- Nokia’s partners in the private network space could be in for a shake-up
- The vendor said in the fall, it would sell off the unit in approximately 12 months
- Competitors will likely push harder into the space
Nokia’s move to mission-critical private networks and the potential sell-off of its Enterprise Campus Edge unit may shake up its partners in the private network space, according to AvidThink principal Roy Chua.
While noting that Nokia will continue to sell their private networking offerings indirectly even if they've moved away from direct enterprise sales, the analyst told Fierce that “given their public stance around their campus assets, if I were a partner, the uncertainty might make me shy away from pushing those specific products and find alternatives.”
The Finnish vendor said late last year that it was putting its Enterprise Campus Unit into its portfolio business, with a view to selling it off in 12 months or so. The motivation being that Nokia will leave the small stuff — individual campus private network deals don’t tend to go beyond single-million dollar mark — to its operator and integrator partners.
While the nordic telco titan focuses itself on mission-critical projects that use macro-grade RAN products and core networks capable of supporting millions of endpoints, rather than the 4G/5G small cell and more minor core deployments that dominate the campus market.
“[Mission-critical] Deals tend to be in multi-million dollar figures, with some of the nationwide public safety broadband networks going beyond $100 million,” SNS Telecom & IT 5G research director Asad Khan has said.
While Chua thinks that Nokia will be fine with its altered approach its move will lead to a new opening for its many rivals in the private network space. “So long as there is an ongoing market need for private networks, and Nokia equipment is part of the solution, their network sales contribution should go up,” the AvidThink analyst said.
“[Nonetheless] I’m sure Ericsson and other players are looking at this as an opportunity to push harder into the market,” Chua noted. Huawei is the largest private network vendor globally, while Nokia is the largest Western vendor, followed in the market by Ericsson, ZTE and Samsung. After the big dogs, a multitude of startups follow in the private arena.