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Nokia pulls out of MoCA-based joint offering with InCoax

Nokia will stop investing in the joint MoCA-based offering and remove InCoax products from its customer offering, citing insufficient customer interest in the solution.

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Nokia halts investment in joint MoCA-based offeringVendors & Equipment
Nokia halts investment in joint MoCA-based offeringAI-generated

Why it matters

  • Nokia has informed InCoax it will not continue investing in their joint MoCA-based offering
  • InCoax products will be removed from Nokia's customer offering
  • Nokia attributes the decision to insufficient customer interest in the joint solution; InCoax is evaluating the implications

The story

Nokia has told InCoax it will stop investing in the joint MoCA-based offering the two companies had brought to market, and InCoax products will be removed from Nokia's customer offering as a result.

The Swedish coaxial-access specialist disclosed the decision in a statement, quoting Nokia's rationale directly: "insufficient customer interest in the joint solution."

The move marks the end of a partnership that had positioned MoCA-based technology — originally developed for home networking over coaxial cable — as part of an operator toolkit for extending fiber-grade broadband over existing in-building coax infrastructure. For Nokia, the withdrawal trims a niche product line from its fixed-network portfolio. For InCoax, the consequences are potentially more serious, and the company said it is still working out what they are.

A partnership built on coax

The commercial logic behind the joint offering was straightforward. Operators upgrading multi-dwelling units and other hard-to-wire premises face high civil works costs when they pull fiber to every apartment. MoCA-based access technology offered an alternative: use the coax already in the walls to deliver the final stretch of connectivity, with fiber feeding the building.

By pairing InCoax's products with its own portfolio, Nokia could address that segment of the fiber-to-the-home market without operators having to commission separate vendors. InCoax, in turn, gained the distribution and credibility that comes from sitting inside a major vendor's customer offering.

That arrangement is now over. Nokia's stated reason — insufficient customer interest — suggests demand for the joint solution never reached the level needed to justify continued investment, a not uncommon outcome for niche access technologies competing against mainstream fiber rollout economics and, increasingly, alternative in-building approaches.

What it means for InCoax

InCoax said it is now evaluating the implications of Nokia's decision. That evaluation will need to cover the commercial channel the Swedish company loses once its products disappear from Nokia's offering, alongside the question of whether it can sustain the joint technology on its own or redirect its business toward other routes to market.

Losing a place in a tier-one vendor's catalogue is a significant setback for a company of InCoax's size. Its strategy had leaned on the partnership to put MoCA-based products in front of Nokia's fixed-access customer base, and that reach now disappears with the delisting.

For Nokia, the decision fits a broader pattern of portfolio pruning. The vendor has spent the past several years concentrating fixed-network investment on higher-volume segments — fiber access, optical and fixed-wireless-adjacent products — where operator spending has scaled, while exiting edge bets that failed to gain commercial traction.

The wider read-through

The withdrawal also says something about the in-building access market itself. Technologies that reuse existing coax or copper continue to hold appeal in specific deployment scenarios, particularly in older multi-dwelling stock where rewiring is costly. But the bar for staying in a large vendor's portfolio is volume, and by Nokia's own account the joint MoCA-based solution did not clear it.

Whether that reflects on the technology or on the go-to-market approach remains an open question — one InCoax will now have to answer as it charts a course without its biggest partner.

No timeline has been given for the removal of InCoax products from Nokia's customer offering, and InCoax has not yet detailed the full financial or operational impact of the decision. The company's next steps — whether a revised strategy, a search for new partners, or something else — should become clearer once its evaluation of the implications concludes.

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Elena Vasquez

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Market editor covering consumer brands and retail at Telecom Gazette.

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