Both Ericsson and Nokia have been huge players in the cellular networking market for many years, and still are. Nothing new. The only thing new is that they are getting even more contracts in the west since governments started boycotting Chinese companies (for good reason).
Sure… it was more that they chose to pull out around the start of the smart phone revolution. It seemed foolish at the time. I’m not actually implying they had a master-plan, just joking around a bit.
The story of Nokia the company is long and meandering. Its roots go back to late 1860’s in the town of Nokia in Southern Finland, near the city of Tampere, from where they’ve gone through all sorts of businesses, including rubber boots and industrial capacitors to name just two. You might even find an old Nokia TV knocking about. The mobile handsets phase was in some sense but a blip in the story, although a spectacular one. I’m sure they’ll keep going in one way or another for a fair while still.
I knew they made other consumer electronics but I had no idea about the boots. That’s a delightfully wholesome origin story :-)
Are they really struggling? I’m sure the margins are much better on carrier grade telecom equipment. I don’t think Huawei is going to mourn the loss, but this is probably a huge deal for Nokia.
Nokia is a proponent of OpenRAN and associated technologies, which are open, vendor-agnostic standards for phone networks backend kit as opposed to the very, very proprietary systems of yore; I’d say on the basis that it should be easier to tell if an OpenRAN box is leaky. Obviously that requires vigilance on the part of the operator so, yeah, fuck knows, but it’s harder for OpenRAN kit to lie.
As an aside, most countries have Lawful Intercept laws. Part of these laws require that the network kit has a standard physical port that gives full, unrestricted and - scarily - unlogged access to everything they handle for use by your government’s intelligence agencies.
Both Ericsson and Nokia have been huge players in the cellular networking market for many years, and still are. Nothing new. The only thing new is that they are getting even more contracts in the west since governments started boycotting Chinese companies (for good reason).
Sure… it was more that they chose to pull out around the start of the smart phone revolution. It seemed foolish at the time. I’m not actually implying they had a master-plan, just joking around a bit.
The story of Nokia the company is long and meandering. Its roots go back to late 1860’s in the town of Nokia in Southern Finland, near the city of Tampere, from where they’ve gone through all sorts of businesses, including rubber boots and industrial capacitors to name just two. You might even find an old Nokia TV knocking about. The mobile handsets phase was in some sense but a blip in the story, although a spectacular one. I’m sure they’ll keep going in one way or another for a fair while still.
Found the Nokia employee.
It does read a bit like something that should be on a bronze plaque somewhere.
And they also made personal computers back in the 1980s.
I knew they made other consumer electronics but I had no idea about the boots. That’s a delightfully wholesome origin story :-)
Are they really struggling? I’m sure the margins are much better on carrier grade telecom equipment. I don’t think Huawei is going to mourn the loss, but this is probably a huge deal for Nokia.
Somewhat amusingly, they still make boots.
Any opinion on the biggest risk?
Nokia is a proponent of OpenRAN and associated technologies, which are open, vendor-agnostic standards for phone networks backend kit as opposed to the very, very proprietary systems of yore; I’d say on the basis that it should be easier to tell if an OpenRAN box is leaky. Obviously that requires vigilance on the part of the operator so, yeah, fuck knows, but it’s harder for OpenRAN kit to lie.
As an aside, most countries have Lawful Intercept laws. Part of these laws require that the network kit has a standard physical port that gives full, unrestricted and - scarily - unlogged access to everything they handle for use by your government’s intelligence agencies.