Nokia has won a deal to provide equipment for a shared public safety TETRA network being installed for the Swedish government by Saab.
The network, known as RAKEL, will be operated by Swedia and designed for use for up to 50,000 users across the country, according to a Nokia spokesperson. Sweden will join Finland and Belgium as countries which have shared public services digital radio networks.
With the contract just awarded, network planning is not yet advanced, so the number of base stations is not known, but the network will cover the whole country, and will cost the Swedish government EUR250,000.
The contract for handset supplier or suppliers is also up for grabs, the Nokia spokesperson confirmed.
The different public safety organisations will each operate a separate VPN type network, but will be able to set up common talk groups if they need to communicate directly with each other. After an incident the organisations can then go back to operating on their own network.
It is not thought that suppliers of rival digital radio technology Tetrapol made a bid for the network.