Cisco Unveils AI-Powered Networking Innovations for Service Providers at MWC 2025

Cisco @ Mobile World Congress 2025: Accelerating Service Provider Growth in the Age of AI

Cisco launches Agile Services Networking innovations to help service providers compete in the AI marketplace with simplified, resilient, and intelligent networking. New assurance capabilities include real-time visibility into on-network and off-network connectivity, allowing service providers to build resilient, profitable AI-ready home and mobile subscriber experiences. Early adopters are already delivering secure, competitive AI-connected experiences, improving networking, business performance, and customer outcomes. Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking and security, today announced networking innovations that empower service providers to introduce differentiated services and deliver assured, AI-connected experiences at scale. Cisco's Agile Services Networking fundamentally evolves how service providers build and operate their networks -- opening new ways to monetize the services needed to compete in the AI marketplace. A blueprint for growth, the architecture combines high-speed, feature-rich Silicon One routing, a unified software experience, and converged IP and optics within a single, seamless network. Early adopters of Cisco Agile Services Networking, including Arelion, Lumen, and Reliance Jio, have already vastly improved the performance of their network to cut costs, generate new business, and improve the customer experience. "The pace of innovation in AI is astounding. Technical breakthroughs are just beginning to translate into new experiences for consumers and applications for businesses that will reshape how the world works and connects," said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer, Cisco. "This shift presents massive opportunities for service providers to grow their businesses and reduce costs by modernizing their infrastructure for AI. Cisco is perfectly positioned to help service providers monetize these new revenue streams, and our Agile Services Networking delivers the silicon, systems, and software innovation they need to thrive." Cisco Agile Services Networking: End-to-end Assurance for Differentiated Subscriber Experiences Today, Cisco expands Agile Services Networking with two new innovations that deliver real-time visibility into both on-network and off-network connectivity for true end-to-end assurance. Combined, these solutions enable visibility from home- and mobile-connected users through to service provider core networks and off-net cloud-delivered services. ThousandEyes Connected Devices: Extends the power of the Cisco ThousandEyes platform to service providers with enhanced visibility across subscriber experiences, from home to off-network services. Now, with insight into last-mile network performance, service providers can mitigate issues before users are impacted and compete on experience, not just speed. Provider Connectivity Assurance: New AI-powered 'User Experience' capability enhances mobile service provider network performance. With real-time traffic insights and predictive demand intelligence, service providers can enhance user experience, reduce congestion, maximize speed, and dynamically adjust spectrum usage. With enhanced visibility and AI-powered insight, service providers like Virgin Media O2 and Odido are leveraging assurance for increased customer satisfaction and net promoter scores (NPS), uncovering new opportunities for differentiated services and reducing churn. "In an industry that's fast consolidating around the same network type and service, we take pride in accelerating all the ways in which we deliver better service and more value to the millions of customers that rely on us," said Gareth Lister, Director of Customer Products, Virgin Media O2. "Virgin Media O2 has long been recognized for ultrafast speeds and now, with ThousandEyes Connected Devices powering our Smart Support service, we're uniquely able to see and proactively measure our customers' connection and experience in their home in real time." "At Odido, delivering an exceptional customer experience is our highest priority. Cisco's Provider Connectivity Assurance User Experience application can provide deeper insights -- into network throughput and latency and into real application performance," said Juan Alberto Brescoli, Head of Access Network, Odido Netherlands. "The ability to deploy the solution directly onto existing infrastructure eliminates the need for additional hardware or network reconfiguration, making implementation seamless. As demand for our Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) product continues to soar, having a precise, real-time understanding of user experience is more critical than ever." Unlocking 'Innovation as a Service' for Mobile Network Operators Cisco is introducing new capabilities to its Mobility Services Platform to accelerate revenue growth for service providers, including an application and API ecosystem, and advanced network services for people, spaces, and things -- all delivered as a service. Read more here. Additional Resources Blog: AI is Reshaping Global Secure Connectivity Blog: Transforming Mobile Networks: The Promise of Programmable Platforms Blog: ThousandEyes Connected Devices: Extending Service Provider Visibility Into the Last-mile Network Blog: Transforming Assurance for AI Connectivity: The Power of Network Intelligence ABOUT CISCO Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that is revolutionizing the way organizations connect and protect in the AI era. For more than 40 years, Cisco has securely connected the world. With its industry leading AI-powered solutions and services, Cisco enables its customers, partners and communities to unlock innovation, enhance productivity and strengthen digital resilience. With purpose at its core, Cisco remains committed to creating a more connected and inclusive future for all. Discover more on The Newsroom and follow us on X at @Cisco. Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at http://www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word 'partner' does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

Cisco provides a dose of service provider innovation at MWC 2025 - SiliconANGLE

As MWC 2025, premier telecommunications service provider show still known by many as Mobile World Congress, gets underway this week in Barcelona, Cisco Systems Inc. made a splash early. The networking company issued several product announcements that offer deeper network insights using artificial intelligence and automation. From connected devices to connectivity assurance, the solutions are designed to help service providers deliver reliable AI-powered experiences on a larger scale. Here's a roundup of the key announcements: To keep up with growing network complexity, service providers need better tools for managing network performance rather than just focusing on speed. Cisco is rolling out ThousandEyes Connected Devices, an extension of its network observability platform that provides deeper visibility into the last mile, including home networks. ThousandEyes Connected Devices gives service providers a more complete view of the network so they can spot and fix problems early on. It integrates device agents into home network equipment, mobile devices, and laptops. The agents monitor both speed and latency (quality of service) and application performance (quality of experience). Data is processed and analyzed in the ThousandEyes cloud, which allows service providers to control network performance, predict issues and stay in compliance with regulations. Typically service providers can only "see" up to the equipment they own, which would be something like a cable modem or a network interface device. With this release, the device agent sits in the customer network and allows Cisco to shift the visibility vantage point to perform active monitoring on a variety of different devices. In a prebriefing, Joe Vaccaro, vice president and general manager of ThousandEyes, told me the agent has a very small footprint enabling it to be deployed over the air. In a short amount of time, service provides can have visibility into millions of more devices. Cisco is taking an open-source approach to ensure compatibility across different frameworks and reference design kits. In addition to service providers, ThousandEyes is working with OEMs to embed the device agent capability into its products out of the box. Cisco purchased ThousandEyes in 2020 and for the first couple of years, I thought Cisco had greatly underleveraged what most industry watchers felt was the best internet monitoring tool. However, over the past couple of years, Cisco has started to embed ThousandEyes into a wide range of its own and third-party products. Cisco is introducing a new feature in its Provider Connectivity Assurance or PCA suite, which builds upon the Agile Services Networking architecture unveiled at Cisco Live Amsterdam 2025. PCA works with ThousandEyes to provide deeper insights into service provider networks. While ThousandEyes monitors the end-user experience to isolate network issues, PCA focuses on service provider infrastructure, offering visibility into what's happening inside the network. PCA now has an AI enabled set of capabilities that offer real-time analysis of data flows for Cisco routers. This helps service providers optimize network traffic to improve service quality without having to expand the infrastructure. It also lets them identify network congestion and performance issues at both the subscriber and cell tower levels. For example, it can identify which subscribers might be experiencing poor quality and assess the capacity and status of cell towers. Service providers can use these insights to explore revenue opportunities. There's an obvious operational savings to this but can also lead to new streams of revenue. As an example, if a mobile operator can see they have excess capacity on their towers, they could offer local fixed wireless access services for backhaul in that area creating a new, monetizable service. The hunt of new revenue streams has been a key topic of conversation at MWC for years but has remained somewhat a myth. AI can help service provides better manage their environments and that better understanding can help them understand what services to offer and in what regions. Cisco is expanding its Mobility Services Platform by adding new features to help service providers better monetize their mobile infrastructure investments. One of the key updates is the platform's 5G Advanced Services readiness, which means service providers can now launch new network services that support both low-latency and high-density applications. "We continue to see good momentum, not only in our Americas market, but the international market as well," said Masum Mir, senior vice president and general manager of provider mobility at Cisco. "We will see more customers adopting this platform approach and using it not only for their internet of things services but also for business services, and getting revenue from their mobile infrastructure faster." Additionally, Cisco launched a programmable core for deploying network functions globally or in specific regions. It can be managed through programmable APIs and implemented with existing voice, data, and messaging services. Cisco is also offering an API that simplifies how third-party developers integrate their services into Cisco's platform. Alongside this, Cisco introduced a new Mobility Services Platform ecosystem aimed at helping industry-specific companies integrate their solutions into service provider networks worldwide. Several companies have already joined the ecosystem, including Ubicquia, Upstream, Kajeet, Linker Vision, Youtello, OnRelay and Productive.ai. Cisco and service providers have been off and on as many times as J-Lo and Ben Affleck. However, there is a noticeable shift happening. At MWC I caught up with the chief technology officer of a large European service provider, and he told me this is the most innovation he has seen from Cisco in the better part of a decade. He specifically called out the appointment of Jeetu Patel as chief product officer, a seminal moment in the revival of the SP business inside of Cisco. One of the most notable changes is that Cisco is now engaging telcos much earlier in the product development phase, which can help that audience keep up with modern technologies. The telco environment is much different than enterprise, as the former tends to move more slowly because the capital investments are much larger. By bringing service providers new technology earlier, the gap between product releases and deployment can be closed. AI is the "next big thing" for service providers and those customers need to be ready when customers are or they risk losing that opportunity, like what happened with cloud. Cisco understand enterprise demands much better than telcos and can play a key role in helping them not just to lower costs but to monetize their networks in new and differentiated ways. Patel spoke with theCUBE, SiliconANGLE's livestreaming studio, today in Barcelona about the future of AI and automation in business:

Transforming Assurance for AI Connectivity: The Power of Network Intelligence

Service providers play a critical role in defining how, where, and when data from artificial intelligence (AI) applications moves through networks. However, rapid traffic growth imposes a significant challenge for communications service providers: how to profitably manage the data growth from more locations, devices, and people while meeting customers' expectations with secure, resilient, and differentiated services. Cisco's new Agile Services Networking blueprint reimagines service provider networks for future growth and innovation. Providers can then take advantage of the AI evolution to deliver and monetize new services with the low latency and fast decision making that AI demands. As mobile networks evolve and demand grows for fixed wireless access, the integration of AI-driven solutions is redefining how service providers optimize performance, enhance user experience, and reduce operational costs. The access network is crucial for customer experience and significantly impacts service quality -- users are quick to judge if it falls short. To keep up with the performance needs of emerging low-latency applications, AI workloads, and gaming, operators need dynamic access speeds, strong service performance, resilience, and robust data security. That's why we're showcasing Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance User Experience at Mobile World Congress 2025. This AI-powered technology is set to transform mobile network operations by delivering real-time intelligence that assures high-quality experiences for customers in an efficient and sustainable way. As an innovative solution that seamlessly integrates with the Cisco routing portfolio, Provider Connectivity Assurance User Experience leverages AI algorithms to deliver actionable insights across wireline, wireless, and non-terrestrial networks. "At Odido, delivering an exceptional customer experience is our highest priority. Cisco's Provider Connectivity Assurance User Experience application can provide deeper insights -- into network throughput and latency and into real application performance. The ability to deploy the solution directly onto existing infrastructure eliminates the need for additional hardware or network reconfiguration, making implementation seamless." - Juan Alberto Brescoli, Head of Access Network, Odido Netherlands Provider Connectivity Assurance User Experience provides a comprehensive view of network performance at the cell site, application, and user levels. With real-time data analytics, operators can monitor end-to-end customer experience per cell site, per user, and per application by tracking throughput and latency, including video quality trends. These AI-driven insights help operators to proactively address network congestion issues, deactivate unnecessary cell sites to save energy, and identify the hidden underperforming cell sites before they lead to customer churn. The solution delivers value across multiple business areas, from new revenue streams to network resilience. Applications for this new solution include network intelligence, network optimization, and energy use reduction. Network Intelligence Provides a comprehensive view of network performance at the cell, application, and user levels, including application throughput and latency and video quality trends by time of day. Operators can instantly spot underperforming network cells that directly impact customer satisfaction and operator benchmark scores. Real-time, AI-driven data analytics provide deep and immediate insights that can be combined with existing customer information to proactively address network issues before they impact the experience and cause customer churn. Network Optimization Improves data traffic distribution across the network, reducing congestion and enhancing speeds and customer quality of experience without additional infrastructure investments. Our initial customer deployments suggest that the number of congested sites can be reduced by up to 46%. Operators can forecast future network expansion needs according to real-world user demand for intelligent infrastructure investment that comes from quality of experience benchmarks for wireline, wireless, and non-terrestrial networks. Energy Reduction Offers real-time visibility into energy consumption and potential savings. Operations can cut power costs by automatically adjusting cell usage in real time according to the minimum required user throughput. Customers report saving up to 40% for daytime energy use, which helps them meet sustainability goals. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance User Experience processes thousands of measurements per cell, capturing insights from all user sessions rather than just a small subset of sampled data used in traditional benchmarking services and drive tests. This gives operators a holistic view of service performance and a better way to evaluate and optimize customer quality of experience. Our approach delivers AI-powered traffic insights and real-time intelligence on user experience to best manage capacity at the cell site, predict network demand, and improve energy efficiency. It also paves the way for closed loop automation and seamless network optimization. The solution is ideal for global service providers because it's both compact and scalable with highly efficient analytics and minimal backend requirements. It even supports multivendor radio access network suppliers. Building on the strength of Provider Connectivity Assurance, the User Experience solution empowers operators with unparalleled visibility into packet transport assurance. These new capabilities enable network planning and performance teams to improve quality of experience and optimize costs across the entire network by reducing congestion, maximizing speed, and dynamically adjusting spectrum usage for efficient energy consumption. Explore how AI-powered mobile networks and automation can revolutionize customer experience, drive efficiency, support sustainability goals, and open doors to new revenue streams. At Mobile World Congress 2025 in Barcelona, we'll demonstrate the power of Network Intelligence and Energy Reduction through real-world scenarios in our AI-powered Mobile Network Optimization demo. We will also showcase how Cisco ThousandEyes Connected Devices elevates subscriber experience with unprecedented visibility into last-mile Wi-Fi, broadband, and external networks. See for yourself how AI-driven automation is reshaping the future of mobile connectivity and sustainability.

AI is Reshaping Global Secure Connectivity

The AI revolution isn't just about bigger models and smarter applications. It's also about the network infrastructure that enables them. As AI evolves, service providers must rethink their architectures to deliver the future of global secure connectivity. What was impossible just months ago will soon be the baseline expectation for customers going forward. The pace of innovation is truly astounding, and now is the time to be investing in the innovations that will power this new world.. At the heart of how Service Providers are evolving their architectures are the unique requirements of AI services and experiences. Here are a few key areas where AI is reshaping how networks are designed and operated. AI training workloads are growing, and so are the size and distribution of training clusters. Web-scale providers are now spreading clusters across metro regions, requiring high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity to maintain performance. AI is shifting from static, single-location inferencing to dynamic, distributed inferencing across multiple clouds. Techniques like Test-Time Compute (where models "think" more during inference) will demand massive amounts of real-time data exchange across models. AI-driven agentic applications, where AI agents collaborate dynamically, are introducing entirely new traffic patterns. These apps will create latency-sensitive, east-west traffic across distributed clouds as agents communicate in real time to complete tasks. To stay relevant and lead through this transformation, Service Providers must adapt their network for the onset of AI. There isn't a perfect playbook written yet, and we know many of you are just starting to shape your strategy, but here are a few actions you should all be taking today: This isn't just hype. Service Providers that embrace AI will see tangible benefits, including increased revenue, cost reduction, and enhanced customer experiences. For example, by hosting AI inferencing infrastructure and leveraging underutilized fiber and points of presence (PoPs), providers can generate new revenue streams. Additionally, monetizing network slicing by offering latency-sensitive AI traffic guarantees with service-level agreements (SLAs) further boosts profitability. On the cost side, deploying edge AI compute requires efficient connectivity, and converging IP and optical networks can significantly reduce expenses. Meanwhile, AI-powered automation and observability ensure reliable, high-performance connectivity, while AI-driven network planning and troubleshooting help prevent faults before they occur, leading to a seamless and improved customer experience. Cisco is committed to building AI-ready networks with our Service Provider partners and is offering much of what is needed for an AI-driven future. We provide and developed tools for Service Providers to handle new traffic patterns, monetize AI, and drive operational efficiency.