01/29/23 ~ Converge! Network Digest

Sunday, January 29, 2023

Dell'Oro increases forecast for O-RAN revenues

Sunday, January 29, 2023

Citing stronger-than-expected O-RAN progress in North America, Dell'Oro Group is revising upwards it revenue forecast. Open RAN is now projected to account for 15 percent to 20 percent of global RAN by 2027.

“The message that we have communicated for some time now with the early adopters embracing the movement and the early majority operator still concerned about performance and cost parity with Open RAN relative to proprietary RAN has not changed,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President and Analyst at the Dell’Oro Group. “Even with the higher starting point, it is more salient than even to factor in the vastly different adoption curves across the greenfields, the leading brownfields in North America and Asia Pacific, and the rest of the world,” continued Pongratz.

Additional highlights from the January 2023 Open RAN Advanced Research Report:

The Asia Pacific and North America regions are projected to be the primary growth vehicles throughout the forecast period.
Since the last forecast, Open RAN projections have been revised upward in the North America region and downward in Middle East & Africa, Carribean and Latin America, and parts of the Asia Pacific.
Even with the slower start, European Open RAN revenues are expected to top $1 B by 2027.
While the Open RAN movement is not confined to a specific technology, RF output power, spectrum band, or deployment configuration – Open RAN macros are expected to drive the lion’s share of the O-RAN capex, accounting for around 90 percent of the revenues throughout the forecast period.
Risks remain broadly balanced. On the one hand, the Open RAN movement continues to trend in the right direction. At the same time, preliminary data suggest Open RAN is having a minimal impact on the overall RAN supplier dynamics.

https://www.delloro.com/news/

https://youtu.be/s2u0bwRnIaY

Nokia delivers stellar network infrastructure sales in Q4

Sunday, January 29, 2023

Nokia reported Q4 2022 sales of EUR 7.449 billion, up 16% over the same period in 2021 (up 11% y-o-y in constant currency). Full year net sales grew 6% (12% reported).

Some highlights:

In Q4 Network Infrastructure grew net sales 14% in constant currency with all units contributing. Mobile Networks grew 3% with a meaningful shift in regional mix in the quarter while Cloud and Network Services grew 5%. Nokia Technologies grew 82% as a long-term licensee exercised an option leading to higher revenue recognition in Q4.
Enterprise net sales grew 49% y-o-y in constant currency in Q4 (55% reported); 21% in full year 2022 (27% reported).

Pekka Lundmark, Nokia's CEO, states:

"We said at the start of 2022 that it would be a year of acceleration and we delivered what we promised. The Nokia team did a great job navigating geopolitical, economic and supply challenges, successfully executed our strategy and delivered a strong full year performance. Our constant currency full year net sales growth accelerated to 6% and we maintained a stable comparable operating margin of 12.5% which is a good result considering one-off benefits we had in 2021. "

"One of our strategic priorities is to broaden our customer base and grow in Enterprise and I’m delighted we achieved 21% net sales growth in constant currency for the full year with 49% growth in Q4. There were important webscale wins in 2022 with momentum also continuing to build in our private wireless business where we added 45 customers in Q4. "

"The highlight of the fourth quarter was our stellar Network Infrastructure performance, which grew net sales 14% in constant currency with significant operating margin expansion. Notably, we saw a strong acceleration in both our Optical Networks and IP Networks businesses with net sales growing 21% and 11% respectively in constant currency. Mobile Networks delivered 3% constant currency growth in Q4 with operating margin declining year-on-year, as expected due to changes in regional mix. On a full year basis, Mobile Networks’ 3% net sales growth and 90bps higher operating margin is encouraging after a successful reset the previous year. We continue to see solid demand trends in Network Infrastructure and Mobile Networks as we look ahead into 2023. "

"In Cloud and Network Services, we saw good Q4 net sales growth of 5% in constant currency and continued improvement in gross margin, which increased 200bps year-on-year. Increased investments into private wireless and Software-as-a-Service meant operating margin was largely stable. This is evidence that the ongoing optimization of our portfolio is bearing fruit and positioning us for continued profitable growth in the future."

Vantage Data Centers highlights rapid expansion

Sunday, January 29, 2023

Vantage Data Centers highlighed rapid growth of its portfolio of data centers in 2022 and plans for new facilities.

North American Expansion: Vantage opened seven new data centers across its inaugural region of North America while continuing its aggressive expansion to keep pace with customer requirements.

Canada: With a CAD$900M investment in Canadian operations, Vantage began development of a third Montreal campus while expanding existing campuses in Montreal and Quebec City. Upon completion, Vantage’s four Canadian campuses will total 143MW.

Phoenix: Vantage broke ground on phase two of its growing Phoenix campus. Once fully developed, the mega campus will offer hyperscalers and large cloud providers 160MW of IT capacity across three facilities.

New Facilities: Vantage opened new data centers in many of its North American markets, including Virginia, Arizona, Washington, California, Montreal and Quebec City.

EMEA Expansion: Vantage opened its first campuses in South Africa and Poland while launching new investments in solar and wind power.

South Africa: Vantage opened its first African data center campus in Johannesburg, South Africa, offering 16MW of IT capacity and announced the development of a second Johannesburg campus that will consist of 20MW of IT capacity.

Poland: The company opened its first data center campus in Poland. Once fully developed, the two-data center development will offer 48MW of IT capacity.

Germany: Vantage announced four new data center openings in Frankfurt and Berlin along with a new business office in Raunheim.

APAC Expansion: Since entering the region just over one year ago, Vantage has made significant strides to meet rising demand for digital infrastructure in APAC.

Cyberjaya: Vantage announced the delivery of a second data center (KUL12) on its Cyberjaya campus in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The company concurrently announced plans to continue expanding the campus with a third facility (KUL13), which will open its doors in the first half of 2023.

Hong Kong: In November, Vantage announced the opening of a new Hong Kong office, serving as the regional hub to house engineering, construction, sales, finance and accounting, and leadership functions to support the company’s business across APAC.

Vantage Data Centers invests £500 million in 48MW London campus

The expansion is supported by more than USD$3 billion of debt and equity financing raised throughout the year, including USD$368 million in green loans to advance sustainable developments in Quebec City, Canada, and Northern Virginia.

“Vantage experienced explosive growth over the past year as we continued to remain hyper focused on meeting customer demand for sustainable digital infrastructure around the world,” said Sureel Choksi, president and CEO of Vantage Data Centers. “We appreciate the trust that our customers placed in us, as well as the confidence that our investors continue to have in our ability to execute.”

“The team at Vantage has built a world-class portfolio of hyperscale data centers, supporting the continued growth of the largest global technology companies as they scale their businesses to meet global market demand,” said Marc Ganzi, president and CEO of DigitalBridge. “Vantage is an industry innovator, and with the support of our team at DigitalBridge, will continue to grow and deliver reliability, efficiency and sustainability for the benefit of their hyperscale customers.”

Highlights from the first annual Chiplet Summit

Sunday, January 29, 2023

What happened at the first annual Chiplet Summit? Interest in chipsets is running high not only from leading semiconductor vendors and the Open Compute Project (OCP), but also from potential ecosystem partners, including semiconductor fab equipment vendors, silicon start-ups, system companies, hyperscalers and even the investment community.

Chuck Sobey, Conference Chair, provides an overview at the end of a busy conference week.

https://youtu.be/rKBc07xVF2A

Building a new Chiplet Economy

Sunday, January 29, 2023

What will it take to create a vibrant ecosystem where innovative chipset designs can easily be integrated with other semiconductors and aligned to specific processing workload?

Bapi Vinnakota, ODSA Project Lead, Open Compute Project, discusses the emerging chipset economy, including progress in defining the interface.

https://youtu.be/KQEzkJav0o4

Bunch of Wires (BoW) Die-to-Die Chiplet Demo

Sunday, January 29, 2023

At the first, annual Chiplet Summit in San Jose, California, d-Matrix demonstrated a die-to-die chipset interface based on the emerging Bunch of Wires (BoW) work undertaken by the Open Compute Project (OCP). In this video, Wen-Sin Liew, Analog and Mixed Signal Design Engineer, shares an overview of the demo.

https://youtu.be/-iSDgbepko4

Comcast's communications revenue up 1.4% in Q4

Sunday, January 29, 2023 Comcast

Driven by increases in broadband, wireless, business services and advertising revenue, Comcast reported revenue for its cable communications business of $16.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, up 1.4% compared to a year earlier. Gains were partially offset by decreases in video, voice and other revenue.

Highlights:

Broadband revenue increased 5.4% due to an increase in average rates and an increase in the number of residential broadband customers compared to the prior year period. Wireless revenue increased 24.7% due to an increase in the number of customer lines and an increase in device sales.
Business services revenue increased 4.6% due to an increase in average rates and an increase in the number of customers receiving our services compared to the prior year period.
Advertising revenue increased 9.1%, primarily driven by an increase in political advertising. Excluding political revenue, advertising revenue decreased by 7.4%, reflecting the previously announced transition of the Xumo Play streaming service to a joint venture.
Video revenue decreased 5.6%, reflecting a decrease in the number of residential video customers, partially offset by an increase in average rates. Voice revenue decreased 13.2%, primarily reflecting a decrease in the number of residential voice customers. Other revenue decreased 6.5%, reflecting a decrease in revenue from our security and automation services.
For the twelve months ended December 31, 2022, Cable revenue increased 3.1% to $66.3 billion, driven by growth in broadband, business services, wireless and advertising revenue, partially offset by a decrease in video and voice revenue.
Total Customer Relationships decreased by 71,000 to 34.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. Excluding the negative impact from Hurricane Ian, the company estimates that total customer relationships decreased by 36,000.
Total broadband customer net losses were 26,000. Excluding the negative impact from Hurricane Ian, we estimate that total broadband net additions were 4,000. Total video customer net losses were 440,000 and total voice customer net losses were 288,000. In addition, Cable Communications added 365,000 wireless lines in the quarter.
For the twelve months ended December 31, 2022, total customer relationships increased by 75,000. Residential customer relationships increased by 54,000 and business customer relationships increased by 21,000. Total broadband customer net additions were 250,000.
Total video customer net losses were 2.0 million and total voice customer net losses were 1.2 million.
Capital Expenditures for Cable Communications increased 9.7% to $2.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, reflecting increased investment in line extensions, scalable infrastructure, customer premise equipment and support capital.
Cable capital expenditures represented 14.4% of Cable revenue in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to 13.4% in the prior year period.

"I am proud of how our team executed throughout 2022," said Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Comcast Corporation. "We achieved the highest levels of Revenue, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EPS in our history and returned a record $17.7 billion of capital to shareholders.