Nokia announces vertically-focused IoT packages

Built of its WING architecture, Nokia’s new IoT as-a-service offerings target IoT’s most convincing use cases

Ahead of the Mobile World Congress, Nokia has launched a raft of off-the-shelf IoT packages serving use cases in livestock management, logistics, agriculture and asset management.

The as-a-service offerings are built off of the Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING) architecture debuted by the veteran operator at MWC 2017. WING is designed as a plug-and-play IoT infrastructure for enterprises that takes care of connectivity management, billing and customer support.

Ultimately Nokia claims, it will speed up your time to market and simplify the set-up and operations of IoT services. You outsource the expertise, so you don’t have to worry about the connectivity complexities and effort of working with multiple service providers globally.

Internet of WINGS

The verticals Nokia has targeted (a combination of farming and supply chain) are – in IoT terms – the headline use cases. By simply focusing on these verticals Nokia is opting for a streamlined, refined approach to IoT as-a-service that makes sense.

With smart agriculture as-a-service, sensors capture environmental, soil and crop data that is then analyzed to instruct farmers to manage crops more effectively, reducing unnecessary use of water, pesticides and fertilizers.

Livestock management-as-a-service tracks devices and biosensors monitor animal health and welfare to provide ranchers with early alerts if abnormalities are detected, with the goal of protecting livestock and improving yields.

Logistics as-a-service uses IoT sensors to enable tracking of the global movement and condition of goods through the supply chain to help enterprises instantly identify incidents and predict future events to optimise delivery and logistics efficiency.

Finally, asset management-as-a-Service connects products globally so that their status and performance can be monitored centrally, helping enterprises provide improved business and customer services.

Nokia is currently trialling agriculture as-a-service with an African operator and working with a services and consulting firm on asset Management-as-a-service to help them offer more advanced features.

Brian Partridge, VP at 451 Research, said Nokia’s verticalised IoT packages were the ‘logical next step’ for its WING platform.

“We believe that this approach benefits Nokia’s WING telecom customers and the enterprises they serve in addition to vertical application partners who can benefit from the WING’s market scale and go-to-market channels,” he said.