- Despite speculation about U.S. efforts to establish a domestic RAN vendor, Cisco says it's not it
- Cisco reiterates its lack of interest in entering the 5G RAN market
- Instead, it's focusing on partnerships with established RAN providers like Nokia and NEC.
If the Trump administration wants a flag-waving, all-American RAN vendor, it will have to buy or create one somehow because Cisco has no intention of getting into the 5G radio game.
We asked Masum Mir, SVP of Cisco’s provider mobility business, if the company is interested in the RAN. He said they are not.
This won’t surprise regular readers, as Cisco has said for years that it has no interest in the RAN market. The company will partner with RAN vendors as it moves deeper into private cellular, the Cisco SVP said.
A focus on 5G private networks
Indeed, the vendor has already worked with Nokia and NEC on private cellular projects. In November 2024, Cisco hooked up with NEC to sell private 5G in EMEA. Cisco provides the core, security and routing for the NEC partnership, while NEC will supply the RAN equipment. The project will go global after getting established in the European region, Cisco says.
“The approach we have taken is how do we augment enterprises to expand beyond the connectivity that they already have with WiFi or wired connections and augment them with 5G for mission-critical, extremely latency-sensitive areas?" Masum said. "We’re active in select countries where spectrum is available for private networks.”
Partnerships announced at the show include with Deutsche Telekom, which has access to 2 GHz and 3.4 to 3.7 GHz frequencies for private cellular applications, and cloud-native software vendor Rakuten Symphony, licensing their software for 5G private applications.
“Our focus has been very much in not just augmenting yet another network but making sure your security capabilities are fully portable from what you have into the private 5G network as well,” Masum said