Network giant Nokia gave the fledgling MulteFire market a boost by announcing what it claims is the first small cell to support the unlicensed spectrum technology.

Its Flexi Zone MulteFire Multiband Pico BTS is designed to enable mobile operator customers to deliver enterprise offerings in markets where they do not own licensed spectrum.

In addition, Nokia said “industries will be able to reliably track parcels and containers in key logistic hubs and campuses, to connect with and remotely control their vehicles while leveraging MulteFire performance for video applications such as surveillance.”

Meanwhile owners of public buildings such as hotels, malls, stadiums and venues “will also benefit from new revenue streams, with the ability to open up their private LTE network to mobile providers to enhance indoor services for subscribers at their location.” The indoor and outdoor small cells are slated for commercial release in the second quarter of 2018.

Developed by Qualcomm and Nokia – with later backing by Ericsson, Huawei, Intel and Samsung, amongst others – MulteFire differs from other unlicensed offerings such as LTE-U and LAA, which both require an anchor channel in licensed spectrum.

MulteFire is expected to operate solely in unlicensed spectrum without an LTE anchor, supposedly making it more suitable for neutral host services and for private networks.