Nokia lands African deals for iSIM, AVA software for Egypt smart city

Nokia is celebrating a number of deployments in the African continent with its iSIM Secure Connect technology in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model selected by Airtel Africa, which will support the operator’s digitisation efforts to offer its customers 5G and IoT-based on-demand services, while its AVA software has been selected to support building the smart capital city in Egypt.

The integrated SaaS SIM (iSIM) Secure Connect technology is designed to provide communication service providers (CSPs) and enterprises with the capability to securely manage machine-to-machine and consumer device subscriptions for embedded SIM (eSIM) and iSIM-enabled devices.

Integrated SIM (iSIM) and eSIM are designed to give Airtel the ability to remotely store and manage multiple subscriptions for authenticating users and devices on its network. Nokia has already supported Airtel in deploying iSIM Secure Connect earlier this month in Nigeria. Nokia and Airtel completed a successful pilot project at the end of 2022 and the operator now plans to roll out the solution in 10 other African markets over the next year.

“We are very pleased to expand Airtel and Nokia’s long-standing partnership in this new area,” said Airtel chief technology officer and information officer Razvan Ungureanu. “Nokia iSIM technology gives us new network capabilities, including in the areas of verification and authentication services, while allowing us to offer new network service that our customers are increasingly looking for.”

In Egypt, Nokia’s OSS/BSS software solutions have been selected by Orange and the Administrative Capital for Urban Development (ACUD) company owned by the Egyptian government to deliver a wide range of retail and wholesale services for the New Administrative Capital city.

The new city is located about 60 km outside Cairo with a total area of 725,000 km² and will be home to 6.5 million people in the next 10 years. Based on a smart infrastructure, it is designed to strengthen and diversify the country’s economic potential by creating new places to live, work and visit. Egypt’s New Administrative Capital will allow the users to benefit from an end-to-end online cycle for procuring, activating and payment for utilities, internet and data centre services for enterprise subscribers.

Nokia AVA products, including its operations and monetisation software, will be used by ACUD to enable customers to order, activate and pay for utilities and data centre services. It is intended to have around 2.5 million internet of things (IoT) devices and the largest certified tiered data centre in Africa.

The solution includes Nokia converged charging, mediation and digital operations software. AVA software solution will help ACUD efficiently manage the data centre services to enterprises, IoT services and wholesale connectivity for residential and enterprise users.

Deployment of Nokia’s software solutions is part of the service provider-as-a-partner (SPaaP) collaboration with Orange Egypt and Orange Business Services. The deployment is expected to be completed by the beginning of 2023. Nokia AVA software will provide “intelligence everywhere” to help ACUD deliver new IoT use cases to residential and enterprise users.

“Our vision is to build a smart city for a smarter future in the new capital,” said ACUD chair and managing director Khaled Abbas. “We wanted reliable technology partners to build the city’s digital infrastructure that will have far-reaching and positive impact on our people’s lives. So, our clear choice was the global technology leaders, Orange and Nokia for this mega project.”