(Fort Lauderdale) – Rural carriers looking to expand their coverage will find a friend in a new all-in-one solution from Nokia.

At the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) conference in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday, Nokia shared its “Network-in-a-Box” solution, a pizza box-sized modular machine that integrates applications and core network functions in one package.

According to Nokia E2E Solutions Architect Dharmesh Tyagi, who presented at the conference, the device comes with both 3G and 4G technologies, including a push to talk server, a VoIP server and an in-built monitoring system. The device can support up to 100,000 simultaneous connected users and 1 million subscribers and can also link with up to 200 Node B sites.

To maintain capacity with multiple applications, a separate external hardware server can be installed.

Some of the system’s attributes, Tyagi said, are its low cost and immediate deployment timetable.

“Think about it,” he said, “you take two pizza boxes, you go out set up an antenna and transmit and you have 100,000 capacity. We’re not talking about 2020 stuff, we’re talking about stuff we have today. It’s a very, very cheap solution and in minutes this network is up and running.”

Tyagi said the solution is ideal in a number of use cases, especially in closing coverage gaps, extending LTE into rural areas, islands and valleys, and providing connectivity for cruise ships, industrial and other remote locations. The solution can also be used to aid in disaster recovery situations.

According to Tyagi, Nokia is also developing a similar network-in-a-box solution that will be available by the end of this year that will incorporate IMS and VoLTE.