Cisco, NEC advance 5G IP transport networks deployment

In an expansion of their existing partnership, NEC has entered into a global system integrator agreement with Cisco so that the firms can expand their partnership for accelerating the deployment of 5G IP transport networks worldwide.

Under the new agreement, the companies will jointly drive new business opportunities for 5G. NEC group companies will work closely with Cisco to complement NEC’s ecosystem with optimised IP metro/access transport and edge cloud computing solutions. Cisco will support NEC’s customer engagements by offering 5G products, proposals and execution support.

The new agreement aims to take advantage of the track record of NEC – a Cisco Gold Partner for two decades – in the integration of IT and network technologies. The company’s engineering capabilities have provided Cisco with products to its global customer base across multiple regions.

NEC’s ability as a network integrator in both the IT and network domains will be applied to Cisco’s 5G solutions portfolio to provide added value to the 5G ecosystem. NEC and Cisco say they will make collaborative efforts to further enhance their joint portfolio and optimise regional activities for advancing the digital transformation of customers across the globe.

“Collaboration across the network solution ecosystem is essential for continued success in meeting diversified customer requirements and establishing a win-win relationship,” said Mayuko Tatewaki, general manager, service provider solutions division at NEC Corporation. “This powerful partnership strengthens our global competitiveness as a network integrator that drives the customer journey with innovative solutions.”

Jonathan Davidson, senior vice-president and general manager, mass-scale infrastructure group at Cisco, added: “We believe 5G is fuelling the internet for the future, and accelerating our customers’ digital transformations. Together with NEC, we are creating a powerful force to drive the critical changes needed in networking infrastructure to carry the internet into the next decade.”

At the end of February 2021, Cisco launched a suite of products that it said would reduce the headaches of integrating multi-supplier telco stacks, improve network congestion and video quality, and improve network operations and performance across residential networks. It has also launched line cards for a key router line.

The NEC partnership is the latest in a series of 5G collaborations for Cisco. Just weeks ago, the networking tech giant announced that it was working with the University of Strathclyde and Scotland 5G Centre on the 5G Cloud Core network for Scotland.

The 5G network will see Cisco Cloud Services Stack for Mobility, based on the Cisco Ultra Cloud Core, underpin research and development of 5G connectivity in Scotland. The 5G Cloud Core network design and deployment will be led by Cisco customer experience teams working with local partner Ping Network Solutions.