Nokia's new optical and IP/MPLS transport networks will provide significantly greater bandwidth to the utilities sector and its subscribers, improving efficiency. They will support a new generation of IP-based applications that will play a key role in everything from IoT-based asset management to the management of distributed energy resources, such as rooftop solar and residential energy storage.

The services supported by Nokia's network include substation communications, low-latency communication of IoT sensor data for metering, protection, and control, and time synchronization of devices. The network will also support operational control systems such as SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and line protection, as well as synchrophasors (PMUs – phasor measurement units), which are a key application for enabling highly accurate and dynamic analysis of the state of an electrical system. This is an important capability in smart and distributed energy networks, especially with intermittent energy sources such as renewables.

The core and aggregation networks will be based on Nokia's IP/MPLS portfolio. The optical transport network, replacing a legacy SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) system, will utilize Nokia's DWDM portfolio, offering ample room for growth with capacities up to 100 Gb/s. Network operations will be supported by Nokia's Network Services Platform (NSP), providing integrated, efficient, and reliable management capabilities coordinated across all network layers. The transport of all current and future services will be deployed over this new IP/MPLS network, including the most demanding services in terms of synchronization, latency, and criticality, such as Current Differential Protection.