Qualcomm notched a major win for its 5G RAN ambitions, inking a deal to supply chipsets for a range of new indoor small cells from Nokia due out in 2021.

The vendor will use Qualcomm’s FSM100xx 5G RAN chipsets in a forthcoming portfolio of Smart Nodes, which it said will address in-home and enterprise coverage needs “without the complexity and cost of a macro deployment”. The kit is expected to be available from Q1 2021.

Nokia is the first of the big three equipment vendors to select the platform. It was unveiled in 2018 and registered deployments by a number of smaller players including Airspan Networks, Altiostar, Baicells Technologies, Corning, Sercomm and Samsung.

Qualcomm senior director of product management Puneet Sethi told Mobile World Live the deal is a “big milestone” for its 5G RAN aspirations “because this is our first major product featuring sub-6GHz” compatibility.

He added it highlights Qualcomm’s momentum in the 5G infrastructure market, which is a “big opportunity” for the company.

In September, Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon said the company is pursuing infrastructure opportunities around open RAN.