Nokia, LG Uplus trial 5G business-to-business platform in Korea

Nokia has revealed that it is to conduct a 5G business-to-business (B2B) digital platform trial for Korean operator LG Uplus.

Once deployed, the platform will allow LG Uplus to reduce time-to-market for launching 5G-powered services to its enterprise and business vertical customers and will enable the operator to address new business segments, including Industry 4.0 and the smart factory, says Nokia. After deployment, the system will promote the use of 5G by enterprises and verticals to grow their business, aligning with the Korean government’s Digital New Deal initiative.

The proof-of-concept test of the 5G B2B digital platform is in two phases, the first of which began in February. The first phase involves a demonstration in the Nokia Lab, while the second phase, with a field trial, is planned in the LG Uplus Regional Operation Centre in KyungNam.  

Nokia’s solution is based on multi-domain technology and ensures full automation and near real-time delivery of services. It includes a service platform powered by Nokia’s digital operations software, cloud operations manager, network exposure function, registers, cloud packet core, software-defined networking and gNB (5G version of eNodeB), across Nokia’s cloud platform.

LG Uplus will use the platform to create cost-efficiency and automate the design and deployment of 5G network slices for the delivery of new services. Also, LG Uplus’ enterprise customers will be able to take advantage of 5G capabilities to enhance their business and operational efficiency, leading to overall economic gain.

The service will also attempt to give LG Uplus customers the flexibility to directly control and manage the platform to meet their needs and help LG Uplus offer newer use cases, such as smart factory and smart harbour, with 5G wireless connectivity and associated services such as network slicing.

“We are committed to providing best-in-class and innovative services to our customers and this trial is a crucial step in this direction,” said Jaeyong Seo, vice-president of the smart infrastructure business unit at LG Uplus. “Once deployed, Nokia’s 5G B2B digital platform will help us expand our enterprise business by allowing us to provide new use cases rapidly. Nokia is our trusted partner and we look forward to working with them on this important trial.”

Kevin Ahn, head of Korea at Nokia, added: ​“We are excited to conduct this pathbreaking trial for LG Uplus to enable its enterprise customers to improve business processes with 5G. Nokia’s 5G B2B digital platform will allow LG Uplus to transform its B2B service creation with agility and automation and delight its enterprise customers with new use cases and operational excellence.”

The trial is the latest in the business relationship between Nokia and LG Uplus. In March 2020, the Finnish company won a contract with LG Uplus to help it launch 5G services more quickly while providing subscribers with higher speed and what was claimed to be unprecedented quality, reliability and security.

The deployment was specifically designed for 5G cloud architectures, for which Nokia deployed its modular and programmable Network Service Platform to help LG Uplus automate network operations and ease integration with Nokia FP4-based IP routers and multiple supplier platforms to accelerate the roll-out of 5G services.