1. Ericsson is teaming up with Cisco in a move that should make it a stronger competitor to Huawei and to the combined Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent. The partners said the deal will yield $1 billion in incremental revenue for each company by 2018. Ericsson and Cisco want to offer service providers end-to-end solutions that include the best of both their portfolios in routing, data centers, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control.
This is not Cisco’s first partnership with a wireless equipment maker; earlier this year the company announced a reseller agreement with small cell manufacturer SpiderCloud Wireless. Ericsson’s Radio Dot small cell offering is a competitor to SpiderCloud’s E-RAN solution. Ericsson also has a bilateral resale agreement for small cell and Wi-Fi solutions with HP, owner of Aruba Networks.
2. SBA Communications bought or built 352 new sites during the third quarter, bringing its total to more than 25,000. The company reported total revenue of $410.7 million, up 4.4% from the year-ago quarter, and tower cash flow of $287.6 million, up 9%. But SBAC reported a $155.9 million loss for the quarter, due in part to a $56.7 million impairment of fiber assets it bought from Mobilitie in 2012. The company also revalued an intracompany loan to its Brazilian subsidiary, resulting in a $122.1 million loss due to currency fluctuations.
3. Video continues to dominate mobile traffic growth, with Snapchat reportedly tripling its video traffic during the last six months. According to the Financial Times, Snapchat users now watch 6 billion videos per day, or 75% as many as Facebook users watch. Facebook videos tend to be longer than Snapchat videos, and therefore are likely to have a bigger impact on network traffic and data use.
4. Facebook admitted that ad blocking software threatens its growth. The social media juggernaut told the Securities and Exchange Commission in a regulatory filing that its future results may be hurt by mobile apps that block ads. Apple included support for ad-blocking software in its iOS 9 operating system.
5. Apple said its new iPad Pro will be available for online purchase starting this Wednesday. The company is releasing a larger-screen tablet to target business users. The iPad Pro starts at $799, but that’s without the keyboard or the optional stylus. Tablet sales have been on the decline this year, with Apple’s iPad sales down 19% for the year that ended in September.
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