Espoo, Finland – Nokia today announced that Japanese operator KDDI has selected Nokia’s 5G Core and Converged Charging software to support its transition to a fully automated, cloud-native 5G Core architecture.

Nokia’s cloud-native 5G Core’s near zero-touch automation capabilities help operators drive greater scale and reliability. Following the evolution of KDDI’s networks to 5G standalone core, subscribers will experience lower latency, increased bandwidth and higher capacity.

Nokia’s open 5G Core architecture gives KDDI the flexibility to be responsive to market demands while controlling costs by streamlining operations and unlocking crucial capabilities, such as network slicing. Developed around DevOps principles, Nokia’s 5G Core will automate the lifecycle management of KDDI’s networks, as well as enable continuous software delivery and integration.

Nokia will also deploy 5G monetization and data management software solutions including cloud-native Converged Charging, Signaling, Policy Controller, Mediation and Registers to capture new 5G revenue opportunities, enhance business velocity and agility, and streamline the operator’s network operations.

With Nokia's monetization solutions, KDDI will be able to monetize new opportunities within the 5G economy. This includes 5G network slicing and network as a service offering, IoT and new business models for B2B2X services through a containerized, microservices-based solution that enables services-based integrations with new 5G network functions meeting standards requirements for 5G convergent charging systems.

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. Solutions will be deployed across Nokia cloud infrastructure, a cloud-native solution that integrates multi-vendor and multi-technology environments.

Tatsuo Sato, Vice President and Managing Officer, Technology Planning, 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. We are pleased to be continuing our strong relationship with Nokia.”

John Lancaster-Lennox, Head of Market Unit Japan at Nokia, said: “We look forward to expanding our 25-year relationship with KDDI with the deployment of our standalone 5G Core solutions. With crucial monetization and operations functions, such as network slicing, KDDI will unlock key revenue opportunities and benefit from increased operational efficiencies as well.”