What Cisco BroadWorks Is
Cisco BroadWorks is a carrier-grade cloud calling and collaboration platform designed specifically for service providers to host and deliver business communications services to their customers. Unlike Cisco’s direct-to-enterprise Webex Calling product, BroadWorks is the infrastructure that service providers (telecoms operators, ITSPs) run in their own environments to offer branded hosted PBX, SIP trunking, and UC services. The platform supports over 26 million business users worldwide and is hosted by more than 450 Cisco service provider partners across 80+ countries.
How BroadWorks Differs from Webex Calling
The distinction matters for resellers. Webex Calling is Cisco’s direct cloud UC offering — businesses subscribe to Cisco’s cloud service. BroadWorks, by contrast, is the platform that service providers licence from Cisco to build their own hosted communications business. The service provider owns the customer relationship, sets pricing, and manages the service, using BroadWorks as the underlying telephony engine. Many SA-based hosted PBX and voice providers operate on BroadWorks infrastructure without their customers necessarily knowing Cisco’s platform is underneath.
Webex Integration
Cisco has been progressively integrating Webex capabilities into the BroadWorks platform. Service providers can now combine Webex collaboration features — meetings, messaging, AI-powered tools via Webex AI Companion — with BroadWorks calling. This allows operators to offer their BroadWorks customers the Webex App as a soft client, adding modern collaboration capabilities to what was traditionally a calling-focused platform. The integration enables service providers to compete more effectively against direct-to-customer platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
Service Provider Strategy
Cisco has publicly stated that BroadWorks remains a pivotal component of its solutions portfolio and a key part of its growth strategy. This is relevant context because the telecommunications industry has seen uncertainty around legacy platforms being deprecated in favour of pure cloud offerings. Cisco’s commitment to BroadWorks provides assurance for the service providers who have built their businesses on the platform and, by extension, for the resellers who sell those providers’ services.
Why SA Resellers Should Know About BroadWorks
Several South African service providers run their hosted PBX and cloud voice services on Cisco BroadWorks infrastructure. For SA resellers selling hosted voice or cloud PBX services through these providers, understanding BroadWorks helps explain what sits behind the service they are reselling — including its carrier-grade reliability, scalability, and the Webex integration that is progressively adding collaboration features.
For larger SA service providers or telcos considering building their own hosted UC platform, BroadWorks represents the enterprise-grade option from Cisco — a proven platform with a massive global installed base, though it comes with the licensing and infrastructure investment that carrier-grade platforms require. The ongoing Webex integration means that BroadWorks-based services are becoming more competitive against Teams and Zoom in terms of collaboration features, not just calling.
About the Author
Mechelle Gindra
Mechelle Gindra is the managing editor and lead content strategist at Telecoms-Channel, South Africa's dedicated intelligence platform for telecoms resellers, ICT distributors, and channel partners. She oversees the editorial team's AI-assisted content production pipeline, ensuring vendor news, market analysis, and regulatory updates are accurate, timely, and actionable for the SA telecoms channel community. With deep expertise in the South African telecoms reseller ecosystem, Mechelle directs coverage of vendor partner programmes, ICASA regulatory developments, wholesale market dynamics, and channel business strategy. She is responsible for maintaining Telecoms-Channel's editorial standards, fact-checking processes, and corrections policy.
