Telecom operator TeliaSonera on Wednesday announced a joint venture between its Finnish arm Sonera and rival DNA to share mobile network in Northern and Eastern Finland.
The objective of floating a joint venture is to allow for more efficient build out and operation of radio networks in an area making up 50 percent of Finland’s total territory in which only approximately 15 percent of its population live.
TeliaSonera, which has already experienced positive result from similar network sharing initiatives, is targeting improvement in customer experience in terms of coverage, speed and quality.
The network sharing agreement will enable TeliaSonera to reach 99 percent population 4G-coverage in Finland by the end of 2018.
“Thanks to the cooperation with DNA we can deliver on our promise to have the best network in Finland faster. We can accelerate the roll-out of super-fast mobile internet across all of Finland,” said Robert Andersson, head of TeliaSonera’s business region Europe.
The joint venture called Suomen Yhteisverkko will build and operate a common radio access network for the parties in 2G, 3G and 4G technologies. The company will own the radio network equipment and rent masts and base station facilities from the operators or third parties.
The common network means an increased number of base stations, better coverage and more capacity in the more sparsely populated areas of Eastern and Northern Finland.
The operators will also combine their 800 MHz frequency blocks to offer faster 4G connections and more capacity to their customers in the area. Network sharing will have no effects on end customer services.
Sonera and DNA will independently continue to offer competing services to customers also in the common network area.
Antti Jokinen, previously head of Networks at DNA, will be the CEO of the joint venture. Sonera owns 51 percent and DNA 49 percent of the joint venture company that will start operating in the beginning of 2015.
