The Nordic telco already announced limited 5G deployments in these two markets
Nordic telecom operator Elisa Corporation and the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) have signed a EUR 100 million ($113 million) loan arrangement for the deployment of 5G networks in Finland and Estonia.
Elisa said that the deployment of 5G networks in these two markets will begin in the first months of next year.
“The loan to Elisa facilitates the expansion of 5G infrastructure in Finland and in Estonia. Investments in 5G are vital for the productivity of the Nordic–Baltic companies, as the new mobile network generates the knowledge accumulation in our member region’s technology sector”, said Henrik Normann, NIB’s President and CEO.
“Today, Finns use the most mobile data in the world, and the majority of the usage is in Elisa’s network. Our next key investment target is the introduction of 5G networks. The needs of our customers as well as new applications and services require more and more features and speed,” said Elisa’s CEO, Veli-Matti Mattila.
“The investment funding from NIB will in part ensure that we can provide our customers with access to the very fast network and completely new services enabled by 5G”, he added.
Elisa currently has nearly 2.8 million customers in Finland and Estonia.
In June this year, the telco said that 5G networks had been launched in the cities of Tampere, Finland and Tallinn, Estonia.
The company also said it has also been updating its networks to be 5G-ready across Finland.
In February this year, Elisa carried out a 5G test in the city of Helsinki in partnership with Huawei. During the test, a 5G network was tested in a moving car simultaneously with two 5G terminal devices, which were provided by the Chinese vendor. The trial used the test network that Elisa built with Huawei and deployed in the 3.5GHz band.
The Finnish carrier had also previously virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and gaming applications on a 5G testbed, achieving speeds of 1.4 Gbps between the base station and the device.
In related 5G news, Portuguese carrier Altice Portugal has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Chinese vendor Huawei for the development of a 5G network.
Under the plan, both companies will explore potential new and innovative applications using 5G technology in a live testing network environment, Huawei said in a statement.
Altice Portugal expects to launch commercial 5G services in 2019.
“Huawei have been a trusted partner for Altice for many years, and we look forward to explore this new technology together for the benefit of our Consumer and Enterprise customers, as well as a way to promote new business models and services,” said Altice Portugal CEO Alexandre Fonseca.
