Networking

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The company responsible for running the National Broadband Network has ended its consultation on whether to procure any existing dark fibre for enterprise connections, saying it is not cost effective. The consultation was kicked off at the start of 2020 as Australian enterprise telcos complained of NBN overbuilding existing networks. In an update posted last week, NBN after receiving quotes from six parties covering 31 sites as a proof of concept (PoC), and a mixture of fibre to the basement, fibre to the node, and fibre to the curb, said it was not impressed with any of them. “There is no evidence to suggest that an industry-wide procurement model for third party dark fibre connections to deliver wholesale enterprise services would be commercial or operationally feasible based on current NBN build costs, available third-party footprint, operational timelines and SLAs. Therefore, NBN will be concluding the consultation at this time,” it said. NBN said in a number of cases it would need to conduct build activity to connect third-party fibre in-building, and many responses said that meeting NBN’s service level agreements would “prove challenging”. It added that a majority of sites were in areas where the company had the lowest cost to upgrade connections to fibre. “It is clear that the indicative prices received … were not commercially viable options for NBN,” it said. “A key reason for this is that the cost to procure a dark fibre connection from a third-party provider involves a mix of upfront and ongoing recurring charges where NBN’s build cost only involves a one-off upfront cost.”

However, as its analysis was purely a desktop calculation, NBN conceded it might be able to get lower rates if the process would have led to actual usage. “It appears that several respondents quoted retail level prices for dark fibre services which are typically among the most premium offerings available at a retail level,” NBN said. “By contrast, in conducting the industry consultation NBN envisaged a procurement model that encouraged a lower cost approach from providers that desired to secure revenue from a sunk and potentially under-utilised asset in a competitive market. “Despite this, NBN acknowledges that in a genuine commercial tender for a large number of sites the prices may result in lower quoted prices (this fact was reflected in subsequent discussions with a number of PoC participants).” Elsewhere on Monday, Communications Electrical Plumbing Union (CEPU) has called for a Senate inquiry into “NBN Co’s shambolic management and pyramid contracting scheme”. It also walked off the job and conducted a car convoy to NBN’s headquarters. “NBN Co needs to scrap their dodgy pyramid contracting model, improve pay rates and ditch the shonky booking app,” CEPU national president Shane Murphy said. “Subcontractors are being forced to sign new contracts with NBN Co delivery partners which cut their pay, all whilst NBN executives paid themselves AU$77m in bonuses during the pandemic. It’s infuriating.” In a recent Senate hearing, NBN faced a grilling from Labor senators over how the company ensures the contracts between prime contractors and subcontractors are compliant with legal requirements. In response to questions, NBN COO Kathrine Dyer said the company had a “very strict” governance model. “We’re very mindful of … the contracts that we have with them but …. it’s not something that we monitor, we monitor our relationship with our contractors,” she said at the time. “We are very confident in our governance and audit process we have in place with our delivery partners that they are complying with the nature of the contracts that we have with them.” CEO Stephen Rue said NBN can direct one of its contractors to provide a statutory declaration that subcontractors had been paid, but that he wasn’t aware of any breach. “Surely, it’s the obligation of the delivery partner to comply with all legislation, laws, employment law, health and safety etcetera, and our contracts with them require them to do that,” Rue said. “It is the delivery partners obligation to comply with the law.” On Monday, Murphy said technicians were having to deal with a work dispatch system that could take three hours to book work off and leave customers waiting for technicians to head to the next job. “These technicians are highly skilled workers — yet because of the NBN’s ‘pyramid style’ sham contracting scheme, it’s the executives and middle-men who are profiting from Australia’s NBN while the people doing the work are getting get ripped off and consumers continue to suffer with substandard connections,” Murphy added. NBN said it did not expect there to be any impact on NBN operations, new connections, or network faults. “NBN Co is aware of some issues that our delivery partners and field technicians have experienced with our recently deployed SMAX-Go mobile application for managing and logging work requests,” a spokesperson said. “We have significantly improved the app over the last few weeks to address functionality, system performance and general user experience pain-points, and will continue to modify and enhance the app in the next two weeks. We appreciate technicians’ patience while we work to improve the app.” The company said it was “working constructively” with the CEPU to maintain “strong, productive working relationships”. “As is standard industry practice … our construction and maintenance contracts place responsibility for compliance with the law and relevant legislation on our delivery partners in relation to the contracted services,” the spokesperson said. “Delivery partners are free to use their own employees or sub-contractors when fulfilling the work and maintenance outlined in our contracts with them.” Related Coverage More

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Singaporean-owned Australian telco Optus has said it will be switching off its 2100MHz band for 3G services in April 2022, with the spectrum reallocated to its LTE network. Consequently, the telco is warning that instead of having a dual-band 3G network using both 900MHz and 2100MHz spectrum, it will after next April only be relying on a single band at 900MHz. This will apply for Optus customers, and retailers that resell its network. “Customers with a 2100MHz-only 3G device will need to upgrade their device to have 4G LTE capability to access the Optus network, which will provide them a better customer experience than the 2100Mhz 3G network,” the company said. Optus said it would reach out to customers impacted by the change over the coming months, including those with “very old SIM cards”.The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said in advice earlier this week that a key competition concern was the lack of spectrum under 1GHz held by Optus, compared to Telstra and TPG, once the 850/900MHz band is cleared out for an upcoming spectrum auction later this year.”Optus’ ability to compete effectively in the mobile services market will likely be constrained if it does not acquire more sub-1GHz band spectrum in the 850/900MHz allocation,” the watchdog wrote. “In particular, there is a risk that Optus may not be able to roll out 5G technology widely and efficiently in Australia in the absence of more sub-1GHz spectrum.”

As it currently stands, the ACCC said Telstra holds 46% of all sub-1GHz spectrum in metro areas and 54% in regional areas, TPG has 38% in metro areas and 31% in the regions, with Optus claiming only 15% in metro and regional areas. “The ACCC considers that the asymmetry of sub-1GHz spectrum holdings between the MNOs [mobile network operators] is likely to have a significant effect on Optus’ ability to compete with the other MNOs in the mobiles services market,” it said. “In the short term, Optus and TPG may need additional sub-1GHz band spectrum if they wish to continue to operate their 3G networks. However in the medium to longer term, Optus is the only MNO that does not currently have any sub-1GHz band spectrum that it could feasibly use to deploy 5G services.” Despite the ACCC not recommending for any spectrum to be reserved for any telco, preferring a sub-1GHz limit be imposed to prevent Telstra scooping up too much spectrum, the department answerable to the former Optus executive cum Communications Minister Paul Fletcher opted to set 10Mhz aside for both TPG and Optus in the upper four lots available, where the telcos currently operate under apparatus licences. Related Coverage More

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Huawei reported on Wednesday its first quarter sales were down 16.5% compared to last year, but an expected result. Revenue for the Chinese giant was reported at 152 billion yuan, with its carrier business remaining steady, and its consumer business seeing sales decrease thanks to selling off its Honor brand last year. While revenue was down, margin was up thanks to a $600 million patent royalty, and “ongoing efforts to improve quality of operations and management efficiency”, the company said. “2021 will be another challenging year for us, but it’s also the year that our future development strategy will begin to take shape,” Huawei rotating chair Eric Xu said. “No matter what challenges come our way, we will continue to maintain our business resilience. Not just to survive, but do so sustainably.” Speaking at the company’s recent analyst summit through an interpreter, Xu said many other Chinese companies might be worried that what happened to Huawei in regards to US sanctions might happen to them. He said he hoped Huawei’s suppliers could produce chipsets that were not subject to US intervention.Xu said he did not expect Huawei to be removed from the US Entity List, and its overall strategy was to survive this extremely difficult period.

Across the sea in Japan, Sony reported its full year results on Wednesday, with sales increasing 9% to just shy of 9 trillion yen, and net income increasing 590 billion yen to 1.17 trillion yen. For the fourth quarter, sales increased 27% to 2.2 trillion yen, and net income rose 94 billion yen to 107 billion yen. Sony said its gaming business contributed an extra 679 billion yen in sales to 2.66 trillion across the year, thanks to the launch of the PlayStation 5. Headed in the other direction were its electronic products, and imaging and sensing businesses. The former reported a 70.5 billion yen decline in sales to 1.92 trillion yen, while the latter saw a 58 billion drop to 1 trillion yen across the year. Due to a reduction of costs in its mobile communications business, which is responsible for its smartphones, operating income was positive at 28 billion despite a slight drop in sales across the year to 359 billion yen. Sony said it expects image sensor sales to increase in the next year for both smartphones and digital cameras. Related Coverage More

Vodafone New Zealand has been found guilty of misleading consumers over the branding of its FibreX HFC-based broadband service. Auckland District Court ruled last Friday that Vodafone NZ was guilty on nine charges of violating the Fair Trading Act between October 2016 and March 2018. The New Zealand Commerce Commission (ComCom), which brought the case last year, argued fibre was a generic description of fibre to the home, especially in relation to the country’s government-subsidised Ultra-Fast Broadband network, and consumers where likely to think the same in Wellington, Kapiti, and Christchurch where Vodafone was promoting its FibreX service. “Judge Sinclair agreed that fixed line broadband networks are identified in telecommunications markets by the technology used for the last mile to the home/premise, and that in the case of the UFB networks, that is fibre optic cable,” the ComCom said on Wednesday. “She rejected Vodafone’s argument that consumers would understand that FibreX was a ‘fibre like’ network delivering superfast reliable broadband but not pure fibre, due to the ‘X’ in its name.” It was argued that the X was derived from “coaXial”. The HFC network Vodafone was promoting, was gained as part of its 2012 purchase of TelstraClear. During 2015-16, the network was updated to DOCSIS 3.1, after which it took on its FibreX branding. The network passed 250,000 households.

Lead counsel for Vodafone, Antonia Horton, said during the trial that a background stock image containing beams of light that was used, was “night sky filled with shooting stars”. Expert witness for ComCom, Professor Phillip Gendall from the Department of Marketing at the University of Otago, said the suffix “X” put forward that the service was a superior form of fibre, and the stock image was “reminiscent of fibre optic cable”. Gendall pointed to UFB retailers offering plans with names such as Fibre 100 for why consumers would assume the service had an “X factor”. Sinclair added in the judgement that the HFC network has a number of limitations not found in a full fibre network — such as variability, congestion, speed, reliability, latency, upgrade pathways — and that consumers would wish to know about them. Sentencing is due later in the year. More from New Zealand More

The company responsible for the National Broadband Network has floated the prospect of a soft cap on overage CVC charges to limit the amount Australian telcos have to pay for increases in traffic. For the soft cap to kick in, total NBN costs before rebates for any telco would need to rise 7% across a three-month rolling average, and the telco would need to keep customer churn below a threshold of 10% on top of its yearly historical churn. A fair use provision is floated as being set around the 30% to 40% mark. The proposal arrives after retailers kicked up a stink when NBN attempted multiple times to taper off its CVC boost due to the pandemic outbreak in 2020. “The TC-4 Bundles Discount Roadmap is a minimum commitment of inclusions and, as demonstrated during COVID, NBN will consider increasing inclusions if usage growth is significantly above expected usage growth levels,” the company said. “While the previous CVC boost was not financially sustainable in the long-term, NBN agrees that a new mechanism could (subject to certain conditions) potentially reduce RSP risk and management costs whilst also enabling NBN to achieve its financial objectives.” It is proposed that the soft cap would kick in on December 1, and be reviewed prior to its expiry on 1 December 2022. NBN stated it believes the cap will provide “significant cost savings” for its retailers. In response to its February call giving telcos two paths for extending CVC bundle discounts, NBN said it would be pressing ahead with maintaining the bundles discount at the same charge rate of May 2021 while increasing CVC capacity inclusions.

After receiving feedback from retailers, NBN said it would be lifting CVC by 0.25Mbps higher than in its February paper, and the 250/100Mbps plan would see its CVC inclusion boosted to 5.25Mbps on December 1, before hitting 5.75Mbps in May 2022. The change would see its 500/200Mbps play get 6.25Mbps of CVC in May 2022, with 1000/400Mbps going to 7Mbps in May next year. On the standard CVC list price, currently sitting at AU$17.50 per Mbps when not part of a discount, the company said 90% of purchases at the list price are made by telcos selling satellite connections, and “satellite access technology is already substantially subsidised”. It added that a reduction to AU$15.75 per Mbps by no later than March 31 was fair. “This will improve the economics of Sky Muster services, noting that Sky Muster Plus provides some unmetered data and that satellite services are loss-making and heavily subsidised by fixed line services,” it said. The company said it would look to shift its billing cycle to the start of the month, however a small number of retailers were against the change because they would need to update their internal systems. Nevertheless, NBN is ploughing ahead with the change. NBN also said it would look to begin consulting on an Special Access Undertaking (SAU) variation that would be its long-term pricing vehicle. “In response to the industry’s strong desire for NBN to implement long-term pricing changes quickly, we are initiating an SAU variation consultation that will involve the ACCC,” NBN chief customer officer Brad Whitcomb said. “We believe this is the best way to progress this important industry conversation.” In concert with NBN’s consultation, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said it would also consult on the SAU. The watchdog pointed out the current SAU, originally submitted in 2013, only covers pricing and regulatory terms on technologies it was using at the time — namely fibre to the premise, fixed wireless, and satellite networks — which only make up a quarter of the network in 2021. “Until now, access pricing has largely been developed by NBN Co, so the prospect of bringing this work squarely within the remit of a special access undertaking with effective ACCC oversight is a very significant change,” ACCC chair Rod Sims said. “This is the start of a long reform process that would effectively put NBN pricing under the ACCC’s regulatory umbrella, and would improve access pricing for NBN Co customers.” One of the issues to be nutted out during the SAU process is the entry-level pricing on the NBN. “There was consensus that the low-income offering should be targeted to those most in need and that should be based on social security or similar status and this could be achieved via Centrelink integration or a list of eligible location identifiers sourced by NBN,” the company said. “Most RSPs stated that the process needs to be simple for them to manage, with some RSPs contending that Centrelink integration would likely be too complex and costly for them.” In advice to Communications Minister Paul Fletcher on sub-1GHz spectrum holdings published earlier on Wednesday, the ACCC said in a heavily redacted section that it had no issue with NBN purchasing spectrum in the 850/900MHz band to provide wholesale bundled voice and broadband services. “NBN Co noted that this supports the government’s commitment to explore better ways to deliver voice services under the Universal Service Guarantee, and could also provide an ██████████████████████”, the ACCC said. NBN said it is accepting written submissions on its pricing proposals under the close of business on June 18. Related Coverage More

Networking equipment stalwart Juniper Networks this afternoon reported Q1 revenue and profit that topped Wall Street’s expectations, and projected this quarter higher as well, even though its business is being affected by the global chip shortage, it said.In a separate “commentary” document, CFO Ken Miller, the chip shortages are going to last a few quarters, though the company has enough chips to get by for this year’s planned business:There is a worldwide shortage of semiconductors impacting many industries. Similar to others, we are experiencing ongoing supply constraints which have resulted in extended lead times. We have invested to strengthen our supply chain and have increased inventory levels over the course of the last year. We continue to work closely with our suppliers to further enhance our resiliency and mitigate recent disruptions outside of our control. Despite these actions, we believe extended lead times will likely persist for the next few quarters. While the situation is dynamic, at this point in time we believe we will have access to sufficient semiconductor supply to meet our full-year financial forecast. Juniper shares rose 3% in late trading. CEO Rami Rahim called the results “strong,” adding that the company “experienced better than expected product orders across each of our customer verticals.”Added Rahim, “Momentum is strong entering the June quarter and we are confident regarding our growth prospects. We believe the success we are seeing is a result of the deliberate actions we have taken to strengthen our product portfolio and go-to-market organization, both of which are enabling us to capitalize on attractive end-market opportunities now and in the future.”Revenue in the three months ended in March rose 8%, year over year, to $1.074 billion, yielding a net profit of 30 cents a share, excluding some costs.

Analysts had been modeling $1.05 billion and 25 cents per share.This was the first quarter that Juniper broke out results for its individual product categories. During the quarter, revenue from what the company calls “Automated WAN solutions” was the star, rising 23%, year over year, to $386 million. Another particularly strong area was “AI-Driven Enterprise” revenue, which rose 13%, to $161 million. Revenue from “cloud-ready data center” products declined 10%, year over year, to $157 million. And maintenance and professional services revenue rose slightly.Juniper additionally said its security revenue rose 11%, to $163 million.This was also the first quarter in which the company disclosed its annualized recurring revenue, a common measure of a company’s pipeline of signed business. ARR rose 28% in the quarter, the company said. For the current quarter, the company sees revenue of $1.14 billion, plus or minus $50 million, it said. That compares to consensus for $1.12 billion. EPS is seen in a range of 33 cents to 43 cents, above consensus for 37 cents per share.Despite the chip challenge, the company raised its outlook for this year, forecasting revenue growth of 4% to 5%, a point higher than previously expected. However, that is being boosted by “recently acquired assets,” said Juniper.Juniper’s two most-recent acquisitions were for Apstra, in January, for undisclosed terms, and 128 Technology Inc., in October, for $450 million.By market, this year, the company expects its enterprise sales to grow the fastest, it said, while “cloud is expected to grow towards the high-end of our long-term model range, and Service Provider is now expected to be flat to slightly up versus last year.”

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I’ve long used Netgear networking equipment in my home office. Most of it is prosumer gear, such as the NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Tri-band Mesh WiFi 6 System (RBK852). That’s great, but it’s also expensive, and it’s not a perfect fit for a small-medium business (SMB) network. There, you want business-grade management tools such as Netgear Insight 6. That’s what you’ll get with Netgear’s latest Insight Managed WiFi 6 AX3600 (WAX620) Wireless Access Points.

First, it’s fast. This new dual-band access point uses Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) performance to deliver up to 40% higher communication speeds to each connected device as compared to Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac). What that means for you is its dual-band 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz data streams can handle up to eight streams of data for an aggregate throughput of up to 3.6Gbps. Individual users can expect to see speeds of up to a single Gbps. It’s also, of course, backward compatible with all prior Wi-Fi generations, so even your oldest network PCs won’t be left out. To back this up with connectivity, the WAX 620 uses a Gigabit Ethernet port that can also double as an 802.3at 2.5Gbps Power over Ethernet (PoE) port.  It’s also capable of handling a lot — and I mean a lot — of users at once. In its tech specs, Netgear claims it can deal with up to 256 total users and 75 concurrent users. Making it even more useful the WAX620 can work hand-in-glove with other Netgear Insight Managed Access Points. This includes the Wi-Fi 5 (WAC 510, WAC 540) and Wi-Fi 6 (WAX 610, WAX610Y) models. Better still, WAX 620 enables access points to be connected using Instant Mesh. This lets you connect your network equipment without a wired connection using dedicated wireless backhaul technology. Besides the Instant Mesh feature, the WAX620 is very flexible. You can use it as an access point (AP), bridge, repeater, or as a bridge and an AP.For security, it comes with WPA3 128-bit to 192-bit encryption. You can also set up Virtual LANsANS (VLANs) with up to eight different SSIDs. 

Netgear claims the WAX 620 is ideally suited for environments with open spaces where there is a need to provide Wi-Fi connectivity for a large number of concurrent users such as schools, community colleges, mid-sized manufacturing facilities, and warehouses.They’re right. It is well suited for most SMB uses. And, for $239.99, it won’t break your business credit-card limit.Related Stories: More

Singtel has begun issuing SIM cards that are compatible with 5G standalone networks, which the telco currently is rolling out in Singapore. Its next-generation mobile network has been deployed for testing in “hundreds” of locations across the island including a couple of indoor sites, though, customers still will need to wait until their handsets are ready to access such networks. Singtel’s said Tuesday its new customers or those renewing their service contracts could opt for the new 5G SIM card, if they signed up for the telco’s 5G Now add-on service or 5G XO Plus 68 plans and above. The SIM card would be issued for free, with the SG$37.45 registration fee waived until May 31, 2021. Existing customers on XO Plus 68 plans and above also could swop for the new 5G SIM cards for free. However, customers with these SIM cards still would not be able to access services via the 5G standalone network, even if they owned 5G-ready smartphones. Such handsets would require software updates from their manufacturers to allow users to access 5G standalone networks. Singtel said it was choosing to issue the SIM cards now to “future-proof” its customers’ mobile experience. The telco’s 5G standalone network had been rolled out in “hundreds” of locations, though, it declined to reveal the exact number. These sites currently included the Central Business District and Sentosa as well as a handful indoor locations, such as Vivocity, Ngee Ann City, and some Singtel retail outlets. 

The Singapore telco was working with Ericsson to deploy its local 5G standalone network, running on 3.5GHz spectrum. The cloud-native network would have slicing capabilities, which it said enabled “dynamic distribution and optimisation of network resources” to support a range of applications. 

Pitched as a prominent feature of 5G, network slicing was touted to enable connectivity and data processing customised to the customer’s specific requirements. Network equipment vendors such as Nokia offered automation network slicing features that were pitched to slash costs associated with boosting networking capacity. Singtel said it would launch more handset models that were compatible with 5G standalone networks later this year, as manufacturers released software updates for their existing 5G smartphones.Singtel’s consumer CEO Anna Yip said the telco’s engineers were working with “top” handset manufacturers to test and prepare for its 5G commercial launch. Earlier this month, it launched “5G in a box” to provide enterprise customers the ability to deploy and test their apps on-site. Tucked inside a suitcase-sized container, the “portable 5G platform” was touted to eliminate the need for these organisations to access an actual 5G network to do so. In February, Singtel also began offering its 5G edge computing infrastructure on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, which the telco said would enable businesses to run applications such as autonomous guided vehicles, drones, robots, and virtual/augmented reality, in closer proximity to users. The partnership would allow Azure customers to tap Singtel’s Multi-access Edge Compute (MEC) services.Singapore’s other two 5G licensees StarHub and M1 also launched their respective consumer services, running these on 5G non-standalone architectures. Both operators, which are joint licence bidders, currently are deploying 5G standalone networks with Nokia.StarHub told ZDNet that it was “on track” to launch its 5G standalone network services later this year, having commenced its rollout in the fourth quarter of 2020. Full nationwide 5G standalone networks are expected to be up and running in Singapore by 2025.RELATED COVERAGE More