14 DAY TRIAL // TeliaSonera, the joint-venture between the Telia and Sonera telecom companies, has recently announced the availability of the first commercial 4G services in Finland. TeliaSonera is the second largest network operator in Finland, after Elisa.
Finland is the third country to get LTE (Long Term Evolution) services from TeliaSonera, after Norway and Sweden one year ago.
Initially, TeliaSonera's 4G services will be offered to customers in Turku and Helsinki. However, 4G coverage will only be available in the business centre area north of Helsinki, but it will expand as more modems will be available.
“The explosive growth of mobile broadband shows that the demand for bandwidth is unlimited, and with 4G we can offer more speed and capacity for mobile data,” says Marek Hintze, Head of TeliaSonera’s Mobility Services in Finland.
“We have now been operating our 4G network for pilot customers in Turku for six months and the interest in 4G has steadily increased. Therefore we are very happy to launch commercially,” he added.
Even though the network operates in the 2.6 GHz frequency band, Hintze said that the company is “focusing on building 4G in the 1.8 GHz frequency, because this way we can build wider coverage for our customers’ benefit.“
TeliaSonera customers must pay €46/month for the carrier's 4G service “Sonera Full Net 4G”, which includes a Samsung 4G modem that also supports 3G and 2G. Customers will be able to attain speeds of between 20 and 80 Mbit/s, but TeliaSonera's 4G service plan is limited to 30GB per month.
The carrier said that it hasn't decided yet which company will supply its national 4G network rollout in Finland.
However, the initial radio network 4G is known to be supplied by Nokia Siemens Networks in Turku and by Ericsson in Helsinki.