Cisco to bring Private 5G to Enterprises with Global Partners.
- Cisco Private 5G as-a-Service delivered with global partners offers enterprise customers reduced technical, financial, and operations risks with managing enterprise private 5G networks.
- Cisco has worked in close collaboration with two leading ORAN vendors to include ORAN technology as part of Cisco Private 5G and is currently in customer trials with Airspan and JMA.
- Multiple private 5G pilots and projects are currently underway spanning education, entertainment, government, manufacturing, and real estate sectors.
BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2022 – Cisco today shared details on its Cisco Private 5G go-to-market strategy with partners, paving the way for a new era of productivity for businesses with large-scale IoT adoption.
Most firms are starting to see the value of digitizing, or ‘going digital,’ which entails connecting physical processes to information systems and leveraging analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and machine learning (ML) to boost productivity and efficiency. Most organizations are accustomed to using Wi-Fi to connect more people and objects. What most businesses haven’t seen yet is what the combined power of Wi-Fi, 5G, and IoT can do for them in terms of connecting and doing more.
The Power to Transform Industries:
Private 5G and IoT, in addition to Wi-Fi, have the potential to disrupt businesses and reshape the future of hybrid work. Cisco sees private 5G as a supplement, not a replacement, for the Wi-Fi, Ethernet transport, and management systems that organizations have already invested in. Factory floors, supply chains, university and enterprise campuses, stadiums, hospitals, and more are all expected to benefit from private 5G connectivity.
Cisco Private 5G
Cisco’s industry-leading mobile core technology and IoT portfolio – which includes IoT sensors and gateways, device management software, monitoring tools, and dashboards – serve as the solution’s foundation. The approach relies heavily on Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) technologies. Cisco is collaborating closely with ORAN vendors JMA and Airspan, and is presently testing their technologies with customers.
Key differentiators of Cisco Private 5G for Enterprises:
- Delivered as-a-Service: Delivered together with global service providers and system integration partners, the offer reduces technical, financial, and operational risks for enterprise private 5G networks.
- Complementary to Wi-Fi: Cisco Private 5G integrates with existing enterprise systems, including existing and future Wi-Fi versions – Wi-Fi 5/6/6E, making operations simple.
- Visibility across the network and devices: Using a simple management portal, enterprise IT teams can maintain policy and identity across both Wi-Fi and 5G for simplified operations.
- Pay-as-you-use subscription model: Cisco Private 5G is financially simple to understand. With pay-as-you-use consumption models, customers can save money with no up-front infrastructure costs, and ramp up services as they need.
- Speed time to productivity: Businesses can spare IT staff from having to learn, design, and operate a complex, carrier class private network.
Key Benefits of Cisco Private 5G for Partners:
- Path to Profitability for Cisco Partners: For its channel partners, Cisco reduces the required time, energy, and capital to enable a faster path to profitability.
- Private Labeling: Partners can private label/use their own brand and avoid initial capital expenses and lengthy solution development cycles by consuming Cisco Private 5G on a subscription basis. Partners may also enhance Cisco Private 5G with their own value-added solutions.
“Cisco has an unbiased wireless strategy for the future of hybrid work. 5G must work with Wi-Fi and existing IT environments to make digital transformation easy,” said Jonathan Davidson, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Mass-Scale Infrastructure Group, Cisco. “Businesses continuing their digitization strategies using IoT, analytics, and automation will create significant competitive advantages in value, sustainability, efficiency, and agility. Working together with our global partners to enable those outcomes with Cisco Private 5G is our unique value proposition to the enterprise.”
Supporting Comments
“DISH Wireless is proud to partner with Cisco to bring smart connectivity to enterprise customers through dedicated private 5G networks. Together, we have the opportunity to drive real business outcomes across industries. We’re actively collaborating with Cisco on transformational projects that will benefit a variety of sectors, including government and education, and we’re working to revolutionize the way enterprises can manage their own networks. As DISH builds America’s first smart 5G network™, we’re offering solutions that are open, secure and customizable. Teaming with Cisco is a great next step, and we look forward to offering more innovative solutions for the enterprises of today and beyond.”
— Stephen Bye, Chief Commercial Officer, DISH Wireless
“Cisco is busting the myth that enterprises can’t cross Wi-Fi, private 5G and IoT streams. Enterprises are now tantalizingly closer to full visibility over their digital and physical environments. This opens up powerful new ways to innovate without compromising the robust control that enterprises require.”
— Camille Mendler, Chief Analyst Enterprise Services, Omdia
“Developing innovative, customized 5G private network solutions for the enterprise market is a major opportunity to monetize the many advantages of 5G technology. Airspan is proud to be one of the first leading Open RAN partners to participate in the Cisco Private 5G solution and offer our cutting edge 5G RAN solutions including systems and software that are optimized for numerous enterprise use cases.”
— Eric Stonestrom, Chairman and CEO, Airspan
“This partnership opens a world of new possibilities for enterprises. With simple downloaded upgrades, our all-software RAN can operate on the same physical infrastructure for 10+ years—no more hardware replacements every 36 months. And as the only system in the world that can accommodate multiple operators on the same private network, it eliminates the need to build separate networks for new licensed band operators.”
— Joe Constantine, Chief Technology & Strategy Officer, JMA
“5G marks a milestone in wireless networking. For organizations, it opens many new opportunities to evolve their business models and create a completely new type of digital infrastructure. We see strong demand in all types of sectors including manufacturing and mining facilities, the logistics and automotive industries, as well as higher education and the healthcare sector. As a leading Cisco Global Gold Partner, we are excited to help drive this evolution. Thanks to our deep expertise, international capability, and close partnership with Cisco, we can support companies in integrating Private 5G into their enterprise networks,”
— Bob Bailkoskiis, Logicalis Group CEO.
“NEC Corporation is working on multiple 5G initiatives with Cisco. We have a Global System Integrator Agreement (GSIA) partnership for accelerating the deployment of innovative 5G IP transport network solutions worldwide. Work is in progress to connect Cisco’s Mobile Core and NEC’s radio over Cisco’s 5G Showcase in Tokyo, a world leading 5G services incubation hub. Leveraging NEC’s applications, Cisco and NEC will investigate expanding the technical trials including Private 5G in manufacturing, construction, transportation, and others.”
—Yun Suhun, General Manager, NEC Corporation
SOURCE Cisco Systems, Inc.