Cisco jumps on the private 5G network band wagon

Vendor will offer white label, pay-as-you-go subcriptions to network as-as-Service to appeal to a wider customer base than enterprises

Yesterday Cisco announced Cisco Private 5G, which it described as a “Private 5G managed service delivered with global service provider and technology partners, [which] offers a wireless experience that is simple to start, intuitive to operate, and trusted for digital transitions to hybrid work and IoT.”
 
As John Strand noted in his predictions for 2022, the market for private 5G networks is “hot and crowded”, but Cisco thinks rivals are doing it all wrong.

What’s on offer

At its press conference, Chris Stori, Senior Vice President and GM of networking Experiences at Cisco, said, “Cisco is offering private 5G solution through our communication service providers and select system integrator partners with secure IoT device onboarding, 5G and industrial IoT network management and seamless integration with Cisco’s identity and policy system.
 
“Customers can address mobile connectivity use cases with…with Cisco Private 5G, delivered as a service. Partners can white label a powerful 5G and IoT offering while avoiding the expensive and time-consuming start-up costs of solution development.”
 
Cisco said in its press statement that its “vision of the future of work is built on wireless through a combination of private 5G and Wi-Fi, where enterprises can modernize, automate their operations, and benefit from the resulting productivity gains.”
 
Masum Mir (pictured), Vice President and General Manager for Cisco’s Mobile, Cable and IoT business, wrote in a blog to support the launch: “competitors are going about it the wrong way. They would have you adopt a complex, carrier-centric 5G solution that’s radically different from what you already know and use. Some even ignore Wi-Fi entirely.
 
“As the top enterprise networking, wireless, security, Industrial IoT, and collaboration IT vendor, we know how to build a solution that fits your enterprise needs, where Cisco Private 5G is integrated with Wi-Fi and existing IT operations environments.”

How will it work?

Mir was asked for more detail during the press conference about whether there were elements from other vendors in the 5G solution, such as for small cells, and which spectrum bands the solution will run in?

Mir replied, “Obviously, spectrum access for enterprise is a big challenge around the world. So we’ll be partnering with many managed service providers, as well as mobile operators to bring this offer to the market.

“And when it comes into different band support, different radio support, yes, we’ll be leveraging the radio partner ecosystems to bring this all together. But most importantly, we’re going to deliver it as a service or in customer enterprise don’t have to worry about that complexity.

“It’s going to be delivered as a service from the cloud, regardless of which country you’re in and which band you need to operate in.”

It’s offered on a pay-as-you-go subscription basis to avoid much in the way of upfront costs whereas, according to Mir’s blog, “traditional purchasing models force you to ‘spend a lot and wait’ for productivity or profitability.”

Apparently there will be more details released at MWC.
 
Cisco’s entry into the private 5G network world was just one of many product and solution announcements for hybrid working, more details here.