Stay up to date on all MWC 2014 activities and released assets by following our News and Announcements Community today at http://www.cisco.com/go/spnewscommunity
View blog post with hyperlinks: https://communities.cisco.com/community/solutions/sp/news-and-announcements/blog/2014/03/03/mobile-world-congress-2014-an-unforgettable-experience
Mobile World Congress 2014: An Unforgettable Experience
1. Mobile World Congress 2014: An Unforgettable Experience
By: Kiran Matty, Marketing Manager (SP Marketing - Mobility Solutions, Cisco)
The Mobile World Congress (MWC); its that time of the year when hundreds of
thousands of people congregate in Barcelona to showcase or see the best products that
the mobile industry has to offer. Connected cars, connected toothbrushes, connected
vending machine ( Cisco + SAP solution), connected cities, and the list of connected
devices goes on and on; Internet of Everything was front and center. About 85,000
people attended this year’s event. Although this was my second visit to MWC,
admittedly I was as awestruck as my first one.
Cisco published the Cisco VNI data and introduced the Evolved Services Platform
(ESP), leading up to MWC. Based on the VNI data, its no small wonder that there’s
tremendous value created in a mobile operator’s network, but the billion-dollar question
is how can operators, as opposed to OTTs, extract that value? We believe that the
Cisco ESP can address that by providing a unified virtualization and orchestration
software platform that is open, extensible, and elastic. It creates, automates and
provisions services and network resources in real time for applications running across
multiple domains such as cloud, video, mobility, and fixed networks. It not only helps
tighten up the CAPEX and the OPEX, but also provides an open platform for service
creation that ensures the right type of experience for subscribers regardless of how or
where they connect to the network (Fixed, Mobile, Wi-Fi). Its not just talk, rather we are
walking the talk.
We hear from our customers time and again that they are challenged by the threat of
OTT, coverage and capacity issues, difficulty to monetize network investments, and
higher CAPEX and OPEX. Our goal going into MWC was not only to showcase our best
work, but also to understand our customer’s pain-points and support their business
outcomes. Undoubtedly, this tenet was reflected pretty well on our demos, all of which
were well received by our customers. Here are our demos:
Demo #1 titled Transform user experiences with Heterogeneous Access was
focused on HS 2.0/Passpoint, CMX, Universal Small Cells, SCB, HNB/HeNB-GW, SON,
and SP Wi-Fi/EPC integration, and SaMOG. It showed the monetization of contextual
user engagement and consistent service delivery across Small Cells/Wi-Fi/3G/LTE
networks. Further, it also brought to the fore the various opportunities in the enterprise
market that the SPs could potentially unlock with their small cell assets.
Demo #2 titled Capture New Markets with Elastic Mobile Networks was focused on
Cisco Quantum Virtualized Packet Core (QvPC), EPS, Quantum Service Bus (QSB),
2. Quantum Policy Suite (QPS), and Cisco Prime/NCS/Cloud Service Orchestration. It
showed how operators can right size their network resources by bringing network
virtualization and cloud technologies to bear for cost efficiency and to target
complementary, price-sensitive markets such as M2M, MVNO, and Private LTE for
Enterprises.
Tech Tour Demo #2 – Providing an immersive experience to our customers
Demo #3 titled Monetize and Optimize Experience-Aware Networks. It showed how
mobile operators can leverage their existing network investments with the help of SON
to optimize the end user experience and enable new business models using the
Quantum Policy Suite to monetize the gold mine of data trapped in the network.
These demos were complemented by the demos that deep dove into SON, Quantum
Policy Suite (QPS), Quantum Virtualized Packet Core (QvPC), which gave our
customers a street-level view of our best in class products. The live demo showing
the Fira’s Cisco HS2.0 and the analytics was quite an attention grabber. Our demo on
Cisco’s Open Network Environment (ONE) for Mobility resonated very well with the
customers who were interested in seeing the alignment between Cisco’s EPN, NFV,
SDN, Orchestration, and Cisco NCS solutions that enables new levels of programming
and flexibility. Hats off! to the Cisco NOC folks who kept the Wi-Fi infrastructure
humming despite the traffic surges.
3. Heat map of where Wi-Fi is being used at MWC. About 39% of the connections are from
Apple devices
Cisco ONE for Mobility – Connective tissue that brings Cisco Mobility solutions together
While most of our competitor’s solutions failed to support a potential customer’s demo at
MWC around a virtualized mobile network infrastructure, Cisco’s QvPC came through
and saved the day. This just goes to show the readiness of our product portfolio.
4. At the end of the day, we must realize that MWC is not about bleeding edge
technologies, rather it’s about how they help solve consumer pain-points or shape
business outcomes. We went into MWC with this on our minds and came out with a
sense of immense pride and satisfaction.
More Resources
All Cisco at MWC related assets (blogs, videos, etc.) can be found on our News and
Announcements Community
Facebook Photo Album: Photos from MWC 2014