In April, Rakuten, a global internet services company based in Japan, made a groundbreaking announcement—it was already offering free mobile service to certain customers. “Internet access has become like food and water, an essential ingredient to a healthy, productive life,” stated Tareq Amin, Rakuten’s group chief technology officer. “We’re taking a major step toward bringing anyone and everyone online.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world shifted to doing everything online, from work and school to doctor visits. According to a recent report by analytics firm OpenVault, global internet use increased 51 percent during the pandemic. Yet not everyone has been able to benefit from—or even access—the internet. According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, only 57 percent of Americans making less than $30,000 a year have broadband internet at home, compared with 92 percent making $75,000 a year or more. Globally, this disparity is even starker, according to a recent United Nations report. “Almost half the world’s population, 3.7 billion people, the majority of them women, and most in developing countries, are still offline,” says Amina Mohammed, the deputy secretary-general of the UN. “Without decisive action, the digital divide will become the new face of inequality.”
To bridge that divide and achieve access for everyone, a major challenge exists: outdated infrastructure. Since its creation over thirty years ago, the internet has been updated in patchwork fashion, with each new imrpovement built atop previous ones. As a result, global internet infrastructure has become unwieldy and inefficient—making updates slow, costly, and labor intensive.
In search of a better way, Rakuten has partnered with Cisco to implement a revolutionary solution—Routed Optical Networking. Whereas traditional internet infrastructure is built upon a panoply of siloed systems, Cisco created a cloud-native, virtualized, open infrastructure that is faster, more easily updated, and has greater reach. By reducing existing parts aside from the necessary router and ROADM from six pieces of connection to only two, Cisco’s Routed Optical Networking solution cuts operating costs by 50 percent, facilitating cheaper internet access for underserved people in rural and impoverished areas around the world.
Launching with Rakuten’s mobile business, Rakuten Mobile, this year, Routed Optical Networking will help the company lower costs and offer more affordable services to cellular subscribers in Japan. In fact, customers who sign up for its flexible mobile plan and use less than 1GB of data per month can enjoy its mobile service for free, while unlimited data usage is capped at $27 per month. Overall, this groundbreaking initiative will help pave the way to greater access for everyone globally. “This is a seismic change in the industry,” said Jonathan Davidson, EVP/GM of Cisco’s Mass-Scale Infrastructure Group. “And I can’t wait to see where this goes next.”
The first feature technology used in Routed Optical Networking is digital coherent optics. Collapsing what previously were three layers of internet systems into one, the optics dramatically simplify life cycle management and reduce operating costs while increasing automation. By creating a more automated foundation for cloud infrastructure, the optics enable companies to upgrade their entire network in minutes—a process that currently can take weeks. In health care, for instance, the optics can create segment routing—a simpler means of moving traffic through networks—and enable hospitals to create multiple infrastructures for storing patient data and accounting info, so doctors have more immediate access to critical information. “We’ve all become accustomed to ordering products online and receiving them within 24 hours,” Davidson says. “Now everyone wants the same for their infrastructure. With optics, enterprise customers can get upgrades that currently take weeks accomplished in minutes—they are truly transforming industries.”
The second technology enhancing internet speeds and connectivity is Cisco’s Crosswork Network Automation. A closed-loop software suite, Crosswork provides on-premises automation and uses artificial intelligence to continuously monitor systems and tweak them as needed—resulting in stronger infrastructure that can be automatically updated. Rakuten Mobile, for instance, harnessed Crosswork to build a system of more than 1,000 edge locations across Japan. These unmanned data centers run autonomously, allowing the company to reach customers in remote parts of the country. “This system is a breakthrough,” Amin says. “It enables ultra-low-cost architecture for 5G that can be deployed to rural areas, bringing connectivity to the masses where it doesn’t exist today.”
The third key technology bringing internet to everyone is also the smallest—Cisco’s Silicon One processor. Currently, silicon chips require optimization to perform different functions. By contrast, Silicon One is the world’s first unified silicon architecture. Delivering performance efficiency and carrier-grade routing in a single architecture throughout a company’s network, Silicon One works for all network functions and form factors while offering lower cost and faster, easier updating. Since launching the first Silicon One chip last year, Cisco has debuted an additional ten—an astonishing rate of innovation offering greater scale, innovation, and flexibility. “Silicon One is the building block of this system,” Davidson says, “and it’s enabling companies to innovate at the cutting edge.”
Going forward, Routed Optical Networking will continue to advance, become faster, and transform industries and how we connect. Already, the lower cost and autonomous infrastructure are making the internet available to people who were previously offline. In Italy, for instance, Eolo is using Routed Optical Networking to bring ultra-broadband to rural areas; and in Ethiopia, WebSprix is using it to bring access and new opportunity to hundreds of thousands of people. “The Cisco Routed Optical Networking solution will enable us to build a network with a transformational impact on Ethiopia,” says Dawit Birhanu, WebSprix cofounder and CEO. “It will also serve as a model for connecting the estimated 3.8 billion citizens around the world who are still without access to high-speed internet.”
From health care and education to economic opportunities for all levels of business, Routed Optical Networking is the next great version of the internet—and it’s just getting started. “At heart, we’re creating a more inclusive internet,” Davidson says. “With these cost savings, providers can build out more connectivity to underserved areas and offer it for less—creating broader, bigger, better internet for everyone.”
This story was produced by WIRED Brand Lab for Cisco.
