With Continuous Network Improvements In 2016, XL Lays Foundation for Stronger 2017

XL Axiata is one of the largest cellular operators in Indonesia for consumer and machine-to-machine (M2M) services. Their subscriber base now totals more than 45M subscribers just having added more than 1M customers in Q4 2016.

For XL Axiata, the growth of smartphones continues to drive increased data adoption in Indonesia with a 64% YoY increase from the same period a year ago. The growth in smartphone customers is meaningful as the increased sophistication of XL's smartphone customers is driving up usage on XL's 4G-LTE network traffic increasing by almost 30x since the commercial launch of 4G services in November 2015. Total traffic across XL's networks, which has seen a 162% YoY increase in FY 16 compared to the same period previous year mainly driven by growth in Data traffic. XL's subscriber base continues to grow with the addition of 1 million subs this quarter taking the total to 45.0m which is 8% higher than the subscriber base a year ago.

To handle this deluge of devices and data, operators like Axiata are quickly evolving their mobile cores from traditional centralized to distributed Evolved Packet Core (EPC) Architectures, leading to a virtual EPC or vEPC. XL Axiata announced at MWC 2015 that they had chosen the Cisco Ultra Packet Core to transition from their centralized EPC to their vPC platform. Now with more than 7M Indonesians traversing the Cisco UPC, XL Axiata continues to invest in their network and migrate new subscribers onto their new mobile core. With their continued infrastructure innovation they have turned into one of the largest live vPC's in the world.

Recently President Director/CEO of XL, Dian Siswarini stated in her company report: "In 2016, our main focus was improving coverage and quality of our Data network as part of the transformation strategy to build a more Data centric business. In addition, with the completion of our Balance Sheet Management Initiatives and the realization of cost efficiencies, we have built the foundations in 2016 that will lead to a better 2017 performance. It is clear that the 3R (Revamp, Rise, Reinvent ) Strategy is the right one to build a more sustainable and profitable XL."

For Cisco, our partnership with XL Axiata and the almost 80 other Ultra Packet Core Customers, the move to a virtualized mobile core infrastructure keeps us engaged and investing in what our customers want and need. At MWC 2017 Cisco will show our CUPS solution showing the tremendous architectural flexibility to support Mobile Edge Computing (MEC). With CUPS the edge user planes can be deployed at the cell site with benefits that were previously unavailable. We will also be showing our complete Ultra Services Platform with Deployment Automation Services, our Cloud Based Mobile Solution.

So if you are at MWC 2017, stop by and see us at the Cisco Booth 3E30, Hall 3.