Nokia lands $450M 5G contract with Taiwan Mobile

Nokia has won a major 5G deal in Asia, landing an exclusive contract with Taiwan Mobile.

In a deal estimated to be worth €400 million ($449.6 million), Nokia will supply 5G RAN, core and IMS solutions to the Taiwanese operator, which will launch 5G tomorrow.

Nokia says the three-year framework contract involves the deployment of 5G non-standalone with the aim of migrating to standalone by the end of the period. It will also provide digital design and deployment services.

Although Nokia is Taiwan Mobile's incumbent supplier, it is a significant win for the vendor, which two months ago exited the China 5G radio access market after failing to win a share of major China Mobile contracts.

The Taiwan 5G market hasn't yet begun in earnest, but is already heated.

Chunghwa Telecom, which previously had planned to debut on July 1, has brought forward its start date to tomorrow in order to trump Taiwan Mobile. FarEasTone, the other major operator, says it will start service on July 3.

Want to know more about 5G? Check out our dedicated 5G content channel here on Light Reading.

The three market leaders spent $4.1 billion in a hard-fought spectrum auction in February, with Chunghwa and FarEasTone both acquiring 100MHz of 3.5GHz spectrum and Taiwan Mobile 60MHz.

Taiwan Mobile also claimed 200MHz in the 28GHz band.

Taiwan Mobile's president, Jamie Lin, said the two companies would work together on Taiwan Mobile's "Super 5G Strategy," which involves integrating multiple vertical applications, such as e-commerce, healthcare and manufacturing, to build a strong 5G ecosystem.

Related posts:

— Robert Clark, contributing editor, special to Light Reading