Finnish telecommunications company Nokia on Monday announced a global go-to-market partnership with digital business and IT services company NTT DATA to drive private 5G transformation in key sectors such as airports and smart cities.

The partnership addresses the growing need and demand for reliable and modern connectivity solutions for critical business and municipal operations and is already showing success with key customers, according to the company.

The first North American deployment is an enterprise-ready, carrier-grade Private 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) for the city of Brownsville, Texas, marking a major milestone for the partnership, Nokia said.

Brownsville leverages Nokia’s industry-leading 5G radio access portfolio and NTT DATA’s globally available Private 5G Network-as-a-Service (P5G) platform, delivering a comprehensive, turnkey solution that goes beyond connectivity and exceptionally reliable, high bandwidth and low latency delivers wireless capabilities for their mission-critical environments, the report said.

The private 5G infrastructure supports the city’s immediate needs for seamless connectivity to manage and operate applications for greater public safety, operational efficiency and sustainability, and provides flexibility and scalability for future demand and use cases, Nokia said.

It will also position Brownsville as a leader in smart city innovation in North America, it added.