Tele2, Telenor Sweden LTE update: 100 cities covered in 2011

Cellular network operators Tele2 Sweden and Telenor Sweden have updated their launch plans for Long Term Evolution (LTE) services, revealing that their 4G joint venture, Net4Mobility, will deploy LTE in 100 Swedish cities by the end of 2011, following launches before the end of this year in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmo, Karlskrona and Lund. Earlier announcements contained plans for a commercial 4G launch by end-2010 in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo, and coverage of 99% of the Swedish population with LTE mobile broadband access by the end of 2013. In December 2009 Net4Mobility chose Huawei to deploy its LTE network, whilst the 50/50 joint venture also aims to increase the cellcos’ number of base stations for 2G GSM voice traffic by 30%-50% to enhance indoor and outdoor voice coverage across the country. In February 2010 it was revealed that the first launch of Huawei’s new triple-mode LTE/W-CDMA/GSM modem would be over the shared network.