Nokia has announced that it’s augmenting its Worldwide Internet of Things Network Grid (WING) with new 5G capabilities. This new managed service will allow cellular carriers to offer their customers global-scale 5G IoT services, without the need to build their own networks.
Opening up IoT
Nokia WING is essentially allows operators to enter the world of IoT and meet the requirements of the emerging 5G use cases without a big investment in capital and time involved with building an IoT network and developing new services. Using WING as a global IoT infrastructure, operators will be able to sell access on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Nokia says WING is architected from the ground up to meet the unprecedented demands on latency, the volume and velocity of data and security that comes with the IoT. Using the managed service, operators will be able to break into industries such as connected cars, critical public services, real-time industrial monitoring and control and remote healthcare.
5G WING lab
To help operators make the IoT transition, Nokia has opened a 5G WING lab in Dallas, Texas. Operators around the globe can connect to the lab and begin testing 5G IoT use cases.
As part of the 5G introduction, Nokia WING allows the user plane functions to be separated and extended to the far network edge or to enterprise premises, ensuring ultra-low latency.
Additionally, this distributed WING infrastructure can be enhanced with Multi-Access Edge Computing technology, improving the ability to support compute-intensive IoT services such as AR/VR maintenance, and cellular vehicle-to-everything use cases. WING’s cloud native architecture allows network slicing to be introduced to realise the full potential of these diverse use cases.
Monetising opportunities
“increasing needs for secure, low-latency IoT use cases across geographical borders.”
Ankur Bhan, Nokia.
“The innovative Nokia WING infrastructure offers superior IoT service experience through global network presence, unified orchestration and consistent service level agreements to operators’ enterprise customers. We have now upgraded WING’s global architecture to 5G to further help operators to monetise IoT opportunities faster and cost-effectively in the 5G era. We are actively working with operators, who have a global enterprise customer base and need to address their increasing needs for secure, low-latency IoT use cases across geographical borders,” said Ankur Bhan, Head of Nokia WING Business at Nokia.
De-risking 5G investment
Brian Partridge, Vice President, Applied Infrastructure & DevOps Channel at 451 Research, said: “5G holds great promise but the cost and complexity of building a dedicated, global 5G infrastructure to support IoT services is a major obstacle for CSPs. The features and performance of 5G can help digitally transform industries like transportation, healthcare, and manufacturing over the next several years and CSPs are eager to establish new value chain positions in these markets. We expect such managed services that demonstrate success in accelerating the ‘time-to-value’ or de-risking 5G investment for both enterprises and CSPs will generate strong demand.”
Nokia WING is available now – this is a sevice we expect to see many operators use.
"Our work with Nokia WING will help clear away the complexity of large-scale IoT adoption so that our customers can unlock the potential of IoT worldwide," said Chris Penrose, President, IoT Solutions at AT&T. "Boosted by Nokia’s globally deployed ‘one-stop shop’ network technology, we can be more nimble and responsive to our customers’ needs."
