MWC, Barcelona: System integrator Kyndryl has announced a deal with HPE-owned private 5G specialist Athonet to “jointly develop and deliver” LTE and 5G services to enterprise customers globally. The deal extends Kyndryl’s existing deal with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) for its Aruba portfolio of Wi-Fi 6 solutions. The New York firm has also launched a multi-IMSI SIM service to provide roaming between private and public cellular networks.
Kyndryl said the deal with HPE gives it the ability to integrate private 5G and Wi-Fi networks for enterprise customers. Until now, Kyndryl has only worked with Nokia on private 5G solutions. It said it is targeting enterprise campuses, industrial locations, and public venues such as train stations and airports – very much the types of locations it is working with Nokia to cover with private cellular infrastructure.
It flagged its own Kyndryl Bridge product, billed as an “open-integration technology services platform”, for enterprises to manage and automate their edge network infrastructure. Kyndryl is a certified HPE GreenLake partner; it was named HPE’s global SI ‘Momentum’ partner of the year last year. The two companies jointly support customers across various industries, including healthcare, fashion, beauty, financial services, telecoms providers, and transportation.
The new unified SIM product, for global inter-public/private 5G roaming, means Kyndryl has an offer for IoT tracking in and out of industrial sites – as NTT, say, has via IoT MVNO Transatel. Kyndryl said the service covers public cellular in 150 countries via deals with national mobile operators in the markets, and offers “dynamic” switching between private and public LTE/5G for “optimal connectivity performance and cost management”.
It stated: “For enterprises that rely on private LTE/5G to manage mission-critical infrastructure, Kyndryl’s unified SIM will provide security-rich, reliable private IP network access to integral services and applications, including IoT devices, machinery tracking, and automated digital procedures on mobile devices outside of the manufacturing plants… [It] will automatically switch between private and public wireless networks in the event of network failure.”
Speaking of the tie-up with HPE, Paul Savill, the firm’s global practice leader for network and edge compute, commented: “The newly added private LTE/5G service to our joint capabilities will enable to us to capture new markets and customers, doing what we do best together to help large, global enterprises modernise, innovate, and secure their businesses.”
David Stark, vice president and general manager for telco solutions at HPE, said: “Kyndryl is ideally positioned to deliver… Athonet’s open architecture solutions – [which] can work with any radio and any edge-to-cloud environment – to customers who need demanding and robust private 5G solutions rather than less flexible closed-box solutions. Itl is also well equipped to bring our Wi-Fi and private 5G solutions together seamlessly [as] a single fabric of wireless connectivity.”
Savill said of the new roaming SIM proposition: “Kyndryl’s unified SIM expands the plethora of benefits from private networks beyond the manufacturing floor to mobile devices and employees on the go… [It] provides greater flexibility and security capabilities with enhanced coverage to the networking services managed by Kyndryl today.”
