Proximus (formerly Belgacom), already a Cisco customer, is preparing to tie its fortunes more closely with the vendor, not only continuing to deliver video services based on Cisco products, but to explore expanding the relationship into smart/connected cities, service orchestration for business customers, software defined networking (SDN), and more.
The two are positioning this as a full partnership. Proximus will benefit from deploying new Cisco products, while Cisco said it will benefit from Proximus’ technology research and local go-to-market expertise, in order to co-create new service provider offerings.
The two companies said they have defined three areas for growth: video delivery for consumers, smart city services for government organizations, and service orchestration for business-to-business customers.
Proximus currently delivers video through traditional digital TV set top boxes. By centralizing digital TV functionality on Proximus’ open cloud architecture instead of the consumer’s digital video recorder (DVR), the telecommunications provider plans to move faster, accelerating delivery of new personalized video capabilities, Cisco said.
For instance, Cisco noted, an open cloud based architecture makes it easy to integrate digital TV with third party applications like cloud sourced program ratings and recommendations. And subscribers who run out of DVR space for their favorite programs could in the future simply rent more storage in the cloud. With Cisco Videoscape, both partners will develop a next generation, cloud based TV offer for Proximus.
Regarding smart and connected cities, the two have plan to develop applications for both consumers and businesses that go further than city-wide and free wireless internet.
Proximus is also adopting Cisco’s service orchestration technology, enabling Proximus’ customers to configure their network services online. The subsequent provisioning and management of both virtual and physical networks will be fully automated.