HELSINKI, Finland-Nokia Networks selected ABB, Bovis Lend Lease, MKI and Wireless Facilities Inc. as its main partners for turnkey implementation of third-generation and GSM networks in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Nokia said its partners will help with network planning, site acquisition, construction work, installation and commissioning.
“By combining our strengths with those of our turnkey partners, we will enable faster implementation of new 3G networks and hence faster time to market,” said Christian Kurten, vice president and general manager of engineering services at Nokia Networks. “Since 3G success is about speed, our aim is that Nokia’s resources, project management skills, processes and partners are ready for 3G volume installations today.”
Mobilkom solution
Nokia also developed a business-to-business Internet solution for Austrian mobile operator Mobilkom, allowing electronic business ordering of Nokia products.
In addition to being designed for commercial data transfers, the B2B solution includes the configuration of network elements and automatic payment.
“With this innovative Nokia e-commerce solution we are able to provide a new tool to our employees which will make their work much easier,” said Boris Nemsic, chief executive officer of Mobilkom. “A lot of administrative work can be prevented, the data quality is improved by the high level of automation and the whole order process is reduced to a few hours.”
Cooperative agreement
Nokia last week also reported a marketing and technology integration cooperation agreement with software developer SAS Institute designed to reduce the development time for WAP-enabled business intelligence applications running on Nokia’s WAP Server.
The agreement gives a 30-day free trial of the Nokia WAP Server to customers who have licensed SAS’ AppDev Studio applications development suite. SAS said version 2 of the suite, due out in December, will include the Nokia software development kit, which will allow developers to immediately test their applications on the Nokia WAP Server.
Nokia said it will provide SAS with support and consultation services related to its server for developing packaged WAP-enabled extensions to key SAS business solutions, including fraud detection and balanced scorecard.
In other news, Nokia signed an agreement with Thailand’s Total Access Communications plc to expand and upgrade TAC’s GSM 1800 network.
TAC said the $50 million expansion contract will allow it to introduce WAP-based mobile Internet and high-speed data services.
