PARIS – MPLS+SDN+NFV World Congress – April 9, 2019 – Cisco announced today its involvement in helping Iliad deploy a state-of-the-art national IP Network, powered by Segment Routing IPv6 (SRv6), to provide a new mobile offering in Italy.

This new architecture is built upon multiple products spanning the Cisco networking portfolio, including the ASR 9000 and new NCS 5500 routers for core IP, NCS routers for DWDM infrastructure, and Nexus switches for Data Center. 

The SRv6 deployment enables Iliad to build a network that is extremely scalable with improved reliability, flexibility and agility, all while helping to reduce CapEx and OpEx. To further expand the SRv6 benefits across the entire network, Iliad has developed, in close collaboration with Cisco, its own SRv6 software stack that will equip its homegrown “NodeBox” designed to aggregate the traffic from mobile base stations. 

Deploying SRv6 in 5G mobile networks is gaining strong customer traction as it simplifies network layers and integrates user plane functions from end-to-end with only IPv6 protocol, making things simple, controllable, and flexible.

“With this new Cisco based IP Network, we are equipped to continuously deliver innovative services to our end-customers while benefiting from a simple and scalable infrastructure,” said Thomas Reynaud, CEO of Iliad. “It will help us strengthen the outstanding commercial success we’ve encountered with more than 2.8 million new subscribers in just 7 months and solidify our position as the new ‘go-to’ brand in Italy.”

“It comes as no surprise to see Iliad being an early adopter of Segment Routing IPv6 technology as they have demonstrated a solid and long-lasting track record of innovation over the past 15 years,” said Sumeet Arora, Senior Vice President of Service Provider Networking, Cisco.“Thanks to SRv6 network programming capabilities, Iliad is set to further disrupt the mobile market by delivering truly innovative service offerings.”

Cisco is leading the disruption in the industry with its technology innovations in routing, 5G, subscriber experience (mobile, cable, fixed), automation, optical and optics. Together with its Customer Experience team of experts, Cisco enables service providers, media and web companies to reduce cost and complexity, helps scale and secure their networks, and grow their revenue.

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About Iliad

Iliad is the parent company of Free, the inventor of the Freebox, the first multiservice box on ADSL. Free is behind numerous innovations in the Broadband and Ultra-Fast Broadband access segment (VoIP, IPTV, flat-rate calling plans to multiple destinations, etc.) and provides straightforward and innovative offerings at the best prices. Since January 2012, Free has brought mobile phone usage within everyone's reach with straightforward, no‑commitment offerings at very attractive prices. As at December 31, 2018, Free had nearly 20 million subscribers in France (6.4 million Broadband and Ultra-Fast Broadband subscribers and 13.4 million mobile subscribers). On May 29, 2018, the Group launched its mobile network in Italy under the Iliad brand, becoming the country’s fourth operator, and had over 2.8 million subscribers at December 31, 2018.

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