TORONTO, ON - July 26, 2012 - Cisco today announced it has entered into a strategic agreement with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) to raise awareness and to provide education on the benefits of applying innovation and technology to the development of Canada's 21st century leading cities and communities.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will provide thought leadership, tools, and support to the almost 2,000 FCM members, based on Cisco's acclaimed Smart+Connected Communities™ framework for the development of sustainable and competitive cities and communities. Together, Cisco and FCM will promote the benefits of technology and innovation for productivity, growth, competitiveness, and sustainable transformation.

Facts and Highlights:

• Cisco and FCM will seek to cultivate new and innovative solutions to the problems facing municipal governments and their communities, and to use technology to increase the participation and the productivity of citizens and businesses.
• Cisco and FCM hope to empower municipalities to foster, grow, and accelerate economic development, and social and environmental sustainability.
• Cisco's broad portfolio of public and private partnerships, products, services and solutions, along with FCM's municipal knowledge and experience, will provide the foundation for the strategic agreement.     
• Cisco's Smart+Connected Communities deliver new services and experiences over intelligent community networks to promote economic, social and environmental sustainability. Cisco has a number of Smart+Connected Communities initiatives throughout Canada with FCM members, including:
  • Rampart's Avenir Communities in St. Albert, Alberta: all services, business and residential as well as access to community and government services such as healthcare and education, will be based on an ultra high speed network infrastructure
  • The city of Vancouver, British Columbia: developing services to deliver enhanced energy efficiency to support the city's green energy and environmental goals
  • The city of Stratford, Ontario: developing advanced collaboration and citizen engagement solutions using Stratford's intelligent networks
  • The city of Fredericton, New Brunswick: Cisco helped the city develop the Fred-eZone, a free, community-wide Wi-Fi network.
• FCM is the national voice of municipal governments within Canada, with nearly 2,000 municipality members representing over 90 percent of Canada's population.

Supporting quotes:

Brock Carlton, chief executive officer, FCM:

"Municipal governments are on the front lines in meeting the challenges of the 21st century and as a result have a tremendous impact on the daily lives of Canadians. That makes municipal government the right place to start implementing technologies that can make our communities more livable, competitive and sustainable. With its Smart+Connected Communities initiative, Cisco has shown it can help municipalities apply technology to solve challenges and strengthen their communities. FCM looks forward to working with Cisco to help our members build sustainable and competitive cities and communities that will drive growth in Canada and improve our quality of life."    

Nitin Kawale, president, Cisco Canada:

"Cisco believes very strongly in the potential of technology to positively affect economic development. We continue to build strong relationships within the private and public sectors in order to facilitate the positive transformation of our communities, regions and country. FCM's members are looking for ways to operate more efficiently and sustainably while improving the quality of life and economic competitiveness of their communities. Through our new relationship, Cisco will help them meet this challenge."

Rick Huijbregts, vice president, Smart+Connected Communities, Cisco Canada:

"We applaud the vision of FCM to embrace technology and innovation as a future-enabler for its member communities. Together, we believe we can provide thought leadership and real-life examples to FCM members that can immediately be used in their own municipalities to foster economic growth, environmental sustainability, and social prosperity. Our unique partnership celebrates the formation of a nationwide public-private ‘human' network that will help advocate and accelerate innovation and productivity for Canada."

Supporting Resources:

·         Federation of Canadian Municipalities

·         Cisco Smart+Connected Communities

·         Cisco Smart+Connected Communities Institute

·         Follow Cisco Canada on Twitter and Facebook

·         Watch Cisco S+CC solutions.

About Cisco

Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Cisco Canada Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco, has offices across Canada dedicated to customer support, sales and service. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com/canada/.

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