American multinational technology conglomerate Cisco Systems has revealed that it is operating with telcos in India – Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea. The company has partnered up with Indian telcos in the light of their upcoming 5G ambitions to build an automated and converged network that will enhance both cost and services efficiency. Executive VP and GM at Cisco, Jonathan Davidson has said in a statement that Cisco and Airtel are working together to build the country’s first 5G ready, fully automated, 100G IP and optical integrated network.
Cisco’ Partnership with Indian Telcos
According to a report from ET Telecom, Jonathan Davidson informed that the above-mentioned network will allow Bharti Airtel to provide its services to small and medium businesses in both urban and rural areas. Previously, Bharti Airtel has also launched its Office Internet in partnership with Cisco and Google. Office Internet from Airtel is designed to offer digital connectivity functions for small enterprises and start-ups. It is to be noted that Bharti Airtel and Cisco entered into a partnership to build a 5G ready optical integrated network in March of 2020.
On the other hand, back in 2017, Reliance Jio owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani commenced building an all-IP converged network which was never done before in the industry and even successfully managed to reach over 100 million broadband and VoLTE customers all in a period of six months. Davidson informed that the collaboration between Reliance Jio and Cisco was ground-breaking as they commenced building a 5G ready network in 2017 in order to create the first ALL-IP converged network. Jio managed to transform the economy network and revolutionized the delivery of customer services with the all-IP network supported by Cisco solutions.
Moreover, Cisco Systems is also working with India’s other private telco – Vodafone Idea or Vi. The purpose of the partnership is to augment their existing 4G network and 5G use cases in future to offer enhanced experiences for the users. The executive said that the company is working with Vi to better their networking system in terms of being cost-efficient. He further informed that Vi is using Cisco’s ultra-packet core on its network systems with the latest software applications and services which includes voice-over Wi-Fi. He said that 5G acts as an opportunity for service providers to generate additional revenue and provide new enhanced services. India is expected to auction 5G airwaves in the second half of 2022.
