5 things to know today …
1. Cisco beat Wall Street’s earnings estimates for the its fiscal first quarter, but the company said earnings are likely to slip in the current quarter and that year-on-year revenue growth will be 2% or less. The company blamed unfavorable exchange rates. Cisco recently announced a broad reseller agreement with Ericsson that could help both companies take market share from competitors.
2. Mobilitie raised more cash to deploy distributed antenna systems, small cells and Wi-Fi networks. The privately-held California company raised $325 million in debt, in a round led by CIT Bank and TD Securities. Mobilitie finances, owns and operates wireless infrastructure, often leasing to more than one carrier per system. The company is expected to help Sprint deploy its planned network of small cells.
3. Qualcomm has fired the latest volley in the LTE-U/Wi-Fi coexistence exchange. Just a few days after CableLabs posted a blog outlining coexistence challenges for Wi-Fi and duty-cycled LTE-U, Qualcomm has released its own set of test results, which it is says were derived using a test plan developed in collaboration with CableLabs. Qualcomm says its test confirms that LTE-U and Wi-Fi can coexist fairly. LTE-U refers to the transmission of LTE in the unlicensed spectrum now used for Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi equipment makers are worried that LTE will interfere with their equipment when the two technologies are deployed alongside one another.
4. YouTube has quietly become the world’s largest music streaming service, and now the company is making it official with a music streaming app. The YouTube music app is a free download with a premium version called YouTube Red. Meanwhile, Beats Music is fading away and will close down for good on Nov. 30. Apple purchased Beats in May 2014, and is telling Beats users they need to move their Beats Music accounts to Apple Music, though they will be able to keep playlists and preferences.
5. InstaAgent, an app that is meant to help users see who has viewed their Instagram accounts, has been removed from both Apple’s and Google’s app stores because of concerns that it stole passwords and pictures. The app had been downloaded an estimated 600,000 times.
