Ericsson, Cisco extend deal to include Wi-Fi solutions

January 10, 2017

Ozioma Ubabukoh

Ericsson and Cisco are extending their strategic partnership to include a new Wi-Fi solution offering, named Evolved Wi-Fi Networks.

According to the companies, EWN combines Ericsson’s 3GPP access, core networks and applications with Cisco’s Wi-Fi portfolio, to provide reliable Wi-Fi with the highest performance to Ericsson’s mobile, cable and other industries customers.

They said that the offering would include pre-integrated and verified solutions and would offer a range of benefits:

The Head of Region North America with responsibility for the strategic partnership with Cisco, Ericsson, Rima Qureshi, said, “Our strategic partnership brings together the capabilities of two leading players in networking, mobility and cloud, creating the best end-to-end solutions and opportunities for our customers.”

He also said, “By adding Wi-Fi solutions into the partnership, we will enable our customers to offer best-in-class Wi-Fi in their networks, complemented by our leading 3GPP portfolio and services organisation.”

The Senior Vice-President and General Manager of the Service Provider Business Unit, Cisco, Yvette Kanouff, said, “With Wi-Fi traffic predicted to grow to 50 per cent of the total Internet Provider traffic by 2020, a top priority for service providers is to deliver the best possible connected experiences to their customers.

“Through our extended strategic partnership with Ericsson, we are committed to providing Wi-Fi solutions of the highest quality performance and reliability.”

The design and deployment of solutions based on the new offering will be handled by Ericsson’s services organisation, with full product support from Cisco.

“Ericsson’s capability to offer worldwide services will allow operators to adopt new business models and expand into new markets. The EWN can be offered as a fully managed service with the global reach of more than 180 countries. This enables faster rollout times and ease of adaption of the solution,” Ericsson said in a statement.

It also stated, “Ericsson and Cisco – two industry leaders in the development and delivery of networking, mobility, and cloud – formed a global business and technology partnership in November 2015 to create the networks of the future.

“The partnership offers customers the best of both companies: routing, data centre, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, and global services capabilities. The next-generation strategic partnership will drive growth, accelerate innovation, and speed digital transformation demanded by customers across industries.”

It added, “To date, over 250 active customer engagements have now started to turn into won deals. More than 60 deals, spread around the world, are in the IP (routing and transport) and services. The companies announced deals with Italy, Vodafone Portugal, Aster Dominican Republic and Cable & Wireless in Caribbean in 2016.”