Segment routing (SR) is a concept that’s been working its way through the IETF standards process but is finally becoming ready for real world deployment. It’s a network technology that provides enhanced packet forwarding behavior while minimizing the need for maintaining awareness of mass volumes of network state. SR satisfies essential requirements for application-enabled routing in software defined networks, including the ability to provide strict network performance guarantees, efficient use of network resources and very high scalability for application-based transactions. Segment Routing relies on a small number of extensions to IS-IS and OSPF and can operate with an MPLS or an IPv6 data plane and integrates with the rich multi-service capabilities of MPLS such as L3VPN, VPWS, VPLS, E-VPN, etc.

With Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Clarence Filsfils, IPv6, mpls, ONE, onePK, SDN, segment routing, Service Provider

At Cisco, we take very seriously our ability to anticipate and catch market transitions. A few years ago, we saw a market transition that would affect our Service Provider customers in the area of Mobility. With 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi deployments rising, the world was clearly shifting from Coverage, Capacity to Services… and the importance of customer experience rising amongst operators worldwide. As a result, we set in motion a new strategy for our Service Provider Mobility Group (SPMG). The key to our strategy was to develop an architecture that would enable Service Providers to offer a differentiated experience to their customers.

Our Mobility CTO Paul Mankiewich refers to the new mobility operator requirements as “the Grand Challenge.” The inflection point is here. Not only do our key SP customers recognize it, but our competitors are also seeing the tremendous business opportunity represented by the “Grand Challenge,” especially as it relates to emerging Monetization use cases that are propelling the market’s rapid growth.

Our vision to Read More »

Tags: acquisition, cisco quantum, competitors, mobile, mobility, monetization, news, Service Provider

By Biren Mehta, Senior Marketing Manager, SP Marketing in Routing and Switching, Cisco

Cloud computing brings a significant shift in how IT services will be deployed, delivered and consumed.  This promises to bring significant benefits to both consumers and suppliers in terms of agility, automation, and cost.  However, security remains a key barrier to realizing these advantages as enterprises question data security, trust, visibility, and control issues over the provider’s network.

Last week, Read More »

Tags: carrier network, cloud, cloud infrastructure, infrastructure, Service Provider

English poet John Donne said, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” The same could be said for a man’s — or woman’s — home network, which today is no longer his or hers alone. Friends and family increasingly expect to be able to connect their growing number of mobile devices to the Internet when they are at someone else’s home. In response, service providers (SPs) are creating Wi-Fi communities to enable users to connect safely and seamlessly to SPs’ Wi-Fi networks from other customers’ locations. Not only do SPs understand that there is pent-up customer demand for this sort of “community Wi-Fi” — they also realize that this model makes good business sense. This sort of service will enable them to expand the size of their Wi-Fi network quickly, differentiate their broadband offerings, acquire new customers, and manage customer churn.

Many SPs are now trying to understand how they can create a community Wi-Fi network among their broadband customers and reap new business benefits. However, there has been very little information available on customer behaviors to help SPs design a winning program and build the business case for further investment. To learn more, the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) conducted a survey of 1,060 Canadian mobile users to understand their needs and behaviors, their Read More »

Tags: broadband, broadband offerings, Cisco, community network, community users, community Wi-Fi, IBSG, internet, mobile devices, mobility, Service Provider, Wi-Fi network

This week is the industry’s leading IPv6 event, the World IPv6 Congress in Paris, France. Cisco Fellow Mark Townsley delivered the keynote again, this time with a theme around the “Mobile Business Case for IPv6”. What’s exciting is that in the mere 18 months since the World IPv6 Launch we’re already seeing significant adoption of the larger scale address protocol. Mark in fact specifically cites how Verizon Wireless is already sending 30% of its traffic to search engine giant Google over IPv6. Other wireless operators are going straight to IPv6 for 4G and LTE deployments as well. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Gina Nienaber, Internet of Everything, IoE, IPv6, Mark Townsley, Service Provider, World Congress