Celona expanded its enterprise private wireless platform with 5G-specific updates that the vendor said position it as a viable enterprise alternative in a growing market, particularly against market heavyweight Nokia.

Puneet Shetty, VP of product marketing at Celona, explained the updates add 5G features to the vendor’s legacy 4G LTE-based private network platform. This includes a new 5G access point that supports a deeper pool of spectrum resources; the vendor’s Converged Edge product that provides core and control plane services; and a cloud-based orchestrator that supports remote installation of access points and the edge software.

The access point includes support for spectrum channel bandwidths as wide as 100 megahertz, includes an antenna design to support 2x2 multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) transmissions, and has concurrent multi-mode support for 4G and 5G.

Shetty noted the architecture can support spectrum between the 3.3 GHz and 4.9 GHz bands. This includes the n48 spectrum band that runs from 3.55 GHz to 3.7 GHz, also known as the quasi-licensed Citizen Broadband Radio Spectrum (CBRS) used in the United States; and the n77 spectrum band at 3.7 GHz and the n78 spectrum band at 3.5 GHz that are used in different parts of Europe. He added that Celona later this year would be adding n79 band support in the 4.7 GHz band that is used in parts of Asia.

The Converged Edge product includes a converged 4G LTE and 5G private wireless core developed by Celona that also includes a unified cloud-native 4G/5G data plane and an open radio access network (ORAN)-compliant RAN intelligent controller (RIC) targeted at enterprise use cases. These services are tied to a Kubernetes-based orchestration engine that can manage redundant clusters and service slicing.

The Celona Orchestrator also supports provisioning of Celona SIM cards and eSIMs tied to enterprise access control policies within the network. Celona last year launched a device certification program for SIM and eSIM that included initial certification for devices from vendors like Apple, Google, and Cradlepoint.

This converged system can be purchased directly from Celona and operated by an enterprise or through a management layer delivered through an as-a-service model.

“The ability to take this system and integrate that into an existing enterprise network … the ability to actually plug into the existing security and policy framework, whether it's firewall, whether it's [network access control], and being able to use those to continue driving the [zero-trust network access] or security policies that you want all the way down to the cellular devices, being able to actually deliver this predictable [quality of service] to every single device, every single application using what we call internally MicroSlicing, and also providing that kind of converged operational view to the orchestrator, that allows the ability for the enterprise to do it themselves or a [managed service provider],” Shetty said.

All components of the Celona 5G private wireless system are being offered as a single software-as-a-service license with three- and five-year subscription options. This includes the Celona indoor and outdoor access points, the Spectrum Access System (SAS) license for using CBRS spectrum if needed, the edge software, SIM cards or eSIM, the orchestrator management system, technical support, and hardware warranties.

Pricing begins at $17,000 for a three-year subscription tied to an indoor access point or $57,500 for a three-year subscription tied to an outdoor access point.

Private Wireless Noise, Except for Nokia

Celona’s launch comes amid heightened interest in the private network space. Celona itself has been working with a number of operators and vendors on their respective private network deployments, and was also one of the initial vendor partners to run on Google’s Distributed Cloud Edge system.

Shetty acknowledged that the private network space was “noisy,” but that most of the other players lack the “turnkey, end-to-end solution” that Celona provides.

However, Celona did point to Nokia as being the “800-pound gorilla in the private wireless space.”

“The closest one who probably has all the pieces of the puzzle is Nokia and hence kind of comparing with them makes sense,” Shetty said. “With us going and having products, which are available at a global scale, it is only right that we talk about Nokia and tell customers as to where the similarities really end.”

That end is Celona’s claim to better integration for enterprises compared to Nokia’s broader reach.

“I typically joke that our best customers tend to be customers who have actually tried Nokia in some kind of deployment,” Shetty said. “And then they do understand some of the challenges that they run into when they try to deploy a cellular infrastructure built for the macro network within the enterprise context.”

Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark noted last year that the vendor had signed 30 customers to private wireless contracts during its third fiscal quarter.

“We are building the engagements we need with our partner network to really scale this business for the future,” he said. “All of these points are very important for our longer-term strategy as it’s critical that we build momentum in enterprise to deliver on our longer-term growth ambitions. From what I have seen so far, I’m confident this will remain our fastest-growing customer segment over time.”

Nokia had previously stated it ended 2021 with 420 private wireless customers.