One day ahead of the Mobile World Congress, Nokia held its traditional press and analyst event where CEO and President Rajeev Suri gave a detailed presentation with the aim of explaining how Nokia sees 5G development over the next few years and why it is well positioned as that happens.
“5G is here now. As 2019 progresses, more and more devices will be available in the market, standards will get locked down, chipsets will be more readily available, spectrum will be released, infrastructure deployment will move along”, Rajeev Suri said.
“The whole 5G ecosystem will stabilize and that is a big deal. After all, it is a technology that people assumed will arrive in 2020 with real volumes only after that. It has been a mad rush and at times it feels a bit like the wheels might come off the industry wagon, but the wheels have stayed on and as the year progresses, things will feel less rickety. 2019 will end with considerable momentum both for the market and for Nokia, which means that we expect that 2020 will be a year of growth.”
Nokia CEO emphasized that the vendor is now a world leader in 5G, with the industry's only end-to-end portfolio that is available in all markets around the world.
“We are remarkably well-positioned with more than 20 5G contracts, and almost 100 5G engagements with customers in every region of the world. We also believe that there will be a virtuous circle of investment as networks are upgraded to meet the demands of 5G and Nokia has the right portfolio at the right time to meet that need.”
During his presentation, Rajeev Suri made several important announcements regarding partnerships with operators and the launch of industry-first products that will drive the industry forward in the 5G era.
The newest product launched at the event was the new FastMile 5G Gateway that allows operators upgrading their LTE network to capture new Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) revenue and accelerate 5G rollouts. Nokia's FastMile 5G Gateway uses the same sub-6GHz 5G that operators will use to upgrade their LTE grid, providing broader coverage of FWA and enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) services.
Expected to grow by approximately 50 percent from 18.5 million to approximately 27.5 million households by 2022, FWA technologies are increasingly being used by operators to open new business opportunities and monetize new services. 5G will play a critical part in the delivery of new broadband access services and is anticipated to become 16 percent of all FWA technology deployed by 2022.
To help operators capitalize on this growing market segment, Nokia's FastMile 5G solution delivers a single, indoor device that is easy to deploy and can connect wirelessly to the mobile network.
- The gateway brings gigabit speeds to homes using 3GPP compliant 5G New Radio (NR)
- With carrier aggregation, the gateway improves performance and reliability by using the best 4G and 5G signals available
- The plug-and-play solution is simple to install and uses a visual guide to help customers identify the right location in the home that will achieve the best performance
- Compatibility with Nokia's in-home WiFi solution ensures a seamless ultra-broadband experience is achieved in every corner of the home
- The FastMile 5G Gateway maximizes spectral assets and uses the industry's highest gain (11dBi) antenna to deliver up to twice the indoor coverage, three times the downlink capacity and five times the uplink capacity compared to traditional designs.
Nokia CEO concluded his presentation with predictions about 5G. The first prediction is that security will be a top priority for enterprise customers because many enterprises will rely on operators’ networks for mission-critical functions. “Resilience will be a must and without security, there will is no resilience.”
5G will also be a source of revenue for operators. A study conducted by Nokia Bell Labs showed that the enterprise market opportunity for operators will expand from around $500bn today to $1trillion by 2028, which is mainly linked to the growth in IoT revenues.
Productivity will highly increase with the advent of 5G and that will really help make the world a better place, according to Rajeev Suri.
Nokia CEO and president concluded by confirming that 6G is still very far away. “We need to fully tap the power of 5G first.”
