Danish telecoms operator Telenor has outlined its plans to double the capacity, and thus the data rate, of 1,450 4G masts operating in the 1800MHz band, following the doubling of its spectrum holdings in the frequency band to 20MHz. The upgrade work will run until January 2015, with 4G capacity to be increased in Zealand this week, with North Jutland and Aarhus set to follow soon after. The cellco, which currently has 4,150 cell towers, also plans to build 400 new LTE transmitters across Denmark in 2015, in order to increase its 4G coverage in small towns and remote areas; Telenor is aiming to cover 90% of the population with LTE by the end of 2015. Further, the operator also plans to deploy LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) technology next year using Carrier Aggregation (CA) technology.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, Norwegian-owned Telenor Denmark launched 4G LTE services in March 2013, before entering a 3G/4G network sharing/expansion programme with close rival Telia Denmark in May that year. The merger of their respective 3G/4G networks was completed in April 2014, at which date Telenor had 3,900 3G BTS covering 99% of the Danish population, compared to 2,400 before the infrastructure sharing agreement began, while its LTE network had become available in 192 cities/towns, equivalent to 80% of the population.