Nokia’s Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING) is evolving with 5G and edge capabilities.
The Finnish vendor said the upgrade is aimed at operators that want to offer 5G IoT capabilities without having to invest in global infrastructure.
Operators from around the world can tap into Nokia’s 5G WING lab in Dallas to begin testing 5G IoT use cases. The company said it’s actively working with operators that have a global enterprise customer base, and need to address increasing needs for secure, low-latency IoT use cases across geographical borders.
According to 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.
The distributed WING infrastructure can be enhanced with Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) technology, improving the ability to support compute-intensive IoT services such as AR/VR maintenance and cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) use cases.
In order to realize the full potential of these diverse use cases, network slicing can be introduced via WING’s cloud native architecture, the company said in a press release.
Cost, complexity challenges
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 communication service providers (CSPs), according to Brian Partridge, vice president, Applied Infrastructure & DevOps Channel at 451 Research.
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, Partridge said in a statement.
“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,” he added.
RELATED: Nokia expands WING with 4 vertical packages
Nokia announced WING in 2017 as a way to kick-start the IoT market, giving its traditional service provider customers and enterprises a one-stop-shop for all their IoT needs. Last year, the company announced four packages designed to simplify the setup and operations of enterprise IoT services covering smart agriculture, livestock management, logistics and asset management.