The tension between technological progress and industry readiness is on full display in today’s news. Nokia, in particular, sits at the center of that contrast. On the one hand, the vendor is pushing ahead in private and enterprise 5G: It just secured a major offshore win with Tampnet, supplying RAN gear for a new 5G build-out that reinforces its long-standing strength in industrial connectivity.

On the other hand, the company is facing growing internal turmoil, as employees across Europe protest restructuring plans — including the potential sale of Nokia’s private networks business. It’s a moment that raises pointed questions about how the vendor intends to participate in the next wave of enterprise 5G, just as operators are finally starting to deploy more advanced automation.

That tension surfaces again in the UAE, where du and Nokia have launched what they call the first autonomous 5G-Advanced slicing system. The deployment uses real-time machine learning to steer performance across varied service conditions, signaling an emerging shift toward intent-based networks. It’s a technical milestone that highlights the kind of capabilities operators say they want from 5G — even if many are still working to monetize what they’ve already built.

And that leads to a broader truth: The industry is simply not ready for 6G. Even as research hubs like the University of Oulu bring in defense and industrial clients to test early 6G concepts, 5G has yet to deliver meaningful revenue gains, leaving carriers cautious about what comes next and underscoring just how far we remain from commercial viability. The gap between what’s being developed and what the market can absorb is widening — and today’s stories make that clearer than ever.