Winging it: Tele2 signs up with Nokia for global IoT services

• Nokia wins telco customer for WING
• Tele2 looking to provide enterprises with global IoT 
• Consultative offering so operators can identify the best vertical markets

Nokia has announced a major telco customer for its worldwide IoT network grid (WING) service announced in September last year. Tele2 is to offer IoT services to its customers via the WING framework under a five year agreement.

WING is designed to allow telcos to compete to win customers looking to develop advanced IoT-style  services in fields such as transport, healthcare, smart city and utilities - the idea is that WING will provide a managed service across a worldwide IoT network for telcos’ enterprise customers.

The network will sport low latency, regulatory compliance, enterprise onboarding of applications and around-the-clock troubleshooting. End customers would be able to implement IoT connectivity for connected cars or connected freight containers around the globe.

Effectively, WING will provide a 'one-stop-shop' for IoT. In addition to the managed service across a global IoT core network, WING offers connectivity management as well as dedicated IoT operations, billing, security and data analytics and an application ecosystem.

The Tele2 agreement includes collaboration and partnership on emerging technologies, such as  5G, plus existing (or nearly existing) narrowband  NB-IoT and LTE-M for more demanding machine-to-machine applications along with SIM management and analytics.

Nokia describes WING as a ‘consultative’ offering for operators: it involves a process to identify the best vertical market opportunities in a region and provide the related IoT applications and a go-to-market model to help operators scale fast.

Once a service is up and running, the managed service model can provide the provisioning, device management, operations, security, customer care and billing for all connected applications.

CEO of Tele2 IoT,  Rami Avidan, says it will help the operator serve its enterprise customers better and differentiate its offering.”