Telia and Nokia ink MoU to jointly develop 5G Standalone application

Telia Finland has selected Nokia's 5G Standalone Core SaaS as part of a European Union-funded innovation program to give the operator a fully automated and scalable software model for delivering greater business agility and faster time to value in rolling out and monetizing 5G network services.

Commenting on this partnership, Fran Heeran, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Core Networks, Cloud and Network Services, at Nokia said, "We are delighted to deepen Nokia's partnership with Telia Finland through our innovative telecom SaaS offerings. Nokia offers a complete, cloud-native 5G Core solution which provides Telia with a more agile and customer-centric pathway for operating its network and rapidly delivering new 5G services."

The partnership aims to develop an advanced 5G Standalone Core stack and become the first operator in Finland to open its network to application developers for creating innovative software applications in various industries, including transportation. Telia Finland is utilizing EU funding for the creation of 5G Standalone corridors along highways and seaways as part of the Sirius innovation program.

Additionally, the two companies have entered into a memorandum of understanding, in which Sirius will leverage Nokia's Network as Code platform with a developer portal to facilitate the development of software applications for new enterprise, industrial, and consumer use cases. It also allows the operator to monetize the 5G network in novel ways beyond traditional connectivity, adopting a Software as a Service (SaaS) first model.

Supporting the 5G SA innovation program Sirius, Nokia's platform will provide application developers with tools such as Software Development Kits (SDK) and Network Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), giving access to exposed functionality within the operator's network and enabling developers to build new use cases and capabilities for their customers.

"Network as Code is a strategic focus of Nokia for driving new business models and unlocking all the potential that networks can deliver. We have already done a lot of work with Telia in the realm of telco APIs, so this agreement we are announcing today allows us to accelerate this work and jointly empower developers to create new and enhanced software applications through Telia's network," said Shkumbin Hamiti, Head of Network Monetization Platform, Cloud and Network Services, at Nokia.