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Finland Sells off Spectrum for LTE

(24 Nov 2009, BWCS Staff)

Always ahead of the mobile pack, Finland has already awarded licences for LTE mobile. The spectrum, in the 2.6GHz band, was sold off yesterday by the Finnish telecoms regulator Ficora.

Sonera was one of the successful bidders for a 20 year licence. The former Finish monopoly operator now merged with Swedish telco Telia, paid €819,000 for five chunks of 2 x 5 MHZ in the 2.6GHz band. Fellow Finnish mobile operator Elisa won a 50MHz block in the auction for a fee of €834,700. The Finnish Association of local operators paid €1.5 million for its 50MHz of TDD spectrum.

TeliaSonera hopes to start attracting customers early next year. However, it said cautiously that full roll out of its LTE network will depend on "customer demand".

Finnish network operator, DNA won a 40MHz block of frequencies paying €675700. DNA said it plans to launch mobile broadband at up to 21Mbps in the next few months, using HSPA+ technology, it says it will use new spectrum will to help boost speeds to 100Mbps. In total the government said it raised some €3.8 million from the auction.



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