Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Teams With Private Cellular Standout Celona For Integrated Networking, Private 5G

Networking provider Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) is teaming up with private wireless provider Celona to extend its LAN and WLAN portfolio to include enterprise-grade 5G, the two companies told CRN.

Connecting people and devices is a big area of focus right now for ALE. The partnership, revealed on Tuesday, will help fill in the connectivity gaps for hard-to-reach or uncarpeted environments, such as manufacturing facilities, refineries, warehouses, and airport areas to support IoT use cases, the companies said.

“This partnership with Celona helps us to expand our connectivity options, because we’re not only able to just do Wi-Fi and wired technology, but also cellular,” said Charles Matthews, senior vice president of strategy for ALE.

It represents a “big offering” for ALE partners too, who have primarily viewed 5G as a telco offering, Matthews said.

“Where Wi-Fi isn’t the right wireless technology, [partners] will be able to include 5G for end-to-end connectivity. Including 5G for enterprises is still relatively new, at least for our partners, and the solution is completely interconnected with Celona, so we think there’s a lot of opportunities for our partners here,” he said.

The combination will integrate ALE’s OmniVista for network management, OmniSwitch portfolio for access, core, data center and industrial LAN and OmniAccess Stellar Wi-Fi 6, 6E and 7 networking portfolios, with Celona’s private 5G technology. Celona’s technology includes Zero Trust Network Access, SIM authentication and the company’s patented MicroSlicing and Aerloc security technologies for application-level SLAs and policy enforcement, the company said.

“As an enterprise company, we’re really excited to work with Celona because they built this for enterprise. They know how to speak the language of our enterprise customers. They know how to connect the network services. You don’t have this split of network services -- one on the 5G side, another one for the traditional Wi-Fi wireless network. This is built with the enterprise in mind and that was really important for us,” Matthews said.

Forging technology partnerships with networking players has been critical to Celona’s strategy since it was founded in 2019. Rajeev Shah, co-founder and CEO of Celona, believes that 5G is complementary to Wi-Fi.

“Private cellular is forcing the issue, because what’s happening is this is now the only realistic wireless technology in some of these very large industrial areas,” said Shah (pictured above). “Realistically, to get comprehensive coverage, cellular is needed.”

Together as partners, Celona and ALE can help partners and their end customers handle IT/OT convergence holistically, he said.

“Private 5G coming up for these large global industrial organizations does require this combination of this agile startup culture that we bring, but also the maturity and scale that ALE brings,” he said. “Quite honestly, I think the channel is going to be the biggest beneficiary.”

The two companies are now offering solutions that have been integration-tested, rather than a resale agreement of Celona’s technology through ALE partners. Throughout the rest of the year, the companies have an extensive integration roadmap planned, Shah added.

While Celona’s technology today is still being managed via the company’s own cloud management platform, the two companies are planning to shift the management of Celona technology into ALE’s OmniVista management tool over time.

“What we are excited about is the end customer and our channel partners are not just getting another siloed product. They’re actually getting a nice, comprehensive solution,” he said.

Enterprise refresh cycles will drive adoption of combined Wi-Fi and private 5G, added Matthews.

“We do see new opportunities as we were expecting in logistics, in particular manufacturing, but also in our core areas of transport, energy and utilities,” he said.

Colombes, France-based ALE, a provider networking and communication offerings, spun off from Alcatel-Lucent in 2014 and brought with it its Omni networking portfolio.