Optus picks Nokia for Industrial NB-IoT

  • September 30, 2020
  • William Payne

Australian telecoms provider Optus has selected Nokia’s IoT platform to provide narrow band IoT (NB-IoT) services to industries throughout Australia, including the country’s mining industry.

Optus will use Nokia’s IoT Device Management Platform (DMP) to provide device management and data collection capabilities to its customers.

Both companies have agreed on a joint go-to-market strategy to bring IoT solutions to optus customers across multiple industry segments in Australia.

Anticipated industry applications include supply chain optimisation, logistics management and scene analytics for improved safety and security.   

Nokia and Optus will also work together to help create smart cities.

Australia’s IoT market is estimated to grow to USD 25 billion by 2024, up from USD 7.9 billion in 2018, indicating the potential opportunity for Optus and Nokia.  

The alliance builds on Nokia’s long standing relationship with Optus. The two companies launched Australia’s first 5G commercial services in early 2019, making Optus the first operator to deploy Nokia’s FastMile 5G indoor gateway in a live network. Nokia and Optus also launched a 5G Fixed Wireless Access service using the 5G New Radio standard.  

Deon Liebenberg, Vice President of Product Innovation, Optus Business, said: “Our strategic alliance with Nokia will standardise and streamline IoT devices under one platform and unlock powerful productivity capabilities to fuel Australia’s digital transformation and its smart cities and smart spaces of the future. By collaborating with global technology leaders like Nokia, we’re able to offer Optus customers more value and choice on how they manage their devices and networks. The combined power of Optus’ premium IoT network with Nokia’s state-of-the-art IoT platform, will deliver customers the flexibility to consume this innovative, carrier-agnostic solution as software as a service, platform as a service, or connectivity as a service.”

Anna Wills, head of Oceania at Nokia, said: “By working with Optus, Nokia can bring to bear its pan-industry experience across these asset-intensive industries. We will enable Optus to expand its offering in these markets,helping its customers to leverage the efficiency and productivity potential of IoT. We believe this agreement with Optus will help more companies build greater resilience into their operations.”