Telenor has selected NEC and Cisco to deploy 5G xHaul transport networks in Norway and Denmark. Deemed “a flagship initiative,” this project positions Telenor as one of the first carriers to benefit from the Global System Integrator Agreement (GSIA) established between NEC and Cisco in April to expand their partnership for accelerating the deployment of innovative 5G IP transport network solutions.
Cisco will supply its NCS 540 series as the cell site router, while NEC will provide value-added services in the IT and network domain. The goal, according to NEC, is to “implement an architecture that enables flexible and highly scalable end-to-end IP/MPLS networks with bandwidth that can support the high-capacity and low-latency communication required by 5G.”
“Through our partnership with NEC,” said Shaun McCarthy, VP of Worldwide Sales, Mass Infrastructure Group at Cisco, “we can help Telenor connect more people in Norway and Denmark and provide the automation and orchestration necessary to meet future demands on the network.”
NEC and Telenor have worked together before, with this announcement representing an extension of a previous global frame agreement signed in 2016 for Telenor’s 4G IP/Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network in Scandinavia. As part of the agreement, the system integrated helped Telenor prepare, enable and perform the migration of services in a turnkey arrangement.
When the GSIA with Cisco was first announced, NEC’s General Manager of Service Provider Solutions Division Mayuko Tatewaki spoke if the importance of collaboration, calling it “essential” for those across the telecom and network ecosystem to work together to meet “diversified customer requirements and [establish] a win-win relationship.”
