Saudi Telecom Company Becomes the First Service Provider in Middle East and North Africa to Deploy Cisco Virtualized Packet Core Technology

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA--(Marketwired - Dec 14, 2015) - Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO)

Saudi Telecom Company (STC), the largest telecommunication services provider in the Middle East and North Africa and the leading operator within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has selected Cisco Virtualized Packet Core (VPC) to transform its mobile service delivery model and expand its customer offering in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

With its wide international presence, STC looked for a mobile platform that could deliver the network elasticity and service agility needed to support the rapid growth and evolving demands of today's market. By implementing Cisco VPC, STC becomes the first service provider to deploy the most advanced and latest Cisco solution in the Middle East and North Africa.

Mobile traffic from smartphones and other portable devices, along with new digital traffic types like Machine to Machine (M2M) communications and Internet of Things (IoT) applications are creating huge volumes of mobile data traffic. To keep pace, operators like STC must continually expand their mobile networks. Solutions like Cisco VPC will particularly help STC address new demands while reducing network capital and operational expenditures. VPC will allow STC to simplify and accelerate the process of adding new enterprise customers from all vertical sectors including healthcare, transportation, retail, banking etc. and launching new applications to market.

The Cisco VPC will provide a universal mobile packet core to support all STC's wireless services in a single solution. It allows STC to take advantage of wide range of capabilities together with the flexibility, efficiency, and scale of virtualized cloud services. These same capabilities will also make it easier for STC to create innovative new services and bring them to market faster.

As the industry's most complete, fully virtualized evolved packet core, the new Cisco VPC solution significantly enhances service agility for service providers, enabling them to scale capacity and introduce new services much faster and more cost-effectively. As part of its ongoing efforts to deliver a superior mobile experience, STC's new mobile platform will provide customers in the Kingdom with greater network speeds and a higher quality of service over 4G LTE and beyond. STC Mobile Network is transforming in order to address technology market transitions involving video, cloud, and security, all fueled by the Internet of Things (IoT), which is creating new opportunities for global service providers and their customers.

Eng. Nasser Al Nasser, SVP for Technology & Operations, STC said: "Cisco has been a longstanding strategic STC partner and we are delighted to be expanding our strong relationship in order to deliver even more capabilities to our customers throughout the Kingdom. As a leading provider of ICT services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, STC's goal is to maintain its leadership position by continuously innovating to meet the ever-changing customer needs. Cisco Virtualized Packet Core solution will give us the flexibility we need to launch new services quickly and seamlessly for our valued customers."

Eng. Rabah Zarzour, Client Executive, Service Provider Sales, Saudi Arabia, Cisco said: "As businesses evolve and the speed of change rapidly increases, communication and information will be crucial. That is why Cisco is committed to working closely with leading service providers like STC to deliver intelligent networks, new capabilities like cloud and greater bandwidth on integrated products, services, and software platforms. We are truly honored that STC's continues to have confidence in Cisco, and we look forward to working together long into the future. Our joint goal is to continue to innovate and transform our technology solutions in order to help customers like STC deliver better and more robust services for their customers."

This latest agreement with STC represents another major milestone in both companies long-standing strategic relationship aimed at delivering state-of-the-art telecommunications services.

Links / URLs:

• Middle East News: http://newsroom.cisco.com/me
• For more details about Virtualized Packet Core (VPC) visit: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/service-provider/virtualized-packet-core/index.html

About STC:
The Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is a leader in providing information and telecommunications services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The company is operating, and continuously responding to market requirements, keeping abreast of technology developments to meet the needs of its customers.
For more details visit: http://www.stc.com.sa/

About Cisco:
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities 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

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

RSS Feed for Cisco: http://newsroom.cisco.com/rss-feeds