T-Mobile inks $3.5 billion deal with Nokia over 5G network equipment

T-Mobile starts laying the groundwork for its 5G network.

T-Mobile has announced that it is teaming up with Nokia to deploy its 5G network. The $3.5 billion deal will see Nokia provide T-Mobile with 5G equipment as well as software and services support. T-Mobile's initial 5G push will include 30 cities, with work set to commence this year. The carrier is building its 5G network on 600MHz and 28GHz millimeter wave spectrum comliant with the 3GPP 5G New Radio standard.

From T-Mobile's Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray:

We are all in on 5G. Every dollar we spend is a 5G dollar, and our agreement with Nokia underscores the kind of investment we're making to bring customers a mobile, nationwide 5G network. And together with Sprint, we'll be able to do So. Much. More.

T-Mobile will use a variety of Nokia services to build out its 5G network, including "AirScale radio platforms and cloud-native core, AirFrame hardware, CloudBand software, SON and 5G Acceleration Services."

This is Nokia's largest 5G agreement globally, and comes at a pivotal time for the Finnish giant as it goes up against the likes of Ericsson and Huawei in this space. 5G will drastically reduce latency while providing much more bandwidth, facilitating more mainstream VR and AR use cases.