Nokia unveils 120 Industry 4.0 networking customers

Nokia says it has deployed private wireless networks for more than 120 customers across multiple industries and geographies, helping its enterprise customers take advantage of Industry 4.0 innovation.

Unleashing the potential of Industry 4.0 technologies such as cloud, IoT, AI and machine learning, Nokia’s private LTE/4.9G and 5G wireless networking solutions have established a global marketplace footprint across energy, transportation, public sector, manufacturing and logistics.

Kathrin Buvac, president of Nokia Enterprise, says: “Enterprise customers who invest in Industry 4.0 today will gain a clear competitive advantage over those who choose to wait.

“With spectrum and new technologies that have become available, customers can deploy industrial-grade wireless connectivity to capture the transformational benefits of digitalization and industrial automation.”

Building on this marketplace success, Nokia today also announced an expansion of its leading portfolio of industrial-grade private networking solutions.

In addition, expanding the reach of its solutions portfolio across multiple geographies and industries, Nokia continues to cultivate an ecosystem of world-class partners integrating LTE/4.9G into their Industry 4.0 solutions to enable their customers’ digital transformation.

Buvac says: “ABI Research has quantified the private wireless networking market opportunity at $16.3 billion by 2025.

“Accordingly, we have increased our investments in R&D and human capital to create the most complete private wireless solutions portfolio in the market.

“Our deep industry expertise is reflected in the breadth of our customers, including more than 120 asset-heavy leaders in the sectors of mining, manufacturing, ports, utilities and airports.”

Dimitris Mavrakis, research director at ABI Research, says: “Nokia is arguably the first telecom infrastructure vendor that has invested significant R&D and effort in addressing enterprise verticals, and this announcement illustrates that Nokia is listening to end users.

“Nokia’s new products, services and ecosystem partnerships remove technology and ecosystem complexity for enterprises currently looking at implementing private cellular networks.

“The time is right for Industry 4.0, since many industrial applications and digitalization efforts can benefit today from LTE/4G; in addition, it is a vital step to promote the adoption of cellular technology at enterprise verticals and lay the foundation for future advanced 5G use cases.”

Karl Bream, head of strategy for Nokia’s enterprise business, says: “Right now, there is tremendous appetite and momentum for private wireless networking as we see a ‘coming together’ of key enablers that differentiate our proposition.

“LTE/4.9G has proven its ability to provide reliable, secure, high-capacity connectivity. Spectrum availability is opening up with the availability of shared and unlicensed networking options, such as CBRS and MulteFire.

“Most importantly, Nokia is bringing to market an unparalleled combination of technology, services and partnerships to help customers deploy turnkey solutions that enable the next steps in their digital transformation.”

Nokia’s extensive work with over 120 customers reaches across the globe and addresses the immediate needs of multiple industrial segments including:

• 24 customers in transportation including Port of Kokkola, Port of Oulu and Vienna Airport
• 35 customers in Energy including Minera Las Bambas
• 32 customers in public sector and smart cities including Sendai City and Nordic Telecom/Czech Republic
• 11 customers in manufacturing and logistics including China Unicom/BMW and Ukkoverkot/Konecranes
• 18+ customers across other industries

Nokia’s private 4.9G/LTE and 5G wireless networking portfolio offers ultra-reliable and secure broadband wireless connectivity that delivers near spotless coverage across industrial sites.

The industrial-grade solutions also seamlessly expand the enterprise’s business footprint to support new applications as they embrace the move to Industry 4.0.

The company has also significantly expanded its private wireless ecosystem to include service providers and partners across cloud, systems integration, strategic consulting and industry specialists. All have a key role to play in the widescale adoption of private wireless across industries. Nokia’s extensive list of ecosystem partners includes:

• Communications service providers such as Telefonica Peru, Ukkoverkot and Globalstar and A1
• Cloud providers such as Microsoft
• Industrial partners such as Hitachi Kokusai Electric, Kalmar, part of Cargotec and Komatsu
• Strategic consulting, advisory service providers, and system integrators such as Ernst & Young (EY), DXC Technology, Infosys, Accenture and ATOS

Yousef Khalidi, corporate vice president, Azure Networking, Microsoft, says: “Microsoft Azure recently introduced plans to develop an ecosystem for our Multi-access Edge Compute platform featuring the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud.

“Our intelligent cloud and intelligent edge portfolio of services and tools such as Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Dev Ops, and Azure IoT Edge combined with Nokia’s private wireless leadership gives enterprises a wide variety of robust industrial automation solutions to offer reliable, secure connectivity with superior mobility.”

Greg Cudahy, EY Global TMT leader, says: “Combining EY Smart Factory IP for process and discrete manufacturing with Nokia’s high-quality, low-latency private 5G/LTE network will create a market-leading solution which brings line-level and cross-factory performance to entirely new heights.

“Further adding advanced analytics and intelligent automation to this vastly increased data capture will allow our clients to achieve a level of Overall Equipment Efficiency previously unattainable.”

Kari Järnström, managing director, DXC Technology Finland, says: “DXC is excited to cooperate with Nokia to guide organizations on their digital transformations.

“We see great potential in the synergy between Nokia’s end-to-end solutions for pervasive private LTE connectivity – including emerging 5G networking technology – and DXC’s knowledge and experience integrating digital innovation into mainstream IT in key industry verticals.”

David Kagan, CEO of Globalstar, says: “The Fourth Industrial Revolution has intensified the need for high capacity, low latency and secure connectivity that is easy to deploy in multiple sites, and often across national borders.

“One of the key enablers to make this happen is spectrum for local deployments, combined with a solid automation platform.

“By combining Nokia’s industrial-grade private wireless Digital Automation Cloud platform together with Globalstar’s 3GPP Band 53 spectrum, our companies allow enterprises to deploy intelligent network applications in a dedicated spectrum band.”

George Nazi, senior managing director and global communications and media industry lead, Accenture, says: “Working with Nokia, we will focus on using private network technologies in a secure and efficient way to help companies across all industries and regions on their digital transformation journeys.

“This collaboration builds upon our existing Nokia Accenture Business Group agreement, that helps operators and enterprise users make the leap to digitally-focused networks.”

In July 2019, Nokia’s 5G “factory of the future” in Oulu, Finland was selected by the World Economic Forum as an Advanced 4th Industrial Revolution Lighthouse, demonstrating Nokia’s ability to digitally transform and modernize its customers’ manufacturing facilities for Industry 4.0.

Nokia has further expanded its offer across the entire private wireless solution, from end-points to the applications and everything in between.

It will provide expanded reach and capabilities, increased flexibility and ease of use – each of which are critical requirements for driving the adoption of wireless networking for Industry 4.0.

The features of the technology include:

• Expanded reach with the launch of the industry’s 1st MulteFire industrial devices giving benefits of private wireless without spectrum availability concerns
• CBRS (GAA) readiness with involvement in many Initial Commercial Deployments (ICD) and certification with Spectrum Access System (SAS) solutions partners
• Support for vertical LTE spectrum band including B43 (Germany), B28/38 (France), B31/72 (450MHz) and B53 for Globalstar
• Extended spectrum support for Nokia’s LTE-enabled IP/MPLS field area networking router, with the new Nokia 7705 SAR-Hmc
• 2nd generation enterprise optimized 5G-ready wireless core with expanded capabilities, increased capacity, and concurrent 4.9G/5G operation
• End-to-end private wireless connectivity solution for Microsoft’s Azure IoT platform, allowing rapid deployment of reliable wireless connectivity of IoT use-cases