Nokia introduces IoT connectivity as a managed service

• New connectivity offer for global IoT 
• Pulls together multiple competencies under one 'umbrella' 
• Means players can concentrate on what they're good at 

Nokia says it’s introducing a Worldwide IoT Network Grid. The idea is that Nokia will offer IoT connectivity as a managed service making use of a global collection of connectivity service providers - these are envisaged as mostly  telecoms operators, judging from the Nokia literature - who can federate their IoT access networks to enable global coverage.  Nokia will site its own technology in the middle of the grid to provide a global ‘command centre’ which will use Nokia’s IMPACT IoT platform and through which customers can manage their devices, subscriptions, billing and customer care on a global basis.

The new initiative puts more meat on the bones of Nokia’s strategy to build a software and services business capable of providing solutions to telcos, enterprises and any upcoming business models that might fall somewhere in between.

Nokia describes WING as a one-stop-shop and full service model for organisations (or service providers) looking for connectivity across technologies and geographical borders, addressing especially the early IoT low hanging fruit in the transport, health, utilities and safety markets.

The way the service is architected - it’s design default, if you like - is very much cellular oriented. For example Nokia says that IMPACT subscription management for eSIM will automatically configure connectivity to a communication service provider's network as the asset crosses geographical borders.

WING will also connect access services operating on ‘unlicensed’ spectrum, such as LoRa and presumably even WiFi-originated data.

Nokia is taking a twin track on distribution and partnering. It says it will “offer a full service model including provisioning, operations, security, billing and dedicated enterprise customer services from key operations command centers. The company will use its own IMPACT IoT platform for device management, subscription management and analytics.  

There may be a slight snag here in terms of Nokia’s enterprise offerings competing with the services on offer  from its mobile carrier customers who are to be offered WING white label services.

Nokia says its customers are to be served on a multi-tenanted basis using a Nokia M2M Core that includes the Nokia Cloud Packet Core. That will give them access to their own discrete segment of the network core.

It envisages the federated connectivity coming into play where a national telco needs to chase its customer’s assets across borders and needs equivalent connectivity in the other territory to do it, and points out that the federated carriers, with access networks on the ground, are bound to have ‘spare capacity’ in their own territory so won’t be averse to selling or swapping it with their peers.