2024 July News Roundup

AI

Apple needs AI to compete in China’s smartphone market, analysts suggest
Apple’s market share in China fell to 14% in Q2 2024, with Canalys analysts noting a 6.7% decline in shipments. Huawei, now leading with 15%, has gained traction partly due to AI-driven features. Analysts recommend that Apple focus on AI innovation to regain market position. The overall smartphone market in Mainland China grew 10% y-o-y in Q2 2024.

AI featured prominently at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked Event 2024
Samsung highlighted AI across its new smartphones and wearables at the Galaxy Unpacked Event in Paris. The company plans to make Galaxy AI available on 200 million devices this year. New AI-powered features include Portrait Studio for creating avatars and Photo Ambient for dynamic wallpapers. Samsung also announced plans to upgrade its Bixby voice assistant with generative AI technology.

Security

CrowdStrike update causes widespread outages across Microsoft systems
A CrowdStrike software update on July 19 led to one of the largest IT outages, affecting around 8.5 million Microsoft Windows devices. The outage grounded flights, disrupted hospitals, and caused significant financial and operational impacts. Analysts questioned how such a catastrophic failure occurred, highlighting the need for more rigorous software development and update processes.

AT&T breach impacts nearly all mobile customers
AT&T disclosed that nearly all of its mobile customers, including MVNO users on its network, were affected by a security breach discovered in April. Wireline customers who interacted with affected mobile subscribers between May and October 2022 were also impacted. The data theft occurred on a third-party cloud platform between April 14 and 25, 2024. AT&T is working with law enforcement and does not expect the incident to materially impact its operations or financial performance.

Open RAN

AT&T reduces capital spending in H1 2024, focuses on Open RAN with Ericsson
AT&T’s Q2 2024 capital investment dropped to $4.9 billion, down $1 billion year-over-year. The first half saw a $2.8 billion reduction. However, AT&T expects full-year spending to reach $21-$22 billion, driven by network modernization, including its Open RAN shift using Ericsson.

German operators explore alternatives to Huawei for RAN management
Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom are considering third-party management software to bypass Germany’s Huawei ban. Unraveling Huawei’s RAN management from its hardware presents challenges, and it’s unclear which vendor will provide the alternative solution, with Ericsson and Nokia unlikely candidates, though Huawei has agreed to support the initiative.

Open RAN’s promise of vendor diversity remains unfulfilled
Despite open RAN’s goal of increasing competition, Omdia research shows that Huawei, Ericsson, and Nokia still held 75.1% of the RAN market share in 2023, up from 74.9% in 2022. Telco spending on RAN decreased by nearly $5 billion in 2023 to about $40 billion, with predictions of a further $3.2 billion drop in 2024.

AT&T CEO affirms Open RAN strategy will drive multi-vendor adoption
AT&T CEO John Stankey emphasized that Open RAN will enable AT&T to diversify its vendor base and innovate with small cells. He also highlighted that Open RAN, combined with a dense fiber network, will enhance capacity growth. AT&T added 159,000 Internet Air FWA and 419,000 postpaid wireless customers in Q2.

6G

China establishes first 6G field test network
Engineers from Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications built a 6G test network using existing 4G infrastructure, achieving a ten-fold improvement in capacity and efficiency via semantic communication. The network integrates AI, potentially fostering new business models.

5G

Standalone 5G networks struggle with slow growth
Dell’Oro reports stagnant growth in standalone 5G deployments, with only 50–54 networks live globally by mid-2024. The delay in 5G SA deployment is affecting vendor revenue forecasts and causing job cuts, as key 5G services like network slicing remain underutilized.

NTT Docomo to launch 5G SA in multiple spectrum bands
NTT Docomo plans to deploy 5G SA using mid-band (3.7 GHz, 4.5 GHz) and mmWave (28 GHz) spectrum in Tokyo and Kanagawa. The operator aims to deliver speeds up to 6.6 Gbps, building on previous achievements of 4.9 Gbps download and 1.1 Gbps upload rates.

Du trials 5G Advanced with Nokia and MediaTek, boosting uplink by 70%
Emirati telco du enhanced uplink performance by 70% in a 5G Advanced trial, leveraging Nokia’s AirScale and MediaTek’s T830 platform. The trial combined FDD and TDD bands to improve speeds and coverage, benefiting high-demand applications like live streaming and video conferencing.

Dish rebrands Boost Mobile, streamlines prepaid and postpaid plans
Dish aims to simplify its Boost Mobile offering by merging prepaid and postpaid services under a single brand. The new 5G plans start at $25/month with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Despite ongoing subscriber losses, the rebranding seeks to reinvigorate customer interest.

Ericsson faces mounting competition from Huawei, reports increased losses
Ericsson’s Q2 2024 sales dropped 7% year-over-year to $5.7 billion, with net losses ballooning to $1.1 billion. Increased competition from Huawei, especially in Europe and Latin America, is exacerbated by Germany’s extension of Huawei’s 5G RAN role until 2030.

Verizon CEO defends fiber strategy amid convergence concerns
Verizon’s Q2 2024 FiOS additions slowed to 28,000, down from 51,000 a year earlier, as investors questioned its convergence strategy. CEO Hans Vestberg attributed the slowdown to the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program and downplayed concerns over Verizon’s smaller fiber footprint compared to AT&T.

Telco/Network APIs

Singtel collaborates with Bridge Alliance on regional API exchange
Singtel is partnering with Bridge Alliance to create a regional API federation using Singtel’s Paragon platform. This initiative aims to streamline network-based services across 34 mobile operators. Singtel has also signed MOUs with AIS and Maxis for network-based authentication through SingVerify.

ABI Research forecasts $13.4 billion in telco API revenue, downplaying industry hype
ABI Research predicts telco APIs will generate $13.4 billion by 2028, contrasting with McKinsey’s much higher estimates of $100–300B. ABI highlights the need for telcos to overhaul their culture and commercial models to monetize APIs effectively. ABI predicts security APIs will lead with $5.3 billion by 2028, followed by network slicing ($5 billion) and quality of service on demand ($3.14 billion).

SD-WAN

Comcast sees strong SD-WAN adoption among government agencies
Comcast reports a significant uptake of SD-WAN among government agencies, driven by the need for enhanced security, encryption, and simplified administration. These agencies are focused on network modernization, with SD-WAN offering a streamlined, multi-product solution.

Palo Alto Networks, Cato, Netskope lead Gartner’s SASE Magic Quadrant
Palo Alto Networks topped Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for single-vendor SASE solutions, followed by Cato Networks and Netskope. SASE offerings must combine SD-WAN with key security capabilities on a unified, cloud-centric platform to qualify. Key security features for SASE include secure web gateway, cloud access security broker, zero trust network access, and network firewalls.

Cloud

Google Cloud revenue soars to $10.3B in Q2 2024, capital expenditures surge
Alphabet reported a 14% year-on-year increase in consolidated revenue to $84.7 billion in Q2 2024. Google Cloud achieved $10.3 billion in revenue and $1.2 billion in operating income. Capital expenditures nearly doubled to $13.2 billion, primarily due to increased spending on servers and data centers for AI infrastructure.

Extreme Networks integrates Intel device data into its AI platform
Extreme Networks is enhancing its AI capabilities by integrating data from connected Intel devices. This collaboration aims to optimize network performance by leveraging more comprehensive data inputs, making Extreme’s AI Expert platform more competitive.

Microsoft partners with Lumen for private fiber connectivity between data centers
Microsoft will use Lumen’s Private Connectivity Fabric to connect its data centers, addressing the growing demand for AI-driven cloud services. Lumen provides high-bandwidth, customizable fiber routes, with Microsoft retaining control over network management.

Alibaba Cloud develops Ethernet-based network for LLM training
An Alibaba Cloud engineer inadvertently revealed the company’s Ethernet-based network specifically designed for large language model training. The network has been in production for eight months. Alibaba chose Ethernet to avoid vendor lock-in and leverage the Ethernet Alliance’s ecosystem.

AWS sues Nokia over alleged patent violations
Amazon has filed a lawsuit against Nokia, accusing the company of infringing on several AWS patents related to virtual machine and networking technologies. The lawsuit claims Nokia used this technology in its cloud and network services division, potentially impacting its acquisitions.