The future of Enterprise
Industry 4.0 Acceleration with 5G Standalone
We all have heard about 5G's momentum, with a plethora of applications and benefits for consumers, and unbounded benefits to the global economy.
The momentum for the industrial world, however, is much deeper and disruptive. Take for example the current environment, where resilient supply chains and agile operations have kept the world economy afloat. The industrial world, is therefore, in a pivotal moment in history as heavy-asset industries, governments and enterprise businesses accelerate their digital transformation journey – all powered by 5G networks and services. In other words, Industry 4.0 is accelerating today with the next phase of 5G innovation and unlimited opportunities ahead.
At Nokia, we are extremely proud to lead in this next phase as the prime mover in the development of the industrial 5G ecosystem. Today, we launched the world's first commercially available 5G standalone (SA) private wireless solutions for the industrial world.
To be clear, we are not launching a test-kit or a trial. We are launching a ‘direct to 5G’ entry point for high-spec industrial use case validation, which will push the 5G ecosystem and leapfrog enterprises into the future with industrial applications such as robotics, mixed reality platforms, digital automation of operations, and 4K video.
Why standalone?
A key driver for this acceleration has been the development of standards. For the first time in the history of cellular technology, leading standards' bodies have designed the next network generation, 5G and beyond, with industrial use cases in mind.
The keyword is "standalone."
5G networks in non-standalone (NSA) mode, add 5G new radios (NR) to a 4.9G/LTE core infrastructure. This gives enterprises the benefit of higher speeds for numerous applications.
5G SA, on the other hand, requires deploying the complete 5G infrastructure, which includes the 5G NR and the 5G core, allowing you to get the full benefits of the 5G architecture, including higher speeds and key capabilities such as ultra-low latency for critical machine communications and support for massive IoT. Furthermore, with 5G SA enterprises would only need one spectrum band, as it does not rely on any 4.9G/LTE capabilities.
Who's in?
Industrial first movers have already made early investments in 4.9G private wireless networks, including Nokia's 180+ private wireless enterprise customers, across industries such as transportation, energy, manufacturing and logistics, governments, and cities.
However, the ever-changing business environment has created new demands and pain points as enterprises need to become more resilient and agile across their global operations. These require more sophisticated and demanding use cases such as automotive manufacturing, where cloud, robotics, and autonomous machine operations require 5G capabilities – fast speed, ultra-low latency, and multiple simultaneous connections via Massive MIMO. The technology fabric that underpins connectivity must communicate openly and operate holistically across the organization and the ecosystem.
We bring the best of both worlds. We are offering customers the choice to start with 4.9G/LTE, which can cover 85% of existing use cases, then evolve to 5G as the ecosystem matures. Alternatively, they can go directly to 5G.
Most of our customers are making the leap to achieve reliable, consistent, predictable performance. We are working on 30 private 5G commercial engagements to make this a reality including first movers such as Lufthansa Technik, Deutsche Bahn, and Toyota Production Engineering, which are already embarking on their 5G journey.
When do we get started?
We begin deployment now.
As stated earlier, some enterprises will continue deploying 4.9G today while some will use 5G SA to trial use cases. Others will migrate to full operations once the ecosystem has matured. Countries where 4G/LTE private spectrum is not available, enterprises will transition to 5G right away.
Device suppliers, ecosystem players and OEMs, such as Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology, announced today they will be deploying Nokia’s Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) 5G SA solution in a real-life mining environment, where Sandvik tests, develops and prototypes mining solutions for its customers in Tampere, Finland. Sandvik is a long-term partner of Nokia and makes autonomous mining technology such as the large ore haulers used around the world today by some of the world’s most advanced underground mines.
Bottom line, given our innovation leadership, Nokia's technology can be easily upgraded to 5G, as needed.
What's next?
We are a world-leading supplier of industrial-grade private wireless solutions for our industrial partners and customers around the globe. They trust us to help them embark on their digital transformation journey with 5G to build and operationalize more agile and resilient business infrastructure and services, particularly with the current environment's critical needs.
Today's announcement of our 5G SA industrial-grade private wireless solution is a monumental step forward towards the development of a strong 5G industrial ecosystem, giving enterprises the ability to immediately accelerate their digital agenda.
Whether enterprises have deployed Nokia 4.9G/LTE private wireless or are ready to go direct 5G, we have solutions for enterprises across industries and geographies to help them evolve their network and support their Industry 4.0 vision.
At Nokia, we are 5G ready. How about you?
Share your thoughts on this topic by joining the LinkedIn and Twitter discussion with @nokia or @nokiaindustries using #5G #PrivateWireless #industry40
Head of Customer Interactions Suite Tata Communications - CEO at Kaleyra Group - Connecting enterprises with their own customers - Board Member & Advisory Board member
4 年Raghav, congratulation for launching the first available?5G SA private wireless network. Major milestone. One important aspect of the private networks is about monetisation of these 5G private networks. The old model of fixed price is not relevant anymore and we will see more complex ecosystems. where the users of these private networks will not be the owner of networks themselves. One practical example comes with shared smart factory. The owner of the factory and the related private network can be different from the user of the factory that can change every day. In our experience whatever will be the model it will be important to be able to collect every kind of usage of any enterprise services. That aspect is typically underestimated but it is essential to be able to make the business profitable and to be able to create enterprise ecosystems. Any thoughts?