AT&T and Cisco are expanding their decade-long partnership on IoT to make Cisco’s IoT Control Center available to enterprises.

The IoT management platform, which is largely the result of Cisco’s $1.4 billion acquisition of Jasper in 2016, gained some new features earlier this year including machine learning and tighter integration between service providers and vendors.

A revitalization of AT&T and Cisco’s work together on IoT is being positioned as the AT&T Control Center powered by Cisco. The IoT managed services platform taps into Cisco’s ability to provide near real-time visibility of all devices on an enterprise’s network. 

Cisco’s platform also employs machine learning to identify anomalies and resolve problems before they impact IoT services. This allows service providers to alert customers of errant or otherwise unused devices, and implement greater control over an enterprise’s IoT footprint, according to the vendor.

AT&T and Cisco claim to manage “millions of connected devices” in multiple industries, including manufacturing, utilities, transportation, government, retail, and health care. The companies also work together in providing IoT managed services for public safety and emergency responders on AT&T’s FirstNet. 

The operator and vendor are now working to expand their IoT partnership to deliver new services in low-power WAN and 5G. Those efforts include services that help enterprises manage IoT security risks and traffic classification reporting to improve and simplify billing, according to AT&T.

“We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Cisco with a new multi-year agreement,” Robert Boyanovsky, VP of IoT and mobility at AT&T Business, said in a statement. 

AT&T also said it has been working with Cisco for more than a decade to manage IoT services for U.S.-based enterprises through its AT&T Global SIM service, which provides IoT connectivity in more than 200 countries and territories. 

Cisco has been bolstering its IoT business on multiple paths this year. The vendor earlier this year announced plans to acquire Fluidmesh Networks, a wireless backhaul vendor, to improve its managed IoT service platform for mass transit, industrial IoT, ports, mines, and factories.

Mobile network operators consistently position 5G as an accelerant for IoT, but the market has been a long time coming, inching along for at least 15 years. With the arrival of 5G, operators are determined to finally bring IoT out of the shadows. 

Juniper Research early this year concluded that IoT delivered by 5G is poised to drive $8 billion in revenue for operators by 2024, representing a 1,424% increase from the $525 million IoT was projected to contribute to operator revenue this year. 

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has stunted IoT’s growth trajectory. The repeatedly delayed insurgence of IoT will have to wait as the global crisis crushes many of the industries that could benefit from increased connectivity, ABI Research analysts said in April 2020, just one month after the World Health Organization designated the virus as a global pandemic.