Westcon-Comstor to distribute Nokia’s drone-in-a-box solution

Westcon-Comstor is expanding its long-standing relationship with Nokia, through which it will drive adoption of the Nokia Drone Networks drone-in-a-box solution by empowering channel partners to capitalise on the growing utilisation of aerial drones and drone technology across multiple industries.

Under the agreement, Westcon-Comstor becomes an approved distributor of Nokia Drone Networks in the EU, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Westcon will distribute the solution through Nokia-certified technology resellers, systems integrators and service providers – creating opportunities for these partners to win new customers and grow their business with existing customers through cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

4G/LTE and 5G connected automated drones can serve numerous use cases from site security, machine inspection, predictive maintenance and environmental sensing, resulting in positive return on investment (ROI) versus conventional methods. This is why the demand for industrial-grade drones is gaining momentum across sectors including ports, oil and gas, mining, public safety, telecommunications and utilities.

According to estimates, the global drone market is anticipated to grow from US $26.3 billion in 2021 to US $54.6 billion by 2030. A plethora of applications exist, including automated drone missions that require efficient data gathering and secure transfer.

Nokia Drone Networks is a CE and FCC-certified turnkey drone-in-a-box solution made for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations, which have the capability of lowering operational costs while boosting value by automating security and inspection workflows.

It connects over public and private 4.9G/LTE and 5G networks, ensuring the highest reliability for users, while an open API framework allows integration of third-party applications for extensive customisation of the solution to expand use cases and capabilities.

“Drones are a technology of the future, with strong and growing demand across public safety, smart cities, construction, energy and more,” said Antony Byford, Vice President of IoT & Collaboration at Westcon-Comstor. “We are excited and honoured to be building on our strategic relationship with Nokia by bringing its market-leading drone-in-a-box solution to a wider audience of end-user businesses through our channel partners in multiple geographic territories.”

“The use of industrial drones as well as global spectrum policies to use drones within 4G and 5G networks is growing. This development accelerates the introduction of Nokia’s European made 5G drone-in-a-box system for private and public 4G/LTE and 5G networks,” said Pri Rawal, Global Head of Enterprise Campus Edge Partnerships at Nokia. “To satisfy the rapidly growing demand, we truly appreciate Westcon-Comstor joining as a Nokia Drone Networks distributor in Europe, Oceania and Asia. This important milestone will help our nationwide deployment projects as well as providing worker safety and productivity in crucial industries such as mining and oil and gas.”