Nokia wins 10% share of China Unicom’s 5G core

Nokia has been awarded an approximately 10% share of China Unicom’s 5G core network.

The Nokia Cloud core products that China Unicom selected provide Unified Data Management, Session Management and User Plane functions, and are complemented by Data Refinery and NetAct, all deployed on Nokia’s CloudBand.

Unified Data Management, a critical function with the arrival of 5G and the evolution to cloud architecture, manages all subscriber data and services efficiently and cost effectively. The Session Management Function is a fundamental element of the 5G Service Based Architecture, primarily responsible for interacting with the decoupled User Plane Function as well as subscriber session management. The User Plane Function delivers the packet processing foundation for the Service Based Architecture, by allowing packet processing and traffic aggregation to be performed closer to the network edge, thereby increasing bandwidth efficiencies while reducing costs.

The deal also includes products from Nokia’s Cloud Packet Core portfolio, including the Nokia Cloud Mobile Gateway. The product provides the 5G standalone Session Management Function and User Plane Function, in addition to supporting the 4G Serving Gateway and the Packet Data Network Gateway in China Unicom’s network.

“Nokia is very proud to expand our working relationship with China Unicom beyond 4G. We are looking forward to close collaboration with China Unicom on novel business models and 5G service innovation to enable an open 5G ecosystem,” stated Markus Borchert, President of Nokia Greater China.

Nokia noted that it currently has a 17% market share in China Unicom’s rapidly expanding VoLTE network, where it has deployed Nokia’s cloud-based vIMS platform.