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Cisco unpacks strategy to help service providers connect, secure and automate their networks

Cisco Live is currently underway virtually as the technology company unveils and unpacks its latest solutions and ideas aimed at those working in the ICT, telecoms and networking spaces. As has been the case in past years, there were a flurry of announcements on day one of Cisco Live yesterday but, as the metaphorical dust settles, it is Cisco’s vision for the Internet of the Future that most caught our attention.

Here, the company further detailed its strategy to help communication service providers and web scale companies in particular to connect, secure and automate their networks. The objective being to deliver a stronger, more accessible internet to everyone, everywhere, regardless of geographic limitations, according to Cisco.

This as remote working and the very nature of work itself has changed in recent years and requires innovative solutions to tackle the hurdles that the pandemic posed last year specifically.

This is something that Cisco is acutely aware, noting as much during its Live event.

New requirements

“Living in the pandemic, people, businesses, governments and communities have come to rely on the power of connections to keep the world running. The internet went from being a must-have, to a critical lifeline for most everyone to connect to information, and each other. Video conferencing skyrocketed as people were forced to work from home and into online learning. Together with remote healthcare services, streaming video, gaming and more, internet traffic spiked by 25-45 percent in many regions across the globe,” the company explains.

“The networks powered through, but Cisco predicts this is only a glimpse of the traffic volume we will see in the 5G era, with 29.3B connected devices expected in 2023. Internet architecture needs continuous care and attention to support the world’s ambitions. With over three billion people still without access to the internet, a digital divide continues to develop where many are without access to vital information, learning and opportunities. The need to transform how we build networks is critical,” it stresses.

This is where Cisco’s strategy to empower service providers for the Future of the Internet comes into play.

“Cisco has spent the last five years researching and investing in this portfolio of innovation, focusing on how to help our customers deliver the best internet, while being able to grow revenue, reduce their costs and mitigate risk,” notes Jonathan Davidson, SVP and GM for the Mass Scale Infrastructure Group at Cisco.

“By helping our customers make the right decisions for their networks today, we are setting the world up for success, to connect more people, places and things than ever before. We can all look back on this point in time in the next ten years and celebrate how we rose to the challenge and did the right thing to take care of the internet,” he enthuses.

Taking shape

On the back of last year’s Converged SDN Transport, Cisco is debuting its Routed Optical Networking solution aimed at collapsing IP and Optical networks. When paired with its new Crosswork Cloud capabilities, Cisco says operators can build lean, efficient, easy-to-operate networks capable of supporting the levels of traffic expected with 5G.

On top of this, to delivering greater efficiency, agility, and savings gains than before, Cisco has been working with web scale firms like Altibox, AWS, Facebook, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Deutsche Telecom, Rakuten, SFR, Telenor, Telia Carrier, Telstra and Vodafone. With several of those companies operating in South Africa already, it does bode well for what Cisco could be able to offer service providers locally in the coming months and years.

Given how recent these aforementioned announcements are, we still need to see how they will take shape in SA, especially as 5G spectrum still remains mired in auction delays. Hopefully once that is sorted, it will open up some exciting opportunities.

[Image – Provided by Cisco]

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