Ready when you are: Nokia prepared to migrate customers to 5G

TBR perspective

At Nokia’s (NYSE: NOK) 2018 Analyst Conference, held in Tokyo in August, the company emphasized that its end-to-end portfolio, supported by a robust R&D program, is ready and able to take its customers into the 5G era. The vendor also stressed that 5G is much more than just a radio upgrade and that realizing the full potential of 5G requires a fundamental change to the architecture of the network.

Given how much disruption is facing the telecom industry, it was refreshing to see that Nokia is being proactive in aligning with where the market is trying to go, even if that means disrupting itself. Though a part of the company will remain focused on servicing the legacy platforms of the past, the other part of the company will focus on realizing the future. Given that most operators are stuck in between both worlds as well, it is fitting that Nokia will be able to support the migrations of its customers toward the network of the future.

Event overview

Nokia hosted a select group of industry analysts in a two-part event. The first part of the event was a two-day workshop about the company’s global Fixed Networks business, and the second part of the event was a two-day Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) regional update to deep dive on specific trends occurring in those markets.

In addition to the usual market overview, strategy and portfolio updates, Nokia hosted several customers at the event, namely Infracapital, KDDI, NTT DOCOMO, SoftBank and Marubeni, to discuss their own businesses and share how Nokia is helping them achieve their goals. A representative from Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications was also present to provide an overview of Japan’s telecom industry and how policy is shaping that country as it transitions into the 5G era.

Hosting the event in Japan was pertinent and timely given the country’s history as an early technology adopter and its upcoming adoption of 5G. With the 2020 Summer Olympics less than two years away, Japan will showcase for the world cutting-edge use cases of telecom networks leveraging 5G technology. The country also symbolizes the monumental changes occurring in the telecom industry, namely that domestic operators are challenged to evolve into digital service providers to better compete against digital-native competitors in their home market, such as Rakuten, as well as realize new business models from the 5G era to grow.