a pretty dynamic situation.” Cisco’s Q3 non-GAAP earnings per share came to 83 cents on revenue of $12.8 billion up 7 percent year-over-year. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 82 cents per share on revenue of $12.56 billion. Overall, product revenue was up 6 percent year-over-year, totaling $9.14 billion. Within that category, security revenue was up 13 percent to $876 million. Revenue from infrastructure platforms 6 percent to $6.8 billion, while applications revenue was up 5 percent to $1.4 billion. Revenue from “other products” declined 34  percent to $6 million. 

Service revenue was up 8 percent year-over-year, reaching $3.66 billion. “Cisco had a great quarter with strong demand across the business,” Robbins said in a statement. “We are confident in our strategy and our ability to lead the next phase of the recovery as our customers accelerate their adoption of hybrid work, digital transformation, cloud, and continued strong uptake of our subscription-based offerings.”Deferred revenue in Q3 was $$20.9 billion, up 12 percent in total, with deferred product revenue up 20 percent. Deferred service revenue was up 7 percent.Remaining Performance Obligations came to $28.1 billion at the end of Q3, up 10 percent.For the fourth quarter, Cisco expects revenue growth of 6 percent to 8 percent year-over-year. It expects a non-GAAP gross margin rate of 64 percent to 65 percent and a non-GAAP operating margin rate of 32 percent to 33 percent.

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WebAssembly, despite its name, is far more useful than just as a stack-based virtual machine (VM) for web browsers. It’s increasingly being used to address a wide variety of programming needs from cloud-native computing, edge computing, mobile development, and edge-based projects. To help you master it, the Linux Foundation is now offering a free online training course, called WebAssembly Actors: From Cloud to Edge (LFD134x).

The course explores the portability, efficiency, and security of WebAssembly modules using Rust and JavaScript. It will show how to leverage several different open-source frameworks to create distributed and seamlessly connected actors. You can then deploy them in a browser, on a laptop, in the cloud, on a Raspberry Pi — indeed, practically anywhere.In particular, though, this online class is designed for developers who already have experience in building microservices and cloud-native application development. In short, this is not an introduction to WebAssembly. But, if you’re ready to build, experiment, and test locally Functions as a Service (FaaS), this class is for you. Specifically, you’ll learn how to create and host WebAssembly modules using Rust. You’ll also learn how to use the JavaScript WebAssembly API for browsers and about the alternative, non-web host runtimes for WebAssembly.You will learn about you can add on to the basic WebAssembly specification with community tooling and open source projects. When all’s said and done you’ll clearly understand how to build WebAssembly-based applications and how they really work.The self-paced class was created by Kevin Hoffman, the author of Programming WebAssembly with Rust, Cloud Native Go, and other books on the .NET Framework. You can audit the class for free to audit on edX.org for seven weeks. You can also get a  verified certificate of completion for $149. The latter includes a full year of course access.Related Stories: More

Image: Subcom
Reliance Jio has announced it will build two new international submarine cable systems that are both centred on India.One of the cables, called the India-Asia-Xpress (IAX), will connect India eastbound to the Asia Pacific, extending connectivity from Mumbai and Chennai to Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.The second cable, the India-Europe-Xpress (IEX) cable, will connect India to landings in Italy, the Middle East, and North Africa.Beyond connecting to the Asia Pacific and Europe, the two cables will also be connected to Reliance Jio’s global fibre network, which means it will also extend to both the east and west coast of the US.These systems will provide more than 200Tbps of capacity across over 16,000km. According to Jio, this will be achieved through using open system technology and wavelength switched RoADM/branching units.The pair of cables, once complete, would mark the first time that India is placed at the centre of a fibre optic submarine telecommunications system, Reliance Jio president Mathew Oommen said. Oommen explained the decision to place India in the centre of the network was due to the growth of digital services and data consumption in the country.

“Jio is at the forefront of India’s explosive growth in digital services and data consumption. To meet the demands of streaming video, remote workforce, 5G, IoT, and beyond, Jio is taking a leadership role in the construction of the first of its kind, India-centric IAX and IEX subsea systems,” Oommen said.IAX is expected to be ready by mid-2023. The IEX, meanwhile, is flagged for an early-2024 rollout.Jio Platforms, the holding company for Reliance Jio, has been on a tear of late, having earned ₹12,537 crore in net profit, around $1.7 billion, in the past financial year. In that span, the Indian telco also grew its customer base to 426 million, which represented a net increase of 38 million, while picking up another 490MHz worth of spectrum to be the biggest spender at India’s most recent spectrum auction. By comparison, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea only picked up 355.45MHz and 11.8MHz of spectrum, respectively. Related Coverage More

Apple describes its new audio format, Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos, in hyperbolic terms. According to Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and Beats, Oliver Schusser, “Apple Music is making its biggest advancement ever in sound quality.” Others, notably Tidal and Amazon Music HD, which already support high-resolution audio (hi-res audio) and Dolby Atmos, would beg to disagree. This is really Apple playing catch-up in a market it once dominated thanks to the iPod. 

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While Apple calls Dolby Atmos “revolutionary,” it’s actually almost a decade old. It’s a surround sound format like its rival DTS:X. As such it’s far more popular as an audio format for movie theaters and high-end home theaters. Nevertheless, in the last few years, more and more music has been remastered and reformatted into the Atmos format.  To fully experience Atmos you need multiple speakers. While Atmos playback will work with a traditional five-speaker-and-subwoofer (5.1) system to make the most of it you need a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos speaker system with the usual 5:1 speakers, a pair of rear surround channels, and four overhead Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers. Apple, of course, doesn’t offer that. Instead, Apple Music will do the best it can to play Dolby Atmos tracks on all AirPods and Beats headphones with an H1 or W1 chip, as well as the built-in speakers in the latest versions of iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Despite Apple’s claims that “Listening to a song in Dolby Atmos is like magic. The music comes from all around you and sounds incredible,” the listening experience can only pale compared to a true audiophile music setup. To do this, Apple uses its own take on Dolby Atmos for Headphones. Devices that use this are still stereo-only, but they simulate Atmos effects using software with any headphones. Before Apple picked it up, the software to enable headphones to play Atmos audio had long been available on Xbox and Windows 10 PC via the Dolby Access app.  At the launch in June, Apple Music subscribers can listen to thousands of songs in Spatial Audio. This music will encompass all genres, including hip-hop, country, Latin, pop, and classical. Apple Music is also working with artists and labels to add new releases and the best catalog tracks, as more artists begin to create music specifically for the Spatial Audio experience. Some musicians are less than impressed. Rock and roller superstar and audiophile Neil Young said, “The introduction of Atmos seems to be just a distraction from the fact that Apple did not lead, and in fact resisted the move to Hi Rez. Musicians worldwide are not raving about the greatness of Atmos.”

Simultaneously, Apple Music will also make its catalog of more than 75 million songs available in lossless audio. Apple uses ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) to preserve every single bit of the original audio file. To start listening to lossless audio, subscribers using the latest version of Apple Music can turn it on via Settings > Music > Audio Quality. Here, they can choose different resolutions for different connections such as cellular, Wi-Fi, or for download. Apple Music’s Lossless tier starts at CD quality, which is 16 bit at 44.1 kHz (kilohertz), and goes up to 24 bit at 48 kHz, and is playable natively on Apple devices. For the true audiophile, Apple Music also offers Hi-Resolution Lossless all the way up to 24 bit at 192 kHz.This new high-quality Apple Music will be offered at the same streaming price as ordinary Apple Music: $9.99 a month or $14.99 for families. This matches Amazon, which earlier had announced it would start pricing its high-res music at these prices. Spotify is also matching Amazon’s prices for its new high-res offerings. Apple is playing catch-up to Amazon and Tidal, which had shown that even before these price drops people were willing to pay for high-res music.  Of course, with any lossless audio format, there’s a tradeoff:  File size. A lossless audio song track typically eats up tens of megabytes of storage space. This can quickly up your device storage or drain your broadband allowance if you stream it over a 4G or 5G  network.Of course, if you’re listening on your smartphone while going back to work on a crowded, noisy bus, you can still use a lossy compression format like MP3. Yes, you sacrifice music fidelity, but without noise-canceling headphones, you still won’t miss a beat. For example, the top MP3 recordings tend to have a bitrate of 320 Kilobits per second (Kbps), while a 24-bit/192kHz file has a bitrate of 9,216 Kbps. Music CDs, by comparison, have a bitrate of 1,411 Kbps.Let’s do a quick review of the popular digital music formats. AAC (Advanced Audio Coding): Apple’s MP3s alternative, it’s lossy and compressed but sounds better. Used for iTunes downloads, Apple Music streaming (at 256kbps), and YouTube streaming.AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format ): Apple’s alternative to WAV, with better metadata support. It’s both lossless and uncompressed. ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Code): Apple’s own lossless compression format. It’s been open-source and royalty-free since 2011. Music stored in it also takes up half the space of WAV.FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec): Free, open-source lossless compression format The most popular lossless format, but unsupported by Apple. FLAC files take up about half the size of WAV tracks. MP3: Popular, older lossy compressed format ensures small file size, but far from the best sound quality. Still around, but no one’s favorite format today. MQA (Master Quality Authenticated). This is a high resolution, aka better than CD quality, format. It’s used with lossless formats, such as ALAC, FLAC, or WAV. It’s best known for its use by Tidal.  Ogg Vorbis: An open-source,  non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, compressed audio format. Quality and size are roughly equivalent to MP3. WAV (Waveform Audio File Format): The standard CD format. Great sound quality but it’s uncompressed. That means its tracks are very large.To make the most of any of these you need the right audio equipment. There, Apple does have you covered. Of course, you’ll need newer Apple hardware to make the most of Spatial Audio. The same, though, is true of any format, which supports Dolby Atmos or DTS:X. You should also keep in mind that your existing music collection can’t make use of new hardware. In addition, just because a song is lossless doesn’t mean it’s a good copy. The mastering quality of the music also matters. For example, Neil Young — first with his Pono music service and now with the Neil Young Archives — has pointed out that even CD masters fall far short of true high-quality audio. That’s because they themselves were mastered at low audio resolutions.In addition, many people can’t hear the difference between high-quality lossy audio such as 320kbps MP3s and lossless tracks. Want to hear for yourself if it’s worth getting excited about these new developments in audio? Take this NPR audio quiz yourself. You’ll find out for yourself if you can tell the often subtle differences between good music reproduction and Great Music reproduction.Related Stories: More

Credit: Microsoft

Microsoft is making a number of promised “personal” features for Teams generally available starting today. The features are going live for Teams on desktop, web and mobile devices. Microsoft also is adding new consumer-focused Together Mode scenes for Teams users on desktop and the web as of today, May 17. Last year, Microsoft announced it would be adding personal/consumer features to its Teams product across platforms. (There is no separate Teams consumer app.) Microsoft is hoping that consumers might find Teams a useful productivity tool for managing group events and calendars; texting and video chatting with friends; assigning and tracking chats. Microsoft officials still have not said that they intend to replace Skype with Teams at any point in the foreseeable future. Among the new features that are moving from preview to general availability today is the ability to engage in group chat via SMS for those not using Teams. Two-way SMS is available as of today in U.S., Canada and Mexico and partially available in the U.K., India, Brazil and Columbia. Officials said they are taking a “phased” approach to availability of this feature. Officials also said they plan to add a polling feature for Teams consumer users which will be available “in the coming weeks.” Together Mode — already available in Teams for business users — turns a Teams video chat into a shared virtual environment and is designed to make people feel like they are all in the same place. Personal features in Teams are available for free. Anyone with a work Teams account can add a personal account directly to it. Those who don’t have Teams already can download the iOS, Android and/or desktop apps and sign up or use Teams inside any web browser. Via Teams consumer, Microsoft allows people to meet one-on-one and speak up to 24 hours for free. For group calls, users can meet with up to 100 participants for 60 minutes for free. For now, Microsoft is waiving these limits due to the pandemic, and is allowing group chats with 300 participants and speak for up to 24 hours for free.  More

Telco complaints figures are not always a good indicator of how widespread a problem can be, a new report released by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) has said. In the TIO’s latest report, it revealed there were instances where a certain telco’s selling practice during a promotion had less than 100 complaints, but after conducting an investigation, it was recognised that the issue was actually widespread. In that instance, there were consumers who signed up with the telco during a promotion but they were not provided with credits that were promised to their account. Despite the TIO receiving less than 100 complaints about this problem, it was later found that this problem affected over 10,000 consumers — the credits owed totalled more than AU$1.4 million. Of the complaints it received over the past year, the TIO said most of the complaints could be split into four categories. The complaints were primarily about: Advertising and point-of-sale information that did not always cover key terms; online information about telco products and services being difficult to find and understand; telcos not always responsibly promoting or selling their products and services; and consumers sometimes unknowingly signing up for products or services they do not need. An example provided in the report of telcos’ point-of-sale information not covering key terms was a telco had advertised a “risk-free” trial period on its website despite use of telco’s equipment for the trial not being free. Several complaints were sent to the TIO regarding this trial as many consumers were left out of pocket for the cost of the equipment as the telco did not accept equipment returns. After being contacted by the TIO, the telco found some customers were entitled to a remedy, such as ending the contract or receiving a refund.

“The findings of this investigation show consumers do not always understand what they are buying and this leads to problems. Phone and internet products and services are essential to our daily lives. Telcos must advertise products accurately and make clear information available about what they are offering,” Ombudsman Judi Jones said. While the TIO found telcos needed to do a better job in being more transparent with consumers, it also said each provider improved their selling practices every time after the TIO conducted an investigation. “Improvements included updating advertising and increasing training for sales staff. Providers also contacted affected consumers about payment options and offered to release them from contracts where appropriate,” the TIO said in the report. In response to the TIO’s report, Communications Alliance — who represents carriers and carriage services providers — commended telecommunications providers for their “prompt, cooperative action” when the TIO was investigating their conduct. “We were pleased to see that, once made aware of a problem, RSPs [telcos] took proactive steps to resolve it, even beyond the complaints raised through the TIO. This included contacting all impacted consumers, issuing refunds and changing forward practices,” Communications Alliance CEO John Stanton said. The release of TIO’s report comes shortly after Telstra was fined AU$50 million for unconscionably selling mobile phone plans to Indigenous Australians for two and half years, which resulted in them receiving thousands of dollars of debt. The fine is the culmination of an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) lawsuit, which was finalised after Telstra admitted it breached Australian Consumer Law when sales staff at five licensed Telstra-branded stores signed up 108 Indigenous consumers to multiple post-paid mobile contracts which they did not understand and could not afford. The AU$50 million fine is the second highest penalty ever imposed under Australian Consumer Law.   “This conduct included manipulating credit assessments and misrepresenting products as free, and exploiting the social, language, literacy and cultural vulnerabilities of these Indigenous customers,” ACCC chair Rod Sims said. “Telstra’s board and senior executives failed to act quickly enough to stop these illegal practices when they were later alerted to them.” Last week, Communications Alliance also published its quarterly Complaints in Context report, which found there was a small decrease in complaint rates during the January-March 2021 period when compared to the period just before it. The report details the complaints received by TIO per 10,000 services in operation (SIO) for participating service providers for each quarter.  For all participating service providers, there were 6.9 complaints per 10,000 SIOs, a decrease from the 7.0 ratio. Southern Phone continued to have the highest complaints rate by a decent margin, with 22.9 complaints per 10,000 SIOs. This was followed by MyRepublic and Commander, with 12.2 and 10.9, respectively. Looking at the major telcos, Telstra received the most complaints, receiving 9.5 per 10,000 SIOs, while Optus, TPG, and Vodafone had 5.2, 4, and 3 complaints, respectively, for the same amount of services. Related Coverage More