Private networking specialist Celona has it in for Nokia. Some way through a pre-brief about its MWC news – about expanding beyond LTE to support 5G in the US, and beyond the US to support a range of 5G bands in global markets – RCR Wireless finds itself scratching its head, and asking what sounds like a crazy question: is there anything, in your opinion, that Nokia has in the credit column against Celona?
It is crazy because Nokia is, arguably, the market leader in private cellular, with a longer history, deeper experience, and clearer strategy than most others – and because Celona, a US-based startup / scaleup founded less than four years ago, has just claimed it is better than the Finnish firm on every score. Its argument is, something like, that it offers a flexible ‘end-to-end’ IT-native cloud networking architecture which is designed from scratch for enterprises.
Rajeev Shah, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, remarks: “We are still a software company, primarily; but we have our own [RAN] hardware, and we believe in that tight integration of both. That single purpose-built software stack, from the lowest layers of the radio all the way to the core, management, orchestration, and security – built for enterprise – is the key thing. That is what differentiates us.
Nokia, by contrast, has shrunk-down its old macro-sized gear, originally geared for one-speed public infrastructure; this is the main charge, anyway. “Nokia has essentially taken its big telco product and brought it into the enterprise,” says Shah. Actually, but for what looks like good PR bravado, Nokia comes off quite well, even very well; Ericsson is not even in the picture, he suggests. “Ericsson, today, does not have an end-to-end Nokia-style NDAC solution.”
It is notable, perhaps, that Nokia is the reference, here, even for Celona-style end-to-end systems. And even worse, most of the rest of the market comprises a mish-mash of suppliers that are forced into “Frankenstein” cut-and-shut jobs to deliver total solutions for enterprises. “There are a whole bunch of Frankenstein products which take the radio from one player and the core from another, and are stitched together by a systems integrator,” he says.
There is a lot to unpick and a lot to infer (and a lot we can’t write). And Shah’s point against Nokia is, actually, that it is the one for the rest of the market to chase. “It has a way bigger [sales] footprint in the field, and a field engineering toolkit we don’t have. It has the brand, as well, of course, and relationships with operators around the world that it can leverage for a sales channel and other technical services parts,” he says, in response to that (‘crazy’) question.
The answer to which works to ground its bombastic strategy. Shah adds: “Nokia has a lot of stuff a company of that scale has, against a company like ours. But on an architectural level, we are very confident we have the best solution.” It sounds like a more reasonable line, maybe – which has been bolstered also, historically, by Celona’s big go-to-market deals with NTT, also an investor in the firm, and Verizon in the US.
Celona has taken encouragement, it would seem, by its run-ins with Nokia on major Industry 4.0 bids in the US. “The market has clarified into a Nokia and Celona game,” says Shah. “A year back, we saw those other [Frankenstein] combinations one in three times, maybe one in four times, in conversation with enterprises. But we barely see them now.” Nokia, for the record, reckons it only comes across Ericsson consistently in RFQs/RFPs in global markets.
He suggests that – as Industry 4.0 gets real, and goes to work – enterprises want to source total systems from single vendors, and not to have to contend with disjointed supplier responsibility. Which leaves Nokia and Celona as the only contenders, offering incumbent and challenger private-5G systems, he reckons – with Cisco surely set to join them at some point, he suggests. “Cisco will show up eventually in some form or other.”
He says: “When you start to put this into business-critical and mission-critical production workloads, you want the security of a single vendor – which you can call when you need support, or a new feature. Which is what is missing from these combination solutions. And that is shaking out as the world goes from testing and understanding to real production workloads.” All of which – the big talk and scene setting – tees-up the firm’s debut in non-US markets.
Its MWC news, timed for release before the Barcelona bun-fight, to cut-through the big-telco noise, presents a new portfolio of indoor and outdoor radios to run 5G in private spectrum in most markets – not just in the CBRS band (N48), at 3.55-3.7 GHz, in the US. The Celona system now also works in the N77 and N78 bands, between 3.2 GHz and 4.2 GHz, widely liberated for enterprise usage in Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and Latin America.
The N79 band (between 4.4 Ghz and 5 GHz), covering Japan and Asia, will be accessible in the second half of the year, says Shah. He comments: “It covers about 80 percent of the addressable market; 20 percent still comprises all sorts of bands from refarming old spectrum and so on, which we won’t ever play in… But we now have eight to 10 products to serve customers anywhere in the world, and become really the only true enterprise alternative to Nokia.”
The other point of the MWC news from Celona is its new 5G NR support (via a multi-mode 4G/5G access point and converged 4G/5G core) in the N48 / CBRS band in the US, where it has until now sold LTE-based private cellular systems. “We are expanding our market presence, our portfolio, taking Nokia head on,” sums-up Shah. He says the impetus has come from its enterprise customers in the US, as well as its own growth ambitions.
He explains: “This has been in the works for 18 months. But given current geopolitical circumstances, [it is important because] a lot of countries outside the US have become manufacturing destinations. There is a list of 10 to 15 of them that are really important for manufacturing. Plus, the private spectrum that has opened up in countries like Germany and the UK is 5G-only. So a combination of those things really drove us to these products.”
There has been a tactical shift, as well, which has seen Celona come more in line with Nokia’s approach to harder-nosed Industry 4.0. Shah says: “Two years back, we doubled or tripled our verticals [targets] – to go to hospitals, universities, office spaces. But the market has gained focus in the last 12 months, around these pain points where Wi-Fi really doesn’t work – which is in these large outdoor spaces and heavy-metal radio environments.
“That is where the pain is, and where industrial-grade solutions are required. That is where the requests are coming from. A bunch of digitization that we take for granted in carpeted offices hasn’t happened in these other uncarpeted industrial settings – on manufacturing floors and warehouses and large yards. And the main reason is a lack of reliable wireless connectivity. So that is what’s driving demand.”
Lots more to write, but the MWC rush has already started; more of Shah’s insights and reflections will appear in RCR Wireless over the next weeks and months.
