Sweden’s TeliaSonera has announced that its Estonian subsidiary Eesti Mobiiltelefon (EMT) has won spectrum in the 800MHz band following a beauty contest conducted by the Estonian Technical Surveillance Authority (ETSA). EMT has confirmed that it plans to use the frequencies to boost its 4G population coverage level to 95% by mid-June 2013, some six months ahead of its initial schedule; in March 2013 the operator had reiterated its intention to achieve the aforementioned coverage level by the end of the year. The ETSA, meanwhile, has revealed that EMT paid an upfront fee of EUR1 million (USD1.3 million) for the 2×10MHz block of 800MHz spectrum, while an annual EUR24,150 fee for using the frequencies will also apply.
As noted in TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, EMT launched commercial LTE services just a few days after it bagged not only 2×20MHz of frequency-division duplex (FDD) spectrum but also two 20MHz blocks of time-division duplex (TDD) spectrum in December 2010; both frequency blocks were in the 2600MHz band. Coverage has been expanded since then, and according to the most recent information the 4G network was available to around 75% of Estonians, up from around 40% at mid-2012.