Nokia providing 5G standalone core for A1 Telekom Group operations in Serbia and Slovenia
A1 Telekom Group has been working with Nokia on 5G deployment in its home market of Austria for some time and now the multi-national operator is working with the infrastructure vendor to rollout 5G in Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovenia. Nokia said today this is a single-vendor deal, including 5G RAN and standalone core, and that “deployment is already underway in some regions with work set to begin imminently on the rest.”
Headquartered in Vienna, A1 Telekom Group provides fixed and mobile communications services, as well as IT systems and services, in Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lichtenstein, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. Across its service area, A1 Telekom Group counts more than 25 million subscribers.
Nokia and A1 Austria entered into a three-year deal back in November 2020 around 4G and 5G private network services and the earlier this year A1 Austria selected Nokia for its 5G core and RAN. The two companies have a longstanding relationship that also covered 3G, 4G and fiber optic networks.
In the latest announced today, Nokia is working with A1 Telekom Group to provide 5G RAN and core products for deployments in Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovenia. In Serbia and Slovenia, Nokia will provide its cloud-native 5G Standalone Core software which underpins the ability to provide virtual network slices.
This will help A1 “driver greater scale and reliability,” according to Nokia, and enable “the flexibility to be responsive to market demands while controlling costs at a time of growing network complexity by streamlining operations.” The vendor called out Industry 4.0 capabilities.
According to A1 Telekom Austria Group Group Director, Technology and Future Services, Alex Kuchar: “As we take steps towards the introduction of 5G in these new markets it is imperative we have the best network infrastructure to offer our customers commercial 5G services that delivers all the technological advantages and benefits of 5G. We are therefore pleased to continue our partnership with Nokia and I looked forward to working collaboratively with them to deploy market-leading digital services on this multi-market project.”
