Telenor and Cisco Strengthen Partnership to Support Critical Infrastructure Transitions for Telcos; Scale Joint Venture WG2 for Global Operations

OSLO, Norway, and SAN JOSE, Calif. – Telenor and Cisco announced today the signing of the third iteration of the Joint Purpose Agreement between the companies, outlining areas where they will strengthen focus together including security, 5G, Open vRAN, B2B expansion, distributed cloud and furthering Telenor Group’s digital transformation to support its flexible working hours approach.

• Cisco and Telenor CEOs met virtually to sign the third iteration of their Joint Purpose Agreement between the companies to help telcos cross major milestones spanning security, 5G, cloud, B2B

• Cisco, Telenor and Digital Alpha have also concluded the next round of financing of joint venture Working Group Two (WG2) to prepare WG2 for further growth, global operations and enable new use cases within 5G, IoT and private networks

• WG2 added to Cisco General Price List, will be part of DevNet

The companies are continuing the exploration of new 5G architectures and have started an Open vRAN trial at Telenor headquarters in Norway to further investigate using a virtualized, open infrastructure to improve cost efficiency for service rollouts.

Also being announced today is a new round of financing of the joint venture, WG2. WG2 offers a carrier grade, cloud-native mobile core solution that enables rapid service innovation for mobile network operators (MNOs), mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) and enterprises. Using open APIs and cross-network interoperability, WG2 radically transforms the ability of mobile operators to innovate quickly.

The new financing will be used to accelerate WG2’s growth in Europe, North America and Asia, and to extend its innovative solutions in 5G, IoT and private networks.

WG2 will now be included in Cisco’s General Price List (GPL) and in Cisco’s DevNet program, 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 (CEO) Telenor. “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.”

“We are proud to continue our partnership with Telenor. Together, our shared expertise and best of breed portfolios will enable telcos and mobile operators to get to the next level in their business,” said Chuck Robbins, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Cisco. “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.”