T-Mobile, Cisco Tout Largest Cloud Native Converged Core Gateway

December 19, 2022

T-Mobile has teamed up with Cisco to launch the world’s largest highly scalable and distributed nationwide cloud native converged core gateway. The Un-carrier has moved all its 5G and 4G traffic to the new cloud native core gateway, which immediately boosted performance for customers with more than a 10% improvement in both speed and latency. It’s like turning two townhouses into a massive mansion by removing walls (or barriers) and then loading that mansion with the latest, groundbreaking technology.

The new converged core gateway also simplifies operations for T-Mobile, allowing the Un-carrier to shift resources with better agility and roll out services like 5G Home Internet. It will also expedite time to market for new 5G and IoT services like network slicing and Voice over 5G (VoNR) by allowing T-Mobile to easily test and deploy new capabilities at scale.

“T-Mobile customers already have access to the largest, most powerful 5G network in the country, and we’re innovating every day to supercharge their experience even further,” said Delan Beah, Senior Vice President of Core Network and Services Engineering at T-Mobile. “This cloud native core gateway takes our network to new heights, allowing us to push 5G forward by delivering next-level performance for consumers and businesses nationwide while setting the stage for new applications enabled by next-gen networks.”

With a fully automated converged core gateway, T-Mobile can simplify network functions across the cloud, edge and data centers to significantly reduce operational life cycle management. The increased efficiency is an immediate benefit for customers, providing them with even faster speeds. The new core is also more distributed than ever before, leading to lower latency and advancing capabilities like edge computing.

“Our strategic relationship with T-Mobile is rooted in co-innovation, with a shared vision to establish best practices for 5G and the Internet for the Future,” said Masum Mir, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cisco Networking Provider Mobility. “This is the type of network every operator aspires to. It will support the most advanced 5G applications for consumers and businesses today and enables T-Mobile to test and deliver new and emerging 5G and IoT applications with simplicity at scale.”

The fully automated converged core architecture is based on Cisco’s cloud native control plane, optimized with Kubernetes orchestrated containers on bare metal, freeing up over 20% of the CPU (Central Processing Unit) cores. The converged core solution uses a broad mix of Cisco’s flagship networking solutions including the Cisco 8000 Series routers, 5G and 4G packet core gateways, Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), and Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches with Cisco Network Services Orchestrator for full stack automation.