Nokia struck a partnership with Swisscom’s broadcasting business to deploy its drone solutions for emergency response and industrial use cases, with the service covering the whole of Switzerland.

In a statement, Nokia explained it readied 300 units of “Drone-in-a-Box” to support the country’s “public safety and Industry 4.0 efforts”, pointing to applications in public safety monitoring, infrastructure inspections and emergency response.

The RAN vendor explained public safety agencies can easily connect to a nationwide drone network by requesting a drone flight from Swisscom Broadcast, noting the drones are able to “gather relevant information within the first minutes following an emergency”.

Nokia and Swisscom Broadcast also plan to deploy drones to inspect tall or hard-to-reach infrastructure, eliminating the need for construction workers to climb buildings.

Nokia stated its drone networks platform integrates the drone, a docking station, a ground control station, a payload with cameras and related software and service components, while supporting APIs for third-party integrations.

Swisscom Broadcast stated the pair “have the expertise and appropriate resources to efficiently implement this project, which will benefit the whole of Switzerland”.

“In the future, Swisscom Broadcast will enable customers to access drone infrastructure developed and produced in Europe and obtain drone services from a single source,” it added.

Nokia and Swisscom Broadcast noted they will continue working with regulatory bodies to ensure safe drone deployments.

The deal marked Nokia’s second drone networks project, as it won similar contract with Belgium’s Citymesh in 2023.