Tour around the @Nokia #5G connected city at #MWC19

| 28/02/2019 | Nokia, Phones | 5 Comments

 

On our last day at Barcelona, we went to see the Nokia itself and check what story they prepared for this year’s edition of the MWC19. Kind people from Nokia booked us a private tour around their connected city exhibition. Actually, all kudos for arrangement of the tour go to Nokia’s Head of Corporate Social Media, Päivi Kalske, also known as the Pink lady of Nokia. We also met Mr. Rajeev Suri who insisted on taking a selfie with us.

Last time I visited Nokia’s networking business was during MWC14 when that division used to be called Nokia Siemens Networks, and then I was astounded with all the infrastructure needed for our phones to make calls and transmit messages. This year I wanted to see what Nokia prepared for our civilization’s transition toward the fourth industrial revolution that 5G networks should make possible.

One large part of Nokia’s huge booth was open for the visitors to check while the rest of the tech was displayed in the tightly controlled area made exclusively for partners and potential customers. This time we didn’t get a chance to see some cool networking hardware, but what we saw at the opened connected city display astounded us again and changed our perspective about networking business. Nokia might exit the mobile phone market, but now they are not just focused on building mere infrastructure for the operators around the world, but are creating an end to end solutions for automation, smart cities, big data analysis, and healthcare.

Our dedicated tour guide was Melissa Aiken, a very kind person, also a Head of Messaging at Nokia and full of understanding for Marin’s poor sense of humor. This year Nokia divided its publicly accessible area into three main parts where it presented in a clear manner its solutions for connected industries, connected cities, and connected consumers. The story was nicely conceived and designed so two bloggers and 15 potential users of Nokia’s solutions could easily follow.

We first checked the Connected Industries where Nokia displayed some of its solutions for raising the efficiency of various manufacturing sites with the help of 5G and clever software. The whole technical story of 5G, low latency, higher speeds falls in the background when you see how it could positively affect our lives. One example was how to easily use a smart tool like a multi-functional drill that will guide the operator to do the job in a correct way. The drill could be instructed with information on the correct tension needed for tightening the screw or could tell you if you forgot about to tighten one. I see a potential use at homes, like fixing some electrical wiring or some easy repairs by using VR glasses, a camera feed and clever software that could guide you through the repair steps.


Then we saw the future of many factories and got the picture of how Nokia’s modern Oulu plant works with machines that don’t need to be connected with computers through wires and can move easily around the factory when needed elsewhere. Also, we saw how private LTE networks can be helpful in connecting various sensors on dairy farms with some clever software to elevate the production of the milk.

 

After that we moved to the connected cities where we saw some super cool stuff like smart protective jackets for miners or workers on different manufacturing sites. The west is equipped with various sensors that could monitor the vital signs of the worker and tell the operator if they are in good health, which is important in the case of any accident. Also, we saw some smart helmets which have sensors for monitoring the brain activity embedded inside to measure the level of stress the worker is experiencing. After that, we were taken into the virtual reality to experience the potential of using 5G and smart data analysis for governing the smart cities of the future. Nokia developed a smart platform where all of the data from various cameras, sensors, mobile phones could be used to control the city. We got an Oculus VR headset and saw how an emergency car would be guided through the city during the storm to pick up a woman in labor. Inside the car, the patient could be connected with its doctor that would monitor her vitals remotely and instruct the ER team if needed.


Then we saw the solutions for public transport, actually, a portfolio of the solutions that would help big cities increase the transit capacity, have reliable transit services like maintenance and other, and that would make transit safer.


We were also demoed how Nuage networks (formerly part of Alcatel Lucent Networks) could help improve the healthcare of various countries. For example, Nokia has a solution that would help hospitals have a better connection over future networks. Nokia’s connection of healthcare institutions and the internet would be rather safe since they can connect servers over optical cable and wirelessly so in a case of cable damage, the network would still work over the air.

At the end of our tour, we went for the current solutions and products Nokia have for consumers. We didn’t try the virtual ping pong, but Stipe played Spider-man Far From Home game that Nokia and Intel developed for the promotion of the movie, but also to demonstrate how 5G could change, or improve gaming industry. The fun part was that Stipe was controlling Spider-man while someone in the real time over at the Intel’s booth was racing against Stipe as a Deadpool. Stipe lost, but you know what they say, it’s not all about winning. Well, this time it was.

Just behind the Spiderman Far From Home setup, we did a short hands-on video and photo shoot of Nokia’s latest WiFiBeacon, AC1200. You probably already saw that, but if you didn’t check it here.

 

We ended the tour by walking around the HMD’s Nokia setup where people could see the latest Nokia phones Nokia 9 Pureview, Nokia 4.2, 3.2, 1 Plus and Nokia 210. There were also Nokia 7.1, Nokia 8.1 and some other models shown to complete the portfolio of Nokia smartphones that came in the past year.
We were impressed by the whole display of Nokia’s end to end solutions that were nicely interpreted so you could easily see where one could apply what Nokia has to offer or even get some other cool ideas.

Well, Nokia did win a few awards for being original and innovative. Nokia’s MEC for #privateLTE has won the Innovative Mobile Service and application Award by #GTI, and also Nokia won the Global Mobile #GLOMO Awards 2019 for #5G #leadership. Nokia also won a few awards for the mobile phones that HMD announced at this years MWC.

Great show Nokia at MWC19 and thank you for introducing us to the magical world of networking.

 


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