Cisco’s release of a WAN interface card with Sprint points to the enterprise network giant’s ambitions in the carrier market, according to a story by consulting firm Wireless Watch, and published in the U.K.’s The Register.
The story says the 3G Wireless WAN High-Speed WAN Interface Card, for use with Cisco’s Integrated Services Router and Sprint’s EV-DO network, will enable Cisco to “infiltrate the carrier market, where it has usually played on the metro area and enterprise sidelines gradually, rather than taking on the wireless infrastructure giants head-to-head – something many observers have expected it to do, in order to leverage its strong experience and patents pool in IP.”
The story adds:
As cellular technologies move to all-IP, Cisco will expect to claim a larger role in the carriers’ wireless or converged networks investment, though primarily in the core rather than venturing into base stations. But it also has its chance to move to the center of operators’ businesses through applying emerging wireless technologies to other areas of its activities – to end user devices such as network cards and the Linksys consumer gateways.
It could also move sideways into base stations via the increasingly interesting femtocell route, which could be a natural way for Cisco to permeate the access portion of the carrier network, as well as to extend the Linksys range to in-home cellular functionality.
Could a little card help Cisco go such a long way?
Go to Cisco Subnet for more Cisco news, blogs, discussion forums, security alerts, book giveaways, and more.
