Cisco and Ericsson formed a partnership in 2015 as a decisive countermeasure to the significant threat posed by the merger of services giant Alcatel-Lucent with equipment vendor Nokia. Through this unique partnership, the two companies also aim to capture the immense revenue potential offered by service providers aggressively modernizing their broadband, TV, and cellular networks to accommodate soaring OTT video consumption and combat new services like Google Fiber and Netflix.