Nokia appeared to debunk dreary Dell’Oro Group figures, announcing a packet core deal with Telefonica a day after the research company revealed the sector was struggling for traction.
The Telefonica deal involves packet core equipment to enable the operator to serve its domestic enterprise sector. Nokia stated low-latency services are key to the arrangement, including drone control, robotics, industrial services and smart metering.
Nokia is supplying Telefonica with its Cloud Mobile Gateway and Mediation products on a telecoms-specific cloud it stated would provide more efficient management and routing of enterprise user traffic.
It noted the equipment would cover low-latency services on 4G and 5G networks.
The vendor added it had 123 standalone (SA) 5G core network customers at end-2024.
Nokia revealed the Telefonica deal as Dell’Oro reported the overall mobile core network market contracted in Q4 2024. This followed three years in which research director Dave Bolan said the segment had struggled.
The company stated figures in 2024 were either flat or in negative territory.
It noted signalling and wireless packet core revenue was down, though policy, subscriber data management and IMS numbers grew.
Bolan said Dell’Oro is “cautiously optimistic” about the overall core market’s potential for this year, due to an expectation of a year-on-year rise in SA 5G networks launches and higher rates of subscriber migration.
He also noted a rise in IMS core implementations and VoNR networks as a driver of potential growth in voice infrastructure.