The company has deployed private wireless networks for more than 120 customers, including 32 public sector organisations and smart cities.
These include the Ports of Kokkola and Oulu in Finland, Vienna Airport, and projects with Nordic Telecom and cities in the Czech Republic.
Nokia says its LTE/4.9G and 5G wireless networking solutions are helping organisations across energy, transportation, the public sector, manufacturing and logistics to make use of Industry 4.0 technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence.
According to ABI Research, the private wireless networking market opportunity will be worth $16.3 billion by 2025. Karl Bream, Head of Strategy for Nokia’s Enterprise business, said there is a “tremendous appetite and momentum” for private wireless networking.
“LTE/4.9G has proven its ability to provide reliable, secure, high-capacity connectivity,” he said. “And, spectrum availability is opening up with the availability of shared and unlicensed networking options, such as CBRS and MulteFire.”
In May, Nokia’s CTO, Marcus Weldon, was quoted saying that the global market for private networks could equate to as many as 14 million base stations, that is twice as many as the 7 million base stations deployed by the world’s commercial wireless network operators today. At that juncture, the company had deployed 30 private networks.
‘Vendor first’
Dimitris Mavrakis, research director at ABI Research, said Nokia is arguably the first telecom infrastructure vendor that has invested significant research and development in addressing enterprise verticals.
“LTE/4.9G has proven its ability to provide reliable, secure, high-capacity connectivity,” he commented.
“Nokia’s new products, services and ecosystem partnerships remove technology and ecosystem complexity for enterprises currently looking at implementing private cellular networks,” he added.
Nokia is also working with Sendai City in Japan where its technology has facilitated the first test of private wireless connected drones for tsunami evacuation alerts, and California to upgrade the statewide microwave network to support first responder communications.