Finland Awards 4G Licenses
Finland has awarded four licenses to develop 4G networks – three based on LTE technology and one based on WiMAX.
A total of €3.8 million / $5.7 million was bid in the auction, which was much smaller than other mobile frequency auctions held in Sweden and Norway.
Swedish / Finnish mobile operator TeliaSonera and Finnish companies Elisa and DNA will each build a 4G LTE network, while Pirkanmaan Verkko will develop a WiMAX service for Finland.
The first of the 4G services is expected on line next year.
Finland 4G Auction
Finland will start auctioning licenses this week to operate 4G networks in the country.
The base cost of each license will be around €350,000, taking into consideration starting costs for frequencies and fees for taking part in the auction. This is a change from the 3G auction that took place at the start of the decade where network space was given away for free to mobile operators judged to be the most capable by the government of Finland.
Other Nordic 4G auctions have netted €25 million and €230 million in Norway and Sweden, respectively.
Finland gets low frequency 4G network
Telecom companies TeliaSonera, Elisa and DNA have been picked to run Finland’s new 4G mobile broadband network.
The 4G frequencies allocated in Finland are in the 1,800 megahertz band – lower than the 4G frequencies being used elsewhere in Europe.
Lower frequency networks are cheaper to develop because they need fewer base stations.
Many of Finland’s population of five million live in rural areas and the government has said it wants to develop better internet access in those areas.
