Nokia Eases IoT Market Entry For Mobile Operators

• Nokia expands worldwide IoT network grid (WING) with IoT market entry services
• Introduces Nokia TestHub for solution validation and testing services to accelerate commercial launches

Nokia is expanding its Internet of Things (IoT) services offering to help mobile operators enter new IoT market segments or expand their footprint geographically. In addition, the company has complemented its end-to-end validation and testing services with Nokia TestHub, designed to accelerate new technology launches, for example in IoT and the cloud.

WING market entry services is a consultative offering for operators that identifies the best vertical market opportunities in a region, and provides the related IoT applications and go-to-market model to help operators scale fast to take advantage of the rapidly growing IoT market. It determines opportunities in nine IoT market segments: connected car, healthcare, logistics and transport, smart cities, utilities, agriculture, retail, smart homes and buildings, as well as connected industry. Once a service is up and running, the Nokia WING managed service model can provide provisioning, device management, operations, security, customer care and billing for all connected applications. WING market entry services' hands-on approach of designing the right proposition and go-to-market strategy ensures operators can capture new revenue streams in IoT.

Besides market entry services under the WING solution, Nokia is expanding its capabilities in multivendor testing services with Nokia TestHub to help operators to test their solutions and devices extensively across domains and technologies before roll-out. Validation testing of solutions and services both in the lab and in the field is essential to accelerating not only commercial IoT launches, but also cloud and eventually 5G launches. Nokia is therefore introducing this new service, which complements device, network, and application testing. Automation in testing is critical to keeping pace with accelerating service launches, and frees up critical resources in a DevOps environment. As part of the Nokia TestHub, Nokia will provide "Lab as a Service", which gives customers early access to state-of-the-art infrastructure and expertise from Nokia for self-testing of devices, network elements, applications and services.

Friedrich Trawoeger, head of Managed Services at Nokia, said: "IoT deployments are complex, but with our help operators will be able to fast-track their entry into the market as we provide them not only with a ready-to-go-market and business model, but also with a pre-integrated IoT infrastructure, complete service model and go-to-market support services. With our testing services we can ensure smooth launches for our customers, which are critical to maintaining great experience for their customers."