Nokia has appointed US real-estate comms specialist Andorix to sell its private 5G and neutral host solutions to commercial, retail, and residential properties in the US. The move is representative of where the private 5G market is going, in mid-2025 in the US – crossing over with neutral host solutions, and making home in carpeted office buildings and suchlike. Where the market, especially for Nokia, has focused in the first instance on hard-floor industrial environments, for several years, the broader ecosystem has been pushing into less hard-nosed enterprise spaces as private 4G and 5G systems have become simpler, cheaper, and better understood.
The rising trend for neutral host systems, either as an alternative or a gateway for private cellular networks, is also a factor – which Nokia’s arch rival Ericsson and new rival Celona have pushed hard, and which operator partners like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are pursuing with some interest. Andorix calls itself a neutral host network provider and smart building systems integrator. It will also sell Nokia’s operational technology (OT) applications, notably for space monitoring, energy management, and building automation, plus other health-and-safety capabilities – which sit in its MXIE edge server setup, and run over its Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) network system.
The deal covers the United States and Canada.
Andorix will design and deploy “scalable in-building converged networks within real estate environments”, using Nokia’s products and services. VR and IoT solutions are part of the bargain; the target is to solve “common issues like unreliable connectivity and stronger security needs”. It will also manage these projects for customers. It is targeting commercial, retail, residential, and industrial buildings. Nokia claims to have deployed private wireless networks of various sorts for 890 customers globally; about a quarter (24 percent) of these customers are in North America.
Willie Kopp, head of enterprise campus edge sales for Nokia in North America, said: “Private 5G networks are transforming how enterprises operate, and in-building connectivity is a critical piece of that puzzle.”
Wayne Kim, founding partner and chief executive at Andorix, said: “With our track record of modernizing in-building network infrastructure across major commercial real estate properties, this partnership will solve some of the challenges faced by the real estate sector in terms of inconsistent connectivity, support for massive IoT deployments within complex or high-value built environments, growing security demands and enabling immersive technologies like VR and indoor navigation.”
