Cisco is redesigning its networks, making the internet accessible to more people than ever and slashing costs by  46 percent, the tech leader announced  Wednesday, (March 31) in a virtual presscon.

Cisco's strategy seeks to help communication service provider and web scale companies around the world connect, secure and automate their networks to deliver a stronger, more accessible internet to everyone, everywhere, regardless of geographic limitations. 

Living in the pandemic, people, businesses, governments and communities have come to rely on the power of connections to keep the world running. 

The internet went from being a must-have, to a critical lifeline for most everyone to connect to information, and each other. 

Video conferencing skyrocketed as people were forced to work from home and into online learning. 

Together with remote healthcare services, streaming video, gaming and more, internet traffic spiked by 25-45 percent in many regions across the globe.

The networks powered through, but Cisco predicts this is only a glimpse of the traffic volume in the 5G era, with 29.3B connected devices expected in 2023.

Internet architecture needs continuous care and attention to support the world’s ambitions. 

With over three billion people still without access to the internet, a digital divide continues to develop where many are without access to vital information, learning and opportunities.

The need to transform how we build networks is critical, stressed  Jonathan Davidson, Cisco's Senior Vice President and General Manager, Mass Scale Infrastructure Group.

“Cisco has spent the last five years researching and investing in this portfolio of innovation, focusing on how to help our customers deliver the best internet, while being able to grow revenue, reduce their costs and mitigate risk,” he noted.

Cisco designed its Converged SDN Transport to help service providers converge multiple networks into a common, cost efficient and secure infrastructure with enormous scale. 

Today, Cisco further simplifies the constructs of the internet so operators can build networks capable of supporting the levels of traffic expected with 5G. 

The company is collaborating with the likes of Altibox, AWS, Facebook, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Deutsche Telecom, Rakuten, SFR, Telenor, Telia Carrier, Telstra, Vodafone to design the ‘Internet for the future’.