In a virtual meeting, the two agreed to jointly focus on areas including security, 5G, Open vRAN, B2B expansion and distributed cloud.
They said this was to progress Telenor Group’s digital transformation and in particular to support its flexible working hours approach. The two are continuing to explore new 5G architectures and have started an Open vRAN trial at Telenor headquarters in Norway to further investigate using a virtualised, open infrastructure reduce the cost service deployment.
They also announced a new round of financing for the joint venture, called WG2, which offers operators what they describe as a cloud-native mobile core solution that uses open APIs and cross-network interoperability.
The new finance will be used to accelerate WG2’s growth in Europe, North America and Asia, and to extend its solutions in 5G, IoT and private networks.
New funding
WG2 will be included in Cisco’s General Price List and DevNet programme, providing global sales coverage and faster integration of new services with Cisco products, platforms and APIs.
“The cooperation with Cisco over the years has delivered great results for both companies, especially within the area of security and mobility,” said Sigve Brekke, President and Chief Executive Officer, Telenor (pictured left above).
He added, “Our partnership in WG2 builds towards a future where programmable networks are the key to creating value for 5G, IoT and private networks. Ongoing developments in our agreement with Cisco continue to be forward leaning, addressing the most innovative and in-demand transformation topics in our industry.”
Chuck Robbins, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Cisco (pictured right above), 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.”