Nokia unveils Smart Node for premium 5G mobile indoor coverage

With the new world of work blurring the borders between the office and home environment, and use cases and applications evolving accordingly, Nokia has rolled out a “unique indoor mobile module solution” delivering high-quality 4G and 5G coverage for residential as well as small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) use.

Nokia Smart Node is designed to be deployed readily in a number of environments, supporting current 4G infrastructures and 5G networks when required, in both non-stand-alone and stand-alone mode through a software upgrade.

It adds to the Nokia femtocell range and extended the firm’s small cells portfolio which covers all use cases for both indoor and outdoor use.

Nokia Smart Node is available from the fourth quarter of 2021, by which time 5G roll out in major economies should be significantly more extensive than at present. The dedicated indoor mobile solution can be scaled from single to multiple units to meet various indoor coverage requirements.

The firm said that its coverage, latency and reliability will deliver ubiquitous 5G connectivity for specific use cases and that its plug and play capabilities make it easy to set up, keeping installation costs to a minimum.

The node supports traffic management by reducing core network load and optimising macro resource allocation. It delivers uncongested high network performance with existing secure authentication and is said to provide a secure connection and SIM-based authentication to assure the quality required in mobile networks.

“Nokia’s SmartNode femtocells are a great addition to an operators’ toolbox as it extends 5G services indoors for residential/SOHO settings,” said Kyung Mun, principal analyst at Mobile Experts, commenting on the launch.

“Its modular design allows an operator to add 4G/5G coverage and capacity where needed. Consumers expect ubiquitous coverage and the SmartNode femtocells are a highly effective solution for completing 5G coverage in homes and small offices.” 

As it was making the SmartNode launch, Nokia also revealed that it had been selected to provide technical, maintenance and management services for Germany’s Federal Agency for Public Safety Digital Radio (BDBOS) public safety digital radio network.

Over an initial four-year contract, Nokia will support mission-critical communications infrastructure across German national, federal and local public protection and disaster relief (PPDR) agencies.

By delivering a range of managed infrastructure services, Nokia said that it would ensure the highest levels of network availability. With responsibility for system upgrades at base station sites, Nokia will support a network-wide IP migration programme that will involve more than 8,000 technical modifications.

By delivering this service, Nokia will help to migrate Digitalfunk BOS network from Tetra TDM to an IP-based platform. This, it said, will simplify system architecture, increase flexibility and facilitate integration with associated communications systems.