Cisco, Ericsson, and Intel to Develop and Trial 5G Router

At the GSMA Mobile World Congress, Cisco Systems Inc. reported it will begin collaborating with Ericsson and Intel Corp. to develop and trial what is expected to be the industry's first 5G router. As members of the Verizon 5G Technology Forum, Cisco, Ericsson and Intel are partnering with Verizon within an ecosystem to accelerate the pace of critical 5G innovations.

The companies expect the next-generation 5G router to enable business and residential customers to achieve significantly faster networking speeds, lower latency, and the ability to handle exponentially more Internet-connected devices.

This collaboration of industry leaders and 5G pioneers will help to enable secure, ultra-high speed wireless bandwidth. The solution will offer Gigabit-per-second speeds by combining Cisco's enterprise networking innovations with Ericsson's advanced 5G mobile networking technology and Intel's next-generation 5G silicon. This announcement reinforces how industry collaboration will foster innovation in 5G via end-to-end technology development and trials. It also advances the next-generation strategic partnership between Ericsson and Cisco to create the networks of the future, which was announced in November 2015.

In November 2015, Cisco and Ericsson said that they will combine some sales and consulting efforts and may jointly develop entirely new hardware and services, as both companies are coping with challenges that include a slowdown in the smart phone market, a long-time driver of revenues for the telecom companies that are their biggest customers.

Keywords: 5G Router, Smart Phone, Internet-Connected Devices, Networks of The Future, ARC Advisory Group.