Mobile is everything and everything is mobile.

On Day 1 of Mobile World Congress (MWC), Chuck Robbins succinctly described the "mobility explosion," as a driver for innovation and a means for anyone and everyone to take advantage of the incredible advances we are seeing in technology. This explosive growth in devices, data, and applications has SP's thinking about the network of tomorrow and the move to 5G, a ubiquitous theme this year at MWC. It was an exciting show and I thought I would share some highlights from the week in Barcelona.

5G Pilot with Verizon

Are we ready for 5G? You bet. Cisco's collaboration with Verizon is the first of many proof points to help our customers create 5G-ready environments. The pre-commercial pilot, announced at MWC, features a cloud-based, virtualized, 5G packet core using Cisco's Ultra Service Platform. It will be one of the largest 5G proving grounds in the world.

What does that mean for consumers? 75% of mobile traffic will be video-based by 2020, with an expectation that mobile video quality will match, or exceed, broadcast quality. Consumers are demanding better service, faster service, higher quality video and new apps that won't run on anything slower than 5G. The market is there, the need is there, and we are in a unique position to deliver the solutions our customers need and shape the network of tomorrow.

Altice Partnership (NFVI)

Our NFV business is another great example of how we are enabling customers to operate more efficiently and effectively by virtualizing the network. We announced a partnership with Altice at MWC to transform their business operations with new network architectures. This approach, co-engineered by Cisco and Red Hat, is based on the Red Hat OpenStack Platform and architectured for multi-vendor support.

NSO

As SP's are experiencing incredible growth in the number of devices on their networks, their legacy management tools are reaching a breaking point. Enter the Layered Services Architecture (LSA) feature for Network Services Orchestrator (NSO), announced at MWC, which gives SP's the capacity to manage over a million devices in their networks.

These are just a few ways that Cisco is enabling service providers to revolutionize their technology architecture, and transform the customer experience. We are delivering customer outcomes. The best part? This is just the beginning. The explosive growth in traffic demands a more efficient, simplified, and virtualized approach. We are shaping the network of the future with an architectural approach that aligns to the SP transformation. Only Cisco can deliver all of this and more to our customers.

For more information:

• 5G Explained
• NFV Onboarding