Cisco, which has suffered in recent years from slowdowns in operator spending, is hurling major new platforms at the segment, in a bid to take advantage of 5G-driven capex uptick, and to convince service providers that it really is a born-again software house. As well as the slowdown in network spending in many major markets in the past few years, and the consolidation of operator customers, Cisco has also been threatened by the industry shift from expensive, proprietary hardware solutions to virtualized, software-defined networks running on commodity servers and white box routers and switches. But on the earnings call to announce its fiscal second quarter 2018 results, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins was upbeat about the recovery of the telco sector,…