Cisco Systems, a US-based digital communications technology company, is working with India’s Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi), and says it is well equipped to handle space broadband traffic. The company has also validated networking equipment with Starlink, enabling integration of satellite-based broadband services into terrestrial telecom networks, according to a senior executive.
Speaking to ETTelecom, Guru Shenoy, Senior Vice President, Provider Connectivity, Cisco, said the company is now equipped to offer end-to-end visibility into satellite networks through its tools, following successful device validation with Starlink.
“We act as a bridge and we do more, we also give you visibility with our tools, because we have integrated our telemetry with Starlink and vice versa into our tools. So now you can get full end-to-end visibility of what’s happening in the network. It looks like just another end-point access connectivity,” Shenoy reportedly said.
Cisco 8000 Series Routers
Cisco’s latest generation of its 8000 series routers consolidates different access technologies — including satellite, fiber, and cellular — into a single platform. The solution is already deployed with major telecom operators globally, including Swisscom, Colt, and Reliance Jio in India. Shenoy noted that adoption of the Cisco 8000 portfolio has been the fastest in the company’s history within its Service Provider Networking segment.
Opportunities in India
“The primary business that service providers have is connectivity. For example, Jio and Airtel in India, want to go big in broadband. So, it needs to be secure and resilient. The other angle is the new devices that we are building with our Cisco 8000 portfolio. These are designed to converge all different kinds of access onto the same box. Now there is a satellite coming into the picture. You need different kinds of equipment often to terminate satellites and bring that onto the router. And then you have cellular radios that are also connected to routers. Oftentimes, these used to be separate devices. What we have done with our newest generation of devices. It can also connect to satellite ground stations all in a single device,” Shenoy explained when asked about opportunities in India’s telecom sector.
Satellite as a Cost-Effective Solution
With the growing relevance of non-terrestrial networks (NTNs), Cisco sees strong potential for satellite broadband in rural, remote, and mountainous regions where traditional fiber or microwave-based infrastructure is economically unviable. “So that remains a challenge in some scenarios, but there are certain use cases. Like if it’s rural, the cost advantage shifts to satellite, because it is much cheaper to offer satellite instead of going and putting towers everywhere or laying fiber,” Shenoy added, speaking about cost-efficiency in developing markets like India.
“What Starlink does is they bring their satellite connectivity. And they can offer it to end customers. But when they connect the end customers, it goes into space and then comes back to their ground station. They need to connect their ground station to somebody for that traffic to be carried somewhere else, and that somebody is always a service provider. Service providers are connecting their equipment, handing off the traffic to Starlink on one side or taking the traffic from Starlink and then carrying it wherever it needs to be carried, that’s the model. The problem has been that these are two completely different networks, so you need a lot of work to integrate that. What we have done is we have done the work of integrating with all these backend satellite providers who want to use satellite connectivity as an option. If they are using Cisco equipment, they can basically pull a document and say, this is how you do the connection and it will all work, because we have already validated the whole thing,” Shenoy explained, detailing Cisco’s long-term strategy for enabling space broadband services.
Cisco is also expanding its AI-driven automation offering through its Crosswork platform, which is already in use by several major service providers. Crosswork now incorporates agentic AI features and is undergoing testing across customer labs, with public deployments expected by year-end.
“This is very new technology, we have announced. So, the Cisco service provider version of it is called Crosswork, and again, it’s part of the agile services networking infrastructure. We have three pieces there. We have routers; we have pluggable connectivity with optical and then we have the automation tool. So, Cisco Crosswork is our brand for the tool that manages service provider networks. Crosswork exists in most major service providers today already. We are bringing AI capabilities into those, and there are two that we have just released. It’s a new release, and we are in the labs of most of these customers. By the end of the year, we should have some public references.”
Jio Brain and Cisco
In India, Cisco is closely involved in Jio’s broadband expansion and data center plans. It is supporting the rollout of “Jio Brain,” a hyperscale AI infrastructure initiative, by providing data center and network connectivity solutions.
“Specific to the India market, we are working with all of them, offering broadband solutions. First, Jio especially has very ambitious plans about growing their broadband subscriber footprint. We are working on the solutions with them for that,” Shenoy reportedly said, adding, “The work is in progress already. They are setting up AI infrastructure, Jio Brain and they basically want to be the hyper scaler in India where they want to create large data centers, where they will host AI training, inferencing and cloud-based AI applications. We’ll provide data centers, and the connectivity for them.”
Public Sector Initiatives
On the public sector front, Cisco continues to participate in national broadband initiatives such as BharatNet, with deployments in state-led projects like Tanfinet (Tamil Nadu) and Mahanet (Maharashtra). The company also has ongoing engagements in the defence sector.
When asked about use cases for the technology, Shenoy reportedly said, “There is enough density of homes, and satellites are still not as good for highly dense urban areas. You go to Delhi or Mumbai; it’s going to be hard to offer satellites in an effective manner. However, if you go to slightly semi-urban areas or rural areas, it becomes expensive to make fiber or microwave or any of these technologies. So, this is where satellites can be very effective including in mountainous regions because every other technology is challenged. First, you can’t put towers everywhere, it’s too expensive. Secondly, even if you run things like millimeter wave or some of these other technologies, they are subject to a lot of weather interference and the quality drops. Satellite is much more robust that way, so it’s become a very viable technology, and that’s why we’re seeing adoption. The only challenge is often regulations. So, if the regulatory hurdles are cleared, the adoption will happen.”
Private Sector Drives Cisco’s India Growth
Despite these initiatives, Shenoy said Cisco’s revenue in India is currently dominated by the private sector. “Private sector revenue is higher in India. We have been successful with Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea, all three networks. I would say the majority is in the private sector,” he said, as mentioned in the report.
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