Cisco Launches New '5G Now' Portfolio for Service Providers Taking Action Today

More than 20 global service provider and mobile operator customers worldwide are advancing their 5G action plans with Cisco

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 25, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mobile World Congress - Continuing on its path to disrupt the industry by redefining the network, Cisco announced today its '5G Now' portfolio for service providers ready to go full throttle on their 5G roadmap.  

5G services promise to offer emerging new services at significantly faster speeds, expanded capacity and stronger coverage to accommodate the more than 27 billion connected devices¹ expected on service provider networks by 2021. Beginning 2020, 5G connections will grow more than a thousand percent from 2.3 million in 2020 to over 25 million in 2021². 

At Mobile World Congress this week, many technology vendors are focused on the spectrum advantages, radio equipment and architecture to support 5G services. Cisco is committed to showing service providers and mobile operators why 5G is important to plan for, and what they can really do with it. Cisco's role here is focused on three things:   

1. Services: Planning for new 5G-enabled services Cisco can help deliver
2. Infrastructure: Mapping the right 5G infrastructure to their needs
3. Automation: Helping to make the mass network scaling for 5G simpler to manage, operate and secure

Cisco uniquely offers its customers a cloud-to-client approach for 5G networking, resulting from its investments and commitment to developing cloud applications and services, to help customers unify multi-vendor solutions into a single, standards-based architecture. Key elements in the Cisco '5G Now' portfolio include:

• Multi-cloud: Helping manage workloads across a full ecosystem of private, public, and hybrid clouds to connect enterprise, consumers, and service providers.
  
  
• IP Core: Cisco can expand programmability and capabilities of the network with real-time telemetry for automation, featuring the new Cisco NCS-500 Series of access routers with the Cisco IOS XR software as a single domain from the data center to the cell tower.
  
  
• 5G Packet Core and Service Edge: With Cisco Ultra, its cloud-native, mobile virtualized packet core, Cisco provides a unified platform for service enablement over licensed and unlicensed radio solutions and IoT services - all the way to the network edge.