Ligado and Nokia Expand Collaboration into the 4G/LTE and 5G Enterprise Private Networks Market

Mobile communications company Ligado Networks and Nokia today announced a commercial agreement to advance the industry-leading Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) enterprise private wireless networks solution with Ligado's Band 24 nationwide licensed spectrum for deployment in the U.S. market.

Nokia DAC is an application platform providing edge computing capabilities in addition to the private wireless connectivity that makes use of both unlicensed and licensed spectrum to deliver required bandwidth, network availability, and security. Ligado's Band 24 mid-band spectrum is licensed for terrestrial deployment nationwide and supported by a growing roster of network infrastructure including the line of Nokia 4G/LTE and 5G base station equipment.

"We are excited about partnering with Nokia to support 4G and 5G enterprise private networks utilizing Ligado's spectrum," said Ligado Chief Strategy Officer Scott Wiener. "US companies, particularly those operating critical infrastructure and systems, are increasingly implementing mobile private networks to assure reliability and security in their business operations. To serve this rapidly expanding market need, Ligado is advancing commercial efforts to deploy its 35 MHz of spectrum with market leaders like Nokia, including 3GPP standardization and ecosystem development of the company's 1670-1675 MHz band."

"Ligado looks forward to supporting Nokia DAC deployments with commercial availability by end of 2022 of our L-Band FDD spectrum platform to feed the demand for efficient coverage and high bandwidth in mobile private networks. We also anticipate developing additional capabilities with the TDD 1670-1675 MHz band," said Maqbool Aliani, Ligado Chief Technology Officer.

"We look forward to further enhancing the strength and versatility of our enterprise mobile private network infrastructure and Industrial user equipment with Ligado's Band 24 spectrum," said Shkumbin Hamiti, Head of Devices and Spectrum, Nokia Enterprise Solutions. "Nokia DAC will offer superior security and reliability for critical enterprise networks on band 24 for the utility, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, and other key verticals."

Ligado and Nokia expect to commence market engagement with enterprise customers in early 2022.