Nokia has expanded its industrial-grade private wireless solutions with Wi-Fi to provide more connectivity options for industrial users. The Nokia DAC Wi-Fi solution is designed to offer greater flexibility for industries connecting assets.

The new solution unites Wi-Fi 6, 6E for connecting non-business critical use cases and private 4.9G/LTE and 5G to support critical Industry 4.0 applications. It leverages MX Industrial Edge for Wi-Fi management and authentication while Nokia MX Boost will allow companies to merge 3GPP and Wi-Fi connectivity to enhance connectivity performance.

Nokia DAC Wi-Fi is designed to allow organisations to tap into license-free spectrum to augment their private networks and support non-business-critical Operational Technology (OT) workflows, such as deskless workforce instructions and non-critical connections used to access machine maintenance data.

The new solution provides a single cloud-based operations and management interface for all connectivity technologies, and allows users to add plug and play private wireless 4.9G/LTE and 5G for real-time reliable connectivity, or boost capacity with Wifi6 for other connectivity needs.

The Nokia DAC Wi-Fi connectivity solution will be offered with indoor and ruggedised outdoor access point variants supporting Wi-Fi 6 and 6E, as well as Wi-Fi management and Authentication, Authorisation and Accounting (AAA) functionality. Nokia DAC Wi-Fi comes with a disruptive as-a-service subscription model in which the Access Points will be offered free of charge.

Michele Mackenzie, Principal Analyst, Analysys Mason, said: “Private wireless is likely to dominate OT critical connectivity needs over time, but Wi-Fi is likely to remain part of the connectivity mix used in industrial plants for a long time to come. The recent evolution to Wi-Fi 6 and 6E, that helps makes Wi-Fi more deterministic, also makes it more suitable for less critical high bandwidth OT applications. The addition of Wi-Fi to Nokia’s private wireless and MX industrial edge solutions is a natural evolution that allows Nokia to offer enterprises a single platform that unifies Wi-Fi and 5G connectivity for the enterprises’ future Industry 4.0 needs.”

Stephan Litjens, Vice President of Enterprise solutions for Nokia, said: “By introducing the Nokia DAC Wi-Fi connectivity solution to our portfolio, we broaden our support for connecting machines, sensors and people to accelerate our clients’ Industry 4.0 journey. Moreover, with all data flowing into our MX Industrial Edge, we also make it easier for application developers and system integrators to create intelligent solutions as they can process that data in real-time on our open compute platform. With Nokia DAC Wi-Fi, we place connectivity choice firmly in the hands of our customers and offer a solution that best meets their digital transformation needs today and tomorrow.”