Nokia wins exclusive Taiwan Mobile 5G gig

Nokia’s rally continued this week, with the news that Nokia will be the sole 5G RAN, core and IMS vendor partner for Taiwan Mobile.

The two companies already have a working relationship, so this announcement doesn’t come out of the blue, but it’s still pretty timely. Nokia’s struggles with 5G are well documented and they have been a contributing factor to it apparently losing ground to rival Ericsson in terms of 5G deal wins. So any confirmation that it continues to be viewed as a viable 5G kit vendor must be welcome.

“We are pleased to join forces with Nokia again in the 5G era,” said Jamie Lin, President at Taiwan Mobile. “After the successful launch of 5G, both sides will continue to advance deployment and provide the best coverage and connectivity experiences in the market.

“More importantly, the two companies will work together to promote our ‘Super 5G Strategy,’ which integrates multiple vertical applications including smart e-commerce, smart stadium, smart healthcare and smart manufacturing. This approach is designed to build a thriving ecosystem that will create new possibilities for every user and enterprise in the 5G era.”

It must be especially gratifying for Nokia to have landed an end-to-end deal like this, since being able to offer the full monty of networking solutions is one of its major USPs and the main rationale for the Alcatel-Lucent acquisition. Depending on how the whole thing goes, Nokia should be able to use its Taiwan Mobile work as a 5G shop window in future.