A significant cooperation has been announced between Telia Company and Nokia Oyj to deploy a cloud-native 5G Standalone (SA) core network across Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia and Lithuania. The agreement covers the full core domain and supports automation, scalability and new digital services across the combined footprint of these countries.
This deployment forms part of a strategy shift from legacy architectures (which relied on non-standalone 5G or LTE anchor) to a dedicated 5G SA architecture. Under this design, the core network functions such as session management, user plane, policy control and subscription data management all operate in a virtualised, cloud-native environment. The cloud-native core supports microservices, containerisation, horizontal scaling and multi-cloud operations. So, now let us look into Joint 5G Standalone Core Deployment in the Nordic & Baltic Region along with Reliable LTE RF drive test tools in telecom & RF drive test software in telecom and Reliable 5g tester, 5G test equipment, 5g network tester tools in detail.
Core Architecture and Deployment Scope
The new 5G SA core will allow Telia to remove dependency on older LTE infrastructures, simplify network operations and enable advanced features such as network slicing, edge computing, and real-time automation. Based on the press release by Nokia and Telia, this core network will be deployed across the five countries mentioned, making use of Nokia’s cloud-native platform.
In Finland specifically, the deal also includes Nokia’s Radio Access Network (RAN) portfolio to upgrade capacity and coverage. The RAN upgrade complements the core network by ensuring low latency and consistent service quality from radio to core.
The cloud-native architecture brings a number of technical advantages:
- Dynamic scaling of network functions: when demand rises (for example enterprise services or public sector use-cases), new instances can spin up automatically.
- Reduced operational complexity: legacy core systems often require manual configuration, whereas a microservices-based core supports orchestration and lifecycle management.
- Multi-region support: deploying one architecture that spans multiple countries simplifies maintenance, upgrades and services standardized across markets.
- Support for new business models: with 5G SA, operators can create enterprise-grade services (e.g., private networks, IoT, automation) and manage them with the same core infrastructure.
Technical Considerations
Deploying across multiple countries brings several technical and regulatory requirements. For example:
- The functions such as the User Plane Function (UPF), Session Management Function (SMF), Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) must be designed for cross-domain interoperability, so that mobility across national borders remains seamless.
- Ensuring low latency requires strategic placement of edge nodes and transport links (fibre or high-bandwidth microwave) so that user traffic can be served locally when needed.
- The cloud-native core needs robust orchestration, containerised network functions and automation to handle the load, updates and fault management in all regions.
- The RAN upgrade in Finland emphasises reducing energy consumption while boosting capacity, a clear engineering trade-off between performance and power usage.
Operational Impact
Once the new core is live, operators in these countries will be able to roll-out new 5G services more rapidly and manage them centrally. For example:
- Enterprises requiring private or splash-out networks will be able to obtain dedicated slices from the same core rather than separate infrastructure per country.
- Public-sector deployments (for example critical communications, e-health or smart grid) will benefit from consistent support, latency guarantees and unified service assurance.
- Consumer services such as high-speed mobile broadband and fixed wireless access will see better latency, higher throughput and more reliable mobility across national borders.
From a cost-perspective, using one cloud-native platform for multiple markets can lead to lower total cost of ownership (TCO). It avoids replicating backend systems per country and allows centralised team support and operations.
Challenges Ahead
Despite the benefits, there are engineering and business hurdles:
- Legacy network functions must be phased out or integrated. This requires version management, migration plans and fallback mechanisms in case the new core introduces unexpected behaviour.
- Device compatibility across markets: handsets must support the specific spectrum bands and network features enabled by each country’s deployment. Without aligned device support, full utilisation of the new core may be delayed.
- Inter-country regulation: each country has its own telecom regulation, spectrum licensing, data sovereignty and privacy laws. Ensuring the core functions comply with all jurisdictions is a key requirement.
- Operational readiness: cloud-native cores require new operational skills—network engineers need training in containerised systems, orchestration, software-defined networking and automated fault management.
Timeline and Outlook
The agreement signals that Telia expects to operate the new core in the near term and gradually phase out older architectures. With the five countries covered, network performance and service roll-out will scale across the Nordic & Baltic region.
In summary, this cross-border deployment of a cloud-native 5G SA core marks a significant step for mobility operators in the region. The move aligns infrastructure architecture with new service demands, flexibility and market efficiency. With technical planning, regulatory coordination and operational transformation in place, the architecture will support scalability, automation and advanced use-cases across multiple countries.
About RantCell
RantCell is a software-based RF testing tool designed for telecom engineers and enterprises to perform mobile network performance measurements across 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G networks. The platform supports automated data collection, remote monitoring, and report generation via a centralized dashboard. Also read similar articles from here.