Verizon reports increased 5G adoption and record 2Q

 Citing wireless revenue growth, strong Fios and Verizon Media results, and increased wireless equipment revenue, Verizon reported consolidated operating revenues in second-quarter 2021 of $33.8 billion, up 10.9 percent from second-quarter 2020, and an increase of 5.3 percent from second-quarter 2019. Verizon reported EPS of $1.40, compared with $1.13 in second-quarter 2020. 

Capital expenditures in first-half 2021 were $8.7 billion, including more than $160 million for C-band expansion.

“Second quarter results were exceptional, both financially and operationally,” said Verizon Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis. “Our strong first half performance and the momentum in our business gives us the confidence to raise our total wireless service revenue growth guidance to between 3.5 percent and 4 percent, an update from prior guidance for 2021 total wireless service revenue growth of at least 3 percent. We are also raising our adjusted EPS guidance* to the range of $5.25 to $5.35, an update from prior guidance for 2021 adjusted EPS of $5.00 to $5.15."

Some highlights

Consumer

• Consumer ended second-quarter 2021 with approximately 20 percent of wireless phone customers having 5G-capable devices.
• Total Verizon Consumer revenues were $23.5 billion, an increase of 11.2 percent year over year, and an increase of 6.7 percent from second-quarter 2019. 
• Total wireless retail postpaid churn was 0.83 percent in second-quarter 2021. Wireless retail postpaid phone churn was 0.65 percent, a record-low retail postpaid phone churn outside of second-quarter 2020 and third-quarter 2020, which were heavily impacted by the pandemic. 
• In second-quarter 2021, Consumer reported 350,000 wireless retail postpaid net additions. This consisted of 197,000 phone net additions and 234,000 other connected device net additions, offset by 81,000 tablet net losses.
• There were 92,000 Fios Internet net additions in second-quarter 2021. Consumer Fios revenues of $2.9 billion in second-quarter 2021 were the highest since the company's new operating structure was introduced in 2019. The company's trailing 12-month total Fios Internet net addition performance is the highest since 2015. Consumer reported 62,000 Fios Video net losses in second-quarter 2021.

Business

• Total Verizon Business revenues were $7.8 billion, up 3.7 percent year over year, and relatively flat from second-quarter 2019.
• Business wireless service revenues were $3.1 billion in second-quarter 2021, an 8.0 percent increase year over year, and an increase of 11.4 percent from second-quarter 2019. This increase was led by Small and Medium Business and Global Enterprise. 
• Total wireless retail postpaid churn was 1.30 percent in second-quarter 2021, and wireless retail postpaid phone churn was 1.07 percent.
• Business reported 178,000 wireless retail postpaid net additions in second-quarter 2021, including 78,000 phone net additions.

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Fungible appoints Eric Hayes as CEO

 Fungible has appointed Eric Hayes as its new CEO and member of Fungible’s Board of Directors, succeeding Pradeep Sindhu, who has served as Executive Chairman and CEO since Fungible’s inception. Sindhu will continue his role as Executive Chairman and assume the role of Chief Development Officer, where he will lead the engineering teams responsible for the company’s products and solutions.

Hayes most recently served as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the High-Speed Connectivity business unit at Inphi where he led the company’s multi-hundred-million-dollar PAM4 DSP business. Prior to joining Inphi he held multiple senior leadership positions in marketing and general management at Marvell, Cavium and Broadcom. 

“It has been a great privilege for me to lead this extraordinarily talented group of dedicated individuals to invent the DPU and bring to market industry leading products that exploit its unique capabilities. The DPU is a new category of microprocessor destined to become a key building block of data centers as the industry embraces data-centric computing. My new role allows me to focus on technology: taking the learnings from our first generation of DPUs and applying them to the next and further enhancing our already industry leading products,” said Pradeep Sindhu, Co-Founder, Executive Chairman and Chief Development Officer of Fungible. 

“There are tremendous opportunities for Fungible to radically transform the global data center industry in the coming years, thanks to the great work of Pradeep and the team,” said Eric Hayes, CEO of Fungible. “I can’t express how truly inspired I am to join Fungible at this pivotal time. While many other companies continue to invest in faster CPUs and GPUs, the real bottleneck to achieving performance at scale remains the inability to efficiently disaggregate CPUs, GPUs and storage over a high performance standards-based network. The market is ripe for disruption, and Fungible’s DPU is the only technology capable of solving this problem.”

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AT&T offloads Vrio Operations to Grupo Werthein

 AT&T will sell its Vrio Corp. business unit to Grupo Werthein, a private holding company active in telecommunications, finance, insurance, agribusiness and real estate in Latin America.

Vrio is a digital entertainment services company with 10.3 million subscribers across 11 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Vrio provides live and on-demand video services via DIRECTV Latin America, SKY Brasil and DIRECTV GO. Vrio’s entertainment includes world-class sporting events, international content and exclusive programming. Vrio offers services in Brazil through the SKY brand and in Argentina, Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Curacao, Ecuador, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay through the DIRECTV brand. DIRECTV GO is an over-the-top (OTT) subscription service that offers online access to a variety of live and on-demand programming in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

Vrio’s infrastructure includes satellites and state-of-the-art broadcast centers that carry 4K video formats. Vrio’s broadband operations, along with other investments, including Torneos y Competencias in Argentina and WIN Sports in Colombia, will transfer to Grupo Werthein at close.

In contemplation of this transaction, AT&T classified Vrio as held-for-sale at June 30, 2021 and reported the asset group at fair value less cost to sell, which resulted in an impairment of $4.6 billion including $2.1 billion related to accumulated foreign currency translation adjustments. The companies expect the transaction to close in early 2022. AT&T plans to announce second-quarter 2021 results on Thursday, July 22, 2021.

“Our vision of the future is to maximize these leading entertainment brands in Latin America, maintaining their leadership and increasing their value proposition by investing in technology and content aligned with the viewing habits of each one of the subscribers, including the next generation of consumers,” said Dario Werthein, shareholder, Grupo Werthein.

“This transaction will further allow us to sharpen our focus on investing in connectivity for customers,” said Lori Lee – CEO AT&T Latin America. “We remain committed to Latin America through our wireless business in Mexico and services for multinational corporations operating in the region.”

https://vriocorp.com/

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Prime plans new 9MW data center in Santa Clara

Prime Data Centers is expanding its presence across Silicon Valley with a new 9MW data center on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, California.

The new facility will be the second Silicon Valley data center for Prime. Construction on this three-story data center campus is set to begin this year, and completion is targeted for Q2 of 2022. The finished project will include:

• Approximately 80,000 square feet of purpose-built data center space
• 9MW of critical capacity with N+1 redundancy
• World-class connectivity options

"Santa Clara is one of the most desired data center locations globally due to its proximity to the vibrant and structurally important San Francisco Bay Area. In addition, the relatively affordable power rates from Silicon Valley Power (SVP) are very advantageous," says Jeff Barber, EVP Sales and Business Development at Prime. "Yet, it is difficult to find wholesale data center space in this area because of the scarcity and expense of available real estate, and the difficulty of obtaining guarantees that the power is available to service the new capacity. Prime has such assurances from SVP in hand today."

https://primedatacenters.com/

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Mavenir announces BSS Digital Enablement Platform

Mavenir introduced a Business Support System (BSS) solution designed as a digital marketplace for 5G services.

The Mavenir Digital Enablement (MDE) platform enables Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to build new digital offerings through a simplified graphical service experience creator. MDE can be deployed either as a standalone BSS or as an overlay on the CSP’s legacy BSS.

This solution uses a proven Microservices, API-first, Cloud-Native, Headless (MACH) architecture that is aligned with TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA) and OpenAPIs. Its low/no-code UI enables agile experience creation. 

Mavenir said its  technology enables a “composable” BSS architecture so CSPs can design their own BSS solution by assembling the right mix of microservices from the MDE library. It is designed to help CSPs innovate fearlessly without being restricted by the inflexibility of legacy BSS or IT systems. It also enables them to leverage their existing BSS/IT infrastructure by deploying the MDE Marketplace as an overlay solution. Use cases include:

“Mavenir’s MDE platform enables CSPs to deliver the promise of 5G and speed up the return on their 5G investments by eliminating perpetually slow processes and the barriers of cost and time from legacy BSS,” said BG Kumar, President Communications Services at Mavenir. “Through its open APIs, MDE easily integrates with existing IT or BSS systems and can run as an overlay solution, giving CSPs the option to escape existing vendor lock-in and freedom from development limitations on legacy IT systems.”

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Atom Computing raises $15M for its quantum system

Atom Computing, a start-up based in Berkeley, California, announced $15 million in Series A funding for its first-generation quantum computing system.

Atom Computing is building nuclear-spin qubits out of an alkaline earth element. The company's first-generation quantum computing system, Phoenix, is currently capable of trapping 100 atoms in a vacuum chamber with optical tweezers. Phoenix is able to rearrange and manipulate their quantum states with lasers. The company said its design demonstrates exceptionally stable qubits at scale, with coherence times that are orders of magnitude greater than ever reported.

Atom Computing also announced the appointment of Rob Hays as CEO, President and member of Atom Computing's Board of Directors. Hays was most recently Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for Lenovo's Infrastructure Solutions Group. He also served at Intel for more than 20 years, where he was Vice President and General Manager responsible for leading Intel's Xeon processor roadmaps. Company co-founder and CTO, Ben Bloom, Ph.D., will continue leading Atom Computing's engineering team.

"Quantum computing has accelerated to a point where it is no longer 10 years out. The scalability and stability of our systems gives us confidence that we will be able to lead the industry to true quantum advantage," said Rob Hays, CEO and President, Atom Computing. "We will be able to solve complex problems that have not been practical to address with classical computing, even with the exponential performance gains of Moore's Law and massively-scalable cluster architectures."

The funding round includes investment from Venrock, Innovation Endeavors and Prelude Ventures. In addition, the National Science Foundation awarded the company three grants.

"Atom Computing has a deep focus on scalable platforms compatible with error correction," said Ben Bloom, Co-founder and CTO, Atom Computing. "We've been able to focus on building a one-of-a-kind system that exists nowhere else in the world. Even within the first few months of Phoenix's operation, we have measured performance levels never before reported in any scalable quantum system." 

https://www.atom-computing.com/

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GlobalFoundries plans new $1 billion fab expansion in New York

GlobalFoundries (GF) announced its expansion plans for its most advanced manufacturing facility in upstate New York.

GF will invest $1 billion to immediately add an additional 150,000 wafers per year within its existing Fab 8 to help address the global chip shortage. Following that, GF plans to construct a new fab that will create more than 1,000 new high-tech jobs. 

GF recently announced new fab in Singapore and $1 billion planned investment to expand in Germany.

"Our expansion and job creation in Malta requires a new economic model, based on the bold public-private partnerships being championed in Washington by visionary leaders Senator Schumer and Secretary Raimondo, as well as close collaboration with our customers," said GF CEO Tom Caulfield. "Our industry is expected to grow more in the next decade than it did in the past 50 years and GF is stepping up to do its part as we work together to address the growing demand for technology innovation for the betterment of humanity. We are honored to be joined by government and automotive leaders, national security experts, and our valued customers to continue the critical discussions needed to create a reliable supply of American-made chips to support the U.S. economy and national security."

"I've led the fight to establish historic federal incentives for semiconductor manufacturing and R&D to strengthen the domestic semiconductor supply chain that is critical to our national security and global competitiveness, including addressing the chip shortage impacting industries across the economy, all in hopes of bringing us to announcements like this today," said Sen. Schumer. "As Majority Leader, I worked hard with companies like GlobalFoundries to craft and pass the bipartisan U.S. Competition and Innovation Act, providing $52 billion to expand the domestic semiconductor industry and supercharge the GlobalFoundries expansion of Fab 8 and building a new fab in Malta. Today's announcement is a win-win-win: a win for jobs in the Capital Region, a win for GlobalFoundries, and a win for U.S. government, automakers, and other critical industries that desperately need chips."

 

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BT makes equity investment in SAFE Security

BT announced a multi-million pound investment in Safe Security, cyber risk management firm based in Palo Alto, California.

The company's Security Assessment Framework for Enterprises') platform allows organisations to take a health check of their existing defences and understand their likelihood of suffering a major cyber attack.

Philip Jansen, Chief Executive of BT, said: "Cyber security is now at the top of the agenda for businesses and governments, who need to be able to trust that they're protected against increasing levels of attack. Adding SAFE to BT's proactive, predictive security services will give customers an enhanced view of their threat level, and rapidly pinpoint specific actions needed to strengthen their defences. Already one of the world's leading providers in a highly fragmented security market, this investment is a clear sign of BT's ambition to grow further."

Saket Modi, Co-founder and CEO of Safe Security, said: "We're delighted to be working with a proven global security leader in BT. Their investment and strategic partnership with Safe Security will further accelerate our vision of making SAFE scores the industry standard for measuring and mitigating cyber risks. By aligning BT's global reach and capabilities with SAFE's ability to provide real-time visibility on cyber risk posture, we are going to fundamentally change how cyber security is measured and managed across the globe."    

https://www.safe.security/

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NETGEAR cites continuing supply chain constraints, freight costs

NETGEAR reported second quarter 2021 net revenue of $308.8 million, an increase of 10.3% from the comparable prior year quarter. Second quarter 2021 non-GAAP net income per diluted share of $0.66, as compared to $0.54 in the comparable prior year quarter.

Patrick Lo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NETGEAR, commented, “Second quarter revenue came in at $308.8 million, representing 10.3% topline growth year over year. Worldwide supply chain constraints, however, such as component shortages, increased freight costs and transit times, and factory closures due to COVID-19, led to a perfect storm of factors that held back our revenue number and saw us fall short of our operating margin goals. As we continue to navigate through this rapidly changing environment, our long-term thesis that premium WiFi will drive the growth of the consumer networking market and our service subscriber base remains intact. With vaccination rates rising and businesses reopening, work from anywhere and hybrid work models are here to stay and we anticipate that the U.S. consumer networking market will grow 20% above pre-pandemic levels in the second half of this year. Meanwhile, demand for our SMB products rebounded strongly in the second quarter as businesses reopened post-COVID. Despite supply constraints, SMB net revenue grew approximately 58% year over year.”

https://investor.netgear.com/overview/default.aspx

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