- “ngena” alliance announced at Mobile World Congress 2016
- Global alliance of service providers for international network services
- CenturyLink, Deutsche Telekom, Reliance and SK Telecom joined as initial alliance members
- The core of the alliance will be a separate company “ngena” with an independent management
- Cisco as strategic technology partner enables members to share network assets
CenturyLink, Deutsche Telekom, Reliance and SK Telecom today announced a new alliance at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The Next Generation Enterprise Network Alliance (“ngena”) plans to launch international network services for business customers in the first half of 2017. At full global deployment there is expected to be more than 20 additional service providers within the ngena alliance. The foundation of ngena is still subject to applicable merger control clearance.
Business customers benefit from unique global network experience
Customers will benefit from the alliance: In addition to international coverage ngena will provide a global service catalogue to its alliance partners, enabling them to deliver a unique network service experience for enterprise customers – a high performance service in terms of speed, flexibility, security and quality. Through network function virtualization and full end-to-end automation, ngena services are expected to be hugely efficient. The alliance also will enable fast provisioning, even in remote places. With ngena, the alliance partners aim for profitable growth in global network access and transport services, a $50 billion market that is growing by 3.5 percent annually.
Disruptive business model – alliance partners share network assets
The ngena alliance differs from other alliances, since in its core it is an independent company, driving business with the benefits for all partners in mind. Ngena follows a new disruptive business model. Enabled by Cisco cloud and virtualization technology the network assets of all alliance partners together will create a global Next Generation Network.
Network service quality is critically important to customers
Timotheus Höttges, CEO Deutsche Telekom AG, says: “Complex individual contracts and ordering processes have no place in a digitized world. Services based alone on the public Internet are not secure or reliable enough for real-time applications such as logistics, manufacturing and telemedicine. A network without sufficient service quality is a risk that customers do not want to take. That’s why our alliance aims to provide multinational enterprise customers with a secure, powerful, global network service faster than before.”
Chuck Robbins, CEO Cisco, says: “In today’s digital economy, strategic partnerships are more critical than ever to drive fast innovation. NGENA is a pioneering alliance among leading Service Providers to deliver globally consistent, cost-effective and flexible services, allowing them to deliver better experiences at a faster pace. Cisco is committed to the success of our Service Provider customers and is honored to play a part in connecting them across global boundaries, which will allow businesses and their customers to capitalize on the unprecedented opportunities in the digitized world.”
Global telecommunications services securely and reliably from a single source
ngena will target multinational companies which seek to purchase their global telecommunications services securely and reliably from a single source. The alliance partners will define unified service levels for the entire global grid, so instead of separate agreements in different countries customers can be served by a single point of contact within the alliance. Cisco technology will help enable seamless interconnectivity and standardized interfaces between heterogeneous networks of the alliance members.
Joint global grid managed from Europe, America and Asia using SDN
The global partner alliance will benefit from increasing network convergence and the rapid spread of Software Defined Networks (SDN) and cloud technology. The Ethernet protocol, a global standard, will ensure that the networks of different providers are compatible with one another, creating a common global grid. The physical and virtual network assets will be managed through hubs in Europe, America and Asia using automated provisioning.
Customers will benefit from a variety of cloud services
The ngena connectivity services will meet customers’ requirements with their modular set up. No matter if subsidiaries, production plants or branch offices have to be connected – everything from basic cross-border demands up to global enterprises’ requirements will be addressed and satisfied. Customers will benefit from a variety of additional services being provided from the cloud. The alliance partners will be able to deliver full international VPN functionality, Application Performance Management (APM), WAN/LAN management and optimization up to additional built in services such as Unified Communication & Collaboration (UCC), advanced security services, platform APIs for adoption of industry-specific use cases (e.g. WLAN analytics for retail).
About CenturyLink
CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) is a global communications, hosting, cloud and IT services company enabling millions of customers to transform their businesses and their lives through innovative technology solutions. CenturyLink offers network and data systems management, Big Data analytics and IT consulting, and operates more than 55 data centers in North America, Europe and Asia. The company provides broadband, voice, video, data and managed services over a robust 250,000-route-mile U.S. fiber network and a 300,000-route-mile international transport network. Visit CenturyLink for more information.
About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportu-nities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. For ongoing news, please go to http://thenetwork.cisco.com.
About Deutsche Telekom AG
Deutsche Telekom is one of the world's leading integrated telecommunications companies with around 151 million mobile customers, 30 million fixed-network lines and more than 17 million broadband lines (as of December 31, 2014). The Group provides fixed-network, mobile communications, Internet and IPTV products and services for consumers, and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in more than 50 countries and has approximately 228,000 employees worldwide. The Group generated revenues of 62.7 billion euros in the 2014 financial year – more than 60 percent of it outside Germany.
About Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited
Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), India’s largest private sector company, is the first telecom operator to hold pan India Unified License. RJIL is setting up an entire digital ecosystem with stated goal to break the digital divide be-tween ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’ and propel India into global leadership in digital economy. The eco-system consists of pan-India high speed data network, specially designed devices to run on this network, a wide variety of applications and services - from news, entertainment, payment, business, healthcare and education – and rich content. RJIL has created a legacy free, next-generation voice and broadband network which can be seamlessly upgraded even to 5G and beyond. It will be the only company in the world providing next generation digital services over an end-to-end all-IP network at this scale.
About SK Telecom
SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM, KSE: 017670), established in 1984, is Korea’s largest telecommuni-cations company with more than 28 million mobile subscribers, accounting for around 50% of the market. The company reached KRW 17.164 trillion in revenue in 2014. As the world’s first company to commercialize CDMA, CDMA 2000 1x, CDMA EV-DO and HSDPA networks, SK Telecom launched the nation’s first LTE service in July 2011. SK Telecom also became the world’s first mobile carrier to commercialize 150Mbps LTE-Advanced in June 2013 and 225Mbps LTE-Advanced in June 2014 through Carrier Aggregation(CA). In line with its efforts to swiftly move towards the next-generation mobile network system, or 5G, it successfully commercialized 300Mbps tri-band LTE-A CA. As of the end of September 2015, the company has over 18.5 million LTE and LTE-Advanced subscribers. Based on its strength in network operations business, SK Telecom is seeking new growth engines through three innovative plat-forms namely Lifestyle Enhancement Platform, Advanced Media Platform and IoT Service Plat-form. For more information, please visit www.sktelecom.com or email to skt_press@sk.com.
About T-Systems
Deutsche Telekom considers the European business customer segment a strategic growth ar-ea. It offers small, medium-sized and multinational companies ICT solutions for an increasingly complex digital world. In addition to services from the cloud, the range of services centers around M2M, security solutions, complementary mobile communications and fixed-network products, and solutions for virtual collaboration and IT platforms, all of which form the basis for our customers' digital business models. The corporate customers unit (T-Systems) and its 47,800 employees around the world generated revenue of around 8.6 billion euros in the 2014 financial year.