The big splash includes Cisco's first IEEE 802.11n access points for outdoor service provider networks, extensions to its recently announced Videoscape architecture and mechanisms for its access switches to optimize networks for certain types of mobile traffic.

Carriers need the kinds of tools that Cisco is unveiling, even though they are already deploying their fastest cellular networks yet, said analyst Daryl Schoolar of Current Analysis. LTE (Long-Term Evolution) and other new systems represent a leap ahead of 3G platforms in terms of capacity and speed, but consumers congregating in popular locations and using multimedia applications will still tax the network, he said.

"No matter how much operators spend on networks ... there's still limited capacity," Schoolar said. Wi-Fi will continue to play a big role in mobile operator networks and carriers will want to tune their infrastructure to best deal with growing traffic, he said.

"Operators can't constantly be (asking) 'How much capacity can I throw at it,' they have to learn also how to manage the capacity that they have," Schoolar said.

In a recently published forecast, , when it would make up two-thirds of all mobile data. Cisco doesn't make cellular radio networks, but it provides wired systems and the network management that sits behind the cellular infrastructure, as well as the Wi-Fi networks that some carriers use to offload data from the main wireless network.