Norway’s smallest mobile operator unveils no-frills plan to take on Nordic rivals
Norwegian mobile operator Ice has launched a digital-only no-frills sub-brand with ‘very aggressive pricing’, NiceMobil and a new commercial 5G service in Oslo.
In a statement Shiraz Abid, commercial director at Ice, said switching mobile operators in Norway has been too difficult and hinted that mobile operators are protecting fortunes. “The fact that someone put gold in their SIM cards is proof of how lucrative the Norwegian mobile market has been for some,” said Abid.
Ice is cutting price
Eivind Helgaker, chief executive of Ice Group, said that targeting the price sensitive end of the market will help Ice to “accelerate our subscriber growth”.
Ice’s short-term goal is to offer 5G in Norway’s four or five largest cities, but currently it reaches only ten per cent of the people in the Greater Oslo area and in the long term it aims to bring the technology to 75 per cent of the population.
“We do have a lot of 5G-ready equipment, but it’s also a meaningful investment for us to get to 75 per cent population coverage with 5G,” said Helgaker. By some estimates that would cost around 1 billion kroner (€101 million) on equipment, capacity and services and Ice allegedly has longstanding disputes with lenders. However, there are reports it has plans to find 2.5 billion kroner (€250 million) in equity.
All started with a Spectrum
The Ice Group first launched Ice into the Norwegian mobile market in 2019 by clinching the 700 MHz and 2.1 GHz frequencies at Norway’s first 5G auction, after Telenor and Telia Norway were handicapped by spectrum caps. Six weeks ago it added 3.6 GHz to its portfolio after another spectrum auction.
According to its this quarterly figures Ice had 677,000 smartphone subscribers at the end of September, compared to Telenor’s 2.8 million and Telia’s 1.2 million. The latters’ figures include connections to machines. With the launch of 5G services, Ice intends to grow its own subscriber base of machine-to-machine connections – albeit with eSIMs.
In November Telenor announced that its own global expansion plans would be jointly run with Google Cloud.