Analyst(s): Tom Hollingsworth
Publication Date: September 16, 2026
Nokia has opened Mobile Core Early Access to telecommunications providers and enterprises following an initial launch with 30 companies. The hosted environment supports practical software evaluation, with paid options for extended experimentation and integration. The initiative addresses the testing work involved in adoption planning as competing vendors expand their own validation programs.
What Is Covered in This Article:
- How Nokia’s hosted environment addresses the initial work involved in evaluating mobile core software.
- The commercial opportunity for Nokia through broader customer participation and paid experimentation.
- How competing multivendor labs address operators’ integration requirements.
The News: Nokia has opened Mobile Core Early Access globally to telecommunications providers and enterprises after launching with 30 companies in June. The hosted environment combines mobile core network functions, radios, and devices, with updates every two weeks.
Existing and prospective customers can register for guided, time-limited access, subject to approval, with direct interaction available in selected scenarios. A paid model offers extended access, greater flexibility, and integration with participants’ environments through the Nokia Mobile Core Early Access program.
Can Mobile Core Early Access Support Nokia’s Software Growth?
Analyst Take: Nokia is addressing an awkward step in the buying process: customers need practical experience with software to decide whether it warrants further investment, yet establishing an initial testing environment takes work of its own. Mobile Core Early Access gives them somewhere to start, with network functions, radios, and devices already available together. For Nokia, the opportunity is to bring its core software into customer decisions earlier and sell deeper evaluation where customers need it. The tougher competitive question concerns integration, where operators have described taking on work they expected their suppliers to handle.
Operators Can Start With the Software
The immediate benefit of Mobile Core Early Access is that participants can examine selected capabilities before putting together their own initial testing environment. Nokia provides visibility into network functions and the command-line and user interfaces used to operate them, letting technical teams look beyond a feature description to how the software actually works.
For automation, analytics, and network exposure scenarios, this gives participants a practical basis for discussing operational requirements and business relevance with colleagues. Updates every two weeks keep the environment useful as new capabilities become available, although the guided format and limited interaction make it an initial evaluation step. Operators should use that step to decide which capabilities deserve further testing and what testing needs to be established.
Nokia Has Two Commercial Opportunities
Mobile Core Early Access gives Nokia two commercial opportunities: supporting customers toward software adoption and charging for more extensive evaluation. Opening the program to existing and prospective customers broadens access beyond the original 30 companies, while the paid option covers longer experimentation, greater flexibility, and integration with customers’ environments. These are distinct transactions, since a customer can purchase advanced evaluation as part of deciding whether to proceed with deployment.
Nokia’s core software sales grew 1% YoY at constant currency in Q2 FY 2026, making the adoption objective particularly relevant to a business showing modest growth. The commercial test is whether participation develops into paid evaluation and software purchases, which makes customers’ next steps more informative than registration numbers alone.
Integration Gives Rival Labs a Clear Role
Ericsson, HPE, and Red Hat have built their lab around a named combination of Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core, HPE servers, Juniper networking, and Red Hat OpenShift, with testing and feedback preceding planned validation of the integrated offering. That approach addresses an operator’s request for a common cloud platform supporting equipment and applications from different suppliers.
The need is concrete: one operator described having to become its own systems integrator and infrastructure architect when the partner support it expected did not materialize. Nokia’s existing VMware validation work also addresses compatibility, while Mobile Core Early Access offers integration with participants’ environments through its paid model. Buyers should compare the actual integration work included in each engagement, because access to a lab is useful only to the extent that it addresses the configuration and responsibilities they face in deployment.
What to Watch:
- The capabilities customers select for further testing will show where the program connects with actual network requirements.
- Progression into paid evaluation and subsequent software purchases will provide a clearer commercial signal than registration growth alone.
- Nokia’s paid engagements should explain which integrations and technical tasks it handles and which remain with the participant.
- Ericsson, HPE, and Red Hat’s planned validation of their combined stack will give operators another basis for comparing supplier support.
Read the complete announcement about Nokia’s Mobile Core Early Access program
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