Networking News
Nokia Channel Chief To Partners: Private Wireless Is ‘Here And Now’
Gina Narcisi
‘This is not a 2024 or 2025 problem to solve. It’s here and now. We’re winning very large opportunities, significant opportunities with the technology,’ Nokia’s Nathan Stenson tells CRN.

Do you think recent trends, like hybrid work, have driven adoption of private wireless?
It has, and there are other trends that we have in the world at the moment, [for example], the war and the summer we just had in Europe — the reminder of the environment and how people are looking for technology to help address some of these things. Mining — all of a sudden, mining assets have become critically important. Mining is a big use case for us. Private wireless in manufacturing is at an inflection point in our industry and the efficiencies and the automation [it can deliver].
We’ve talked a lot about IT and OT kind of coming together and people are looking for all of the advantages that technology can bring as we go through the tough times, because all of these things that we’ve talked about — war, COVID, the energy crisis — I think a lot of these at the moment are going to make the next year or two probably quite tough and people want to be doing more of what they have. And they want to look to technology to give them all the efficiencies that they can. So yes, why this is [private wireless] such an important technology push? Because it’s hitting a lot of those buttons for sure.