Telenor and Cisco signed joint purpose agreement that focuses on strengthening in areas such as security, 5G, Open vRAN, B2B expansion, distributed cloud.
Telenor and Cisco are continuing the exploration of new 5G architectures and have started an Open vRAN trial at Telenor headquarters in Norway to investigate using a virtualized, open infrastructure to improve cost efficiency for service rollouts.
Telenor and Cisco also announced new round of financing of the joint venture, WG2. WG2 offers a mobile core solution that enables service innovation for mobile network operators and enterprises. Using open APIs and cross-network interoperability, WG2 transforms the ability of mobile operators to innovate quickly.
The new financing will be used to accelerate WG2’s growth in Europe, North America and Asia, and to extend its innovative solutions in 5G, IoT and private networks.
WG2 will now be included in Cisco’s General Price List (GPL) and in Cisco’s DevNet program, providing global sales coverage and faster integration of new services with Cisco products, platforms and APIs.
Sigve Brekke, president and CEO of Telenor, said: “Our partnership in WG2 builds towards a future where programmable networks are the key to creating value for 5G, IoT and private networks.”
Chuck Robbins, chairman and CEO of Cisco, said: “We continue to evolve WG2 to give operators the opportunity to reduce time to market and speed time to revenue with IoT and managed services for the enterprise, powered by the cloud and 5G.”