Network Break | May 27, 2019
Network Break 236: US Tech Firms Suspend Biz With Huawei; Mellanox Amps Up Ethernet Switches
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Greg
Ferro
Drew
Conry-Murray
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Take a Network Break! We get an FU about coffee beans, and then dig into the giant mess that is the U.S. government’s restrictions on American tech companies doing business with Huawei.
We report on DNS observations from the RIPE 78 conference, explore new capabilities in Mellanox Ethernet switches, and discuss a new telemetry feature from Mellanox called “What Just Happened?”
HPE buys Cray for $1.3 billion, SpaceX launches a test batch of satellites for Space Internet, and IT service provider HCL exposes sensitive employee and customer information.
An industry analyst throws cold water on the notion that carrier spending on 5G will lift the fortunes of infrastructure providers, and a U.S. federal judge rules that Qualcomm violated antitrust laws.
See the links below to get more details on each story.
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Show Links:
Factbox: Global tech companies shun Huawei after U.S. ban – Reuters
Huawei gets limited reprieve from ban on buying U.S. components – Axios
Advice for Huawei Customers – National Cyber Security Centre
Huawei Placed on U.S. Tech Blacklist, Killing Huawei’s Consumer Device Business Outside China – Techsponential
Huawei: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with China’s tech giant – BBC News
Huawei’s use of Android restricted by Google – BBC News
Huawei gets limited reprieve from ban on buying U.S. components – Axios
Microsoft has pulled Huawei’s products from its Azure Stack catalog – Bloomberg
SoftBank, KDDI pull sales of new Huawei smartphones – Telegeography
Huawei has enough inventory to ‘weather’ US blacklist for months: Analyst – CNBC
Archives – RIPE 78 – RIPE
Mellanox Infuses Ethernet Switches With Network Telemetry Tech – SDX Central
Cray’s found a super scooper, $1.3bn’s gonna buy you. HPE’s the one – The Register
HPE to Acquire Supercomputing Leader Cray – Cray
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket deals out a deck of 60 Starlink internet satellites – GeekWire
HCL Exposes Customer, Personnel Info in Wide-Ranging Data Leak – Threatpost
Open Enrollment: How HCL Exposed Employee Passwords and Project Data – UpGuard
Judge Koh rules that Qualcomm violated FTC Act (FTC v. Qualcomm) – Essential Patent Blog
Qualcomm’s Practices Violate Antitrust Law, Judge Rules – Wall Street Journal
Qualcomm will get at least $4.5 billion from Apple as part of its patent settlement – The Verge
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“An industry analyst throws cold water on the notion that carrier spending on 5G will lift the fortunes of infrastructure providers”.
Couldn’t quite understand Greg’s bizzare angle, but this is a fairly easy assumption to make, especially when you consider the BILLIONS already spent by mobile network operators on acquiring 5G spectrum in Government auctions around the world.
Primarily 5G will be driven by Mobile Network Operators and 5G device manufacturers, NOT infrastructure equipment vendors.
Here in the UK, BT owned EE will be launching it’s 5G service this week, followed by Vodafone just over a month later https://5g.co.uk/news/ee-5g-launch-plans-roadmap/4900/
Several mistakes in your logic here.
1. Buying spectrum is roughly equivalent to buying land when planning to build a factory. Its not an optional spend, its required to be in the market.
2. Owning spectrum is an asset and can be resold if needed. Its not a sunk cost.
3. As I pointed out, there is a lot of stunt marketing on 5G. In reality, SP/Mobile spending is down by 15-30% over the last 2 years (depending on source). Cisco and Juniper are seeing their SP markets shrink at ~10% per every quarter for the last four quarters.
4. Many carriers have a few towers with 5G. For example, you can use 5G in one place in Chicago, USA. Source: https://twitter.com/GLKCreative/status/1129002038703120385. This is NOT a massive rollout but a first pilot.
There is substantial evidence from many sources that 5G will be take many years to arrive. Your view would be counter to the vast majority of well informed individuals.
Poor analogy I’m afraid!
When building a factory location can be paramount, it’s success is determined by how quickly it can be operationalised for optimal output, the land on which it sits becomes somewhat immaterial at this point and is a sunk cost.
In the whole history of the telecoms industry, I’ve never known a new major service to be rolled out universally from day one, that’s because it’s never made financial sense, hence the roll-out of 5G is following the exact same pattern as 4G, 3G and 2G before it, major cities first everyone else after, if they’re lucky!
I’m not a US citizen, so I really couldn’t comment on how US mobile operator’s plan to phase in publicly available 5G service, what I do know is that it’s here in the UK as of today https://ee.co.uk/ , as part of a phased roll-out across the country.
Given that the UK’s first 4G service was only launched in 11 cities and nearly a decade on, no UK mobile operator has more than 90% coverage, the assumption that 5G may take longer to roll-out given the shorter distances required between cell towers, would be one of common sense, meaning that wouldn’t erect your 5G towers in some rural part of the country in a village of six inhabitants.
I’m not sure how so-called ‘stunt marketing’ can change this particular industry dynamic. Neither Cisco or Juniper are Mobile Network Operator’s they’re merely two of an increasingly growing number of competent infrastructure equipment providers, to SP/telecoms industry.
This brings up the old adage “Technology doesn’t sell technology, economics does!