T-Mobile US has recruited Nokia to help it with private 5G and hybrid public-private 5G networks. The pair will develop products for T-Mobile’s new suite of network solutions for enterprise and government customers, which will afford a higher degree of network ownership and control, plus optimised network performance, and sundry edge componentry. The pair claimed they will offer enterprises “real-world results and next-level performance”.
T-Mobile’s new enterprise networking suite, called 5G Advanced Network Solutions, brings it to a level with rival operators on private LTE and 5G for enterprises, and also offers a hybrid solution for public and private LTE and 5G connectivity. Both ways, enterprises can get better performance – scalability, speed, reliability, and usability are the watch-words for T-Mobile – compared to traditional enterprise Wi-Fi networks.
A statement from the pair said: “Current options like Wi-Fi or wired networks come with particular challenges as they have limited coverage, limited capacity, and limited mobility. [The new T-Mobile US/Nokia solution] addresses each of these head on, using Nokia’s… equipment for T-Mobile’s ‘hybrid mobile network’ and [Nokia’s DAC solution] for T-Mobile’s ‘private mobile network’ solution.”
AT&T and Verizon already work variously with Nokia in the US, as well as others including Ericsson, on the supply of private LTE and 5G networks in the CBRS band. Nokia and T-Mobile US collaborated already on 5G tests as part of T-Mobile’s 5G Open Innovation Lab, which brings together tech leaders, industry partners, and startups. Nokia claims 2,200 enterprise customers in the transport, energy, large enterprise, manufacturing, webscale, and public sector segments; it claims 450 large customers for private networks.
Mishka Dehghan, senior vice president of strategy, product, and solutions engineering at T-Mobile Business, said: “Nokia is an established leader in private wireless with extensive experience deploying private networks for enterprise and industry verticals. We have a longstanding partnership with Nokia for our nationwide network, and we are excited to work with it to help enterprises and industry verticals realize the immediate benefits of 5G.”
Ed Cholerton, president of Nokia in North America, said: “We have built our leadership position in private wireless networks by working with our valued partners. This extended partnership will help T-Mobile grow its enterprise customer base across a wide range of industries and enable state-of-the-art digital transformation with a secure and dependable private wireless network based on Nokia DAC technology.”
