Nordic carrier Telia Norway has already installed over 1,000 5G sites in Norway with the aim of reaching nationwide coverage by 2023, Ericsson said in a release.
The vendor, which is Telia Norway’s 5G partner, said that 1.5 million Norwegians already have access to the telco’s 5G network, while the goal for this year is to reach half of the country’s population with 5G.
Multiple cities and municipalities around Norway have gained access to Telia’s 5G network since May 2020, when the Norwegian service provider’s first 5G network was activated in Lillestrøm.
Stein-Erik Vellan, CEO at Telia Norway, said: “Together with Ericsson, we’re continuing the successful delivery on our ambitious 5G plans. With almost nine in 10 living in areas where Telia has more than 90% city center 5G coverage (Oslo, Bergen, and Trondheim) stating that they are either satisfied or very satisfied with the mobile network, there is only more good news to come. As more sites appear across the country, more Norwegians and businesses will gain valuable access to the next generation of mobile technology.”
Jenny Lindqvist, Head of Northern & Central Europe, Ericsson, said: “The speed of 5G uptake is higher than in any earlier mobile generation, which is a sign of our industry’s determined effort to drive innovation and bring new technology to the market. In partnership with Telia, we’re delighted to pass the important milestone of 1,000 sites upgraded to 5G as it shows the progress in Telia’s aim for a nationwide 5G rollout to enable reliable, high-speed mobile broadband connectivity across Norway.”
In 2019, Telia had selected Ericsson to be its sole radio access network (RAN) supplier in Norway. Under the agreement, Ericsson not only supplied hardware and software solutions, but has also been working with Telia Norway to modernize the operator’s entire radio network as part of the move to 5G.
The deployment utilized Ericsson’s dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) software, which allows carriers to share existing spectrum for both LTE and 5G.
In March of this year, Telia and Ericsson had launched what it claimed to be the first 5G carrier aggregation trial in Norway.
Telia and Ericsson had started a 5G New Radio (NR) TDD-FDD carrier aggregation for coverage extension trial in Lillestrøm, a town located next to Oslo.
Ericsson explained that carrier aggregation technology will enable the Nordic carrier to maximize its existing spectrum and extend coverage in the mid-band frequencies (3.6 GHz), boosting capacity and increasing peak throughput for faster data speeds.
The solution further enhances the 5G user experience by extending coverage of the mid-band TDD bands using the uplink of the FDD band.
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