Sweden’s Tele2 has announced that its Estonian subsidiary has acquired a second 2100MHz concession from local operator PGH Raadiovork OU. As a result of the development Tele2 says that it expects to double its 3G mobile broadband capacity ‘in many areas’, while claiming that Tele2 Estonia now has the largest spectrum portfolio of all the Estonian cellcos. Indeed, Tele2 Estonia’s spectrum portfolio now reportedly consists of 450MHz, 800MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz, 2300MHz, 2600MHz and 3500MHz frequencies. No information regarding the financial terms of this latest spectrum acquisition were disclosed, however.
Commenting on the development, Niklas Sonkin, executive vice president of Central Europe and Eurasia at Tele2 AB, was cited as saying: ‘I want to emphasise the importance of tech neutral licences in both low and high bands to give us tools to provide best value services to our customers. Our spectrum portfolio puts us in a very strong position for the future, as also this new frequency can be used for upgrading to next generation LTE-Advanced.’
In separate but related news, the Estonian Technical Surveillance Authority (ETSA) has confirmed that it will redistribute spectrum in the 1800MHz band tomorrow. In an announcement on its website the regulator confirmed that frequencies currently held by Tele2 Estonia, Elisa and Eesti Mobiiltelefon (EMT-TeliaSonera) will be refarmed with a view to making more efficient use of the 1800MHz range for 4G LTE services, while also eliminating the use of guard band spectrum. All three of the cellcos in question are expected to receive adjacent spectrum blocks once the reallocation is complete, which the ETSA says should allow for an increase in the speeds offered over their respective LTE networks.