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It’s February again and like us, you are probably thinking about Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and hanging out with 100,000 plus of your closest industry friends.  This is always an amazing event with great speakers, eye opening announcements, important meetings and impactful demonstrations of new technology solutions to our industry’s challenges and opportunities.   I want you to know that all of us in Cisco have been working hard to make this your most memorable and valuable industry event of your lives to date.

Did you know that last year the Cisco booth won a design award for best two-tier booth at the show?  This year’s booth design is even more fantastic, and we’ve expanded the open area of the booth where we will be showcasing “Cisco 5G in Action”.  These demonstrations show how Cisco’s 5G Architecture is connecting the world and being the bridge to opportunity and a better, more connected life.

For 2019, we are focused on a “monetization first” approach and how you can maximize the value of your 5G investment by delivering new and unique services – when you make the right architectural transitions.  Of course, you monetize your investment in multiple ways, so we are showing how the Cisco open 5G architecture helps you to grow revenues, reduce costs and mitigate risks.  And mitigating risks is more than securing your network, it is about trusting your network, suppliers, your software and hardware, automation – everything.  But you also mitigate risk when you have a trusted partner who can show you how to approach planning, implementation and operations differently.  We will be sharing real world use cases in service by our customers that have significantly sped time to production and market while reducing the cost of doing business.  We will show you how you can enter new geographies and verticals while minimizing your financial exposure.

The foundation of all this is the Cisco 5G architecture that delivers your 5G value chain from multicloud to client.  This is a software-defined mobile network that embraces “open” and seamless with the ability to use best-of-breed and leverage a cloud environment to introduce new services for your consumer and business customers – faster.  When you visit, you will also see how our advanced automation uses machine learning and close-loop functionality to enable zero-touch and self-healing.

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We are going to be introducing some incredibly novel capabilities that will let you easily customize your network so that you become the partner that your business customers want and need.  You really do not want to miss this or several other innovations that can enable you to differentiate your services and be far more competitive and profitable.

Some news reports and articles have already provided a window into what some of our innovations are capable to delivering for you.  Have a read and come to us with your questions – we have the answers.

  • Rakuten announcement on how they have broken the mold to build a nation-wide, open software-defined network in record time “Rakuten builds a greenfield wireless network in Japan
  • 5G Rural First work in the UK where Cisco and partners are connecting the under-served with 5G network services including advanced IoT solutions for agriculture, tourism and many others.

 

Mobile World Congress offers many opportunities to hear from industry leaders and experts.  Cisco has our share of interesting sessions you’ll want to attend.  Cisco executives and experts will be participating in six different sessions and keynotes including our own CEO, Chuck Robbins who will be joining Rakuten Founder and CEO, Mickey (Hiroshi) Mikitani for the keynote “The Next Generation” being held on Wednesday beginning at 9:35am in Hall 4, auditorium 1.   This is not to be missed as two industry innovation giants share the stage to talk about what the next generation means for not just technology but for the next generation of people too.

The speaker events include:

Monday, February 25

4:00-4:45PM
The Edge Computing Opportunity: Intelligent and Distributed
Speaker: Jochen Heidl | Location:  Hall 4, Auditorium 4

Tuesday, February 26

4:30-5:00PM
NMG Panel (Offsite) ORAN for 5G
Speaker: Bob Everson | Location:  Hesperia Barcelona Tower

Wednesday, February 27

9:35-10:00AM
Keynote Session
Speakers: Chuck Robbins and Rakuten CEO | Location: Hall 4, Auditorium 1

4:00-5:00PM
Linking IoT, 5G and Analytics in Smarter Enterprise – Industry 4.0 Conference
Speaker: Sumeet Arora | Hall 4, Auditorium 3

Thursday, February 28

11:10-11:25AM
Introducing the Multiplier Effect – W4T Summit
Speaker: Shari Slate | Location: Ministerial Programme, Hall 4, Auditorium A

12:00-12:35PM
Transforming: The Impact of Online Movements
Speaker: Kishen Mangat | Location:  Ministerial Programme, Hall 4, Auditorium A

 

And of course, there are the parties and events.  This year Cisco is hosting two events at the beautiful Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau on Tuesday, February 26.

  • First, we have a terrific Diversity in Tech Reception with a nice fireside chat format from 5:00pm to 7:00PM.
  • Then the very popular VIP Reception will be held from 7:00pm to 10:00pm.

Both events are by invitation only so please speak with your Cisco account representative for more information.

Travel safe and we can’t wait to see you there!