Nokia announced that Japanese carrier KDDI has selected the vendor’s 5G Core and Converged Charging software to support its transition to a cloud-native 5G Core architecture.
In a release, Nokia explained that following the evolution of KDDI’s networks to 5G Standalone core, subscribers will experience lower latency, increased bandwidth and higher capacity.
Nokia’s 5G Core will also automate the lifecycle management of KDDI’s networks, as well as enable continuous software delivery and integration, the vendor added.
As part of the agreement, the Finnish vendor will also deploy 5G monetization and data management software solutions including cloud-native Converged Charging, Signaling, Policy Controller, Mediation and Registers to enable the Japanese operator to generate new 5G revenue opportunities.
With these monetization solutions, Nokia said, KDDI will be able to monetize new opportunities within the 5G economy, including 5G network slicing and network as a service offering, IoT and new business models for B2B2X services.
Other products in the deal include Nokia’s Digital Operations software, Cloud Operations Manager, NetAct network management system and Archive Cloud to automate the backup and storage of network data.
Tatsuo Sato, vice president and managing officer of technology planning at KDDI, said: “The deployment of Nokia’s solutions marks a key milestone in the evolution of our 5G architecture. The evolution of our 5G architecture will enable us to fully automate and provide better services to our customers.”
“With crucial monetization and operations functions, such as network slicing, KDDI will unlock key revenue opportunities and benefit from increased operational efficiencies as well,” said John Lancaster-Lennox, head of the Japan market unit at Nokia.
Nokia recently announced that it is conducting a 5G Standalone (SA) network trial with Chubu Telecommunications (ctc), a subsidiary of KDDI in Japan.
For the trial, Nokia is supplying its latest AirScale product portfolio and Compact Mobility Unit (CMU) to support both 5G indoor and outdoor connectivity. The trial will utilize a local 5G network which is independent of a traditional mobile network and use the sub-6GHz (n79) 4.6-4.9 spectrum band for enhanced capacity.
For the trial, Nokia’s 5G SA core has been installed at a ctc lab, and 5G base stations were installed at another ctc lab and at an apartment complex in Nagoya City.
During the trial, the Japanese telco will examine the construction and operational processes of installing a 5G core and 5G base station and verify the application of local 5G including the radio wave propagation characteristics and communication performance in a live environment. The trial will also explore how businesses can utilize the local 5G network to improve the efficiency of solutions such as remote monitoring, video transmission, and image analysis.
The Finnish vendor said it had already reached 204 commercial 5G deals with individual customers. Nokia also said that a total of 72 5G networks are already live using the company’s products and solutions.
In Japan, Nokia already signed 5G deals with KDDI, SoftBank and NTT Docomo.
