Finnish operator Ukkoverkot has signed a deal with Huawei for the vendor to refarm a CDMA network at 450MHz into an LTE network, which it said will be more cost effective and efficient.
Huawei will build an end-to-end solution, comprising base stations and devices, with nationwide coverage of the service available by the end of the year.
The China-based vendor will reuse legacy hardware such as base stations, sites, power supplies and antennas.
It claimed that one 450MHz base station can cover twice as big an area as one at 800MHz and up to 20 times the footprint of a single 2.6GHz node.
Once the project is completed, Huawei said it will offer the largest mobile broadband coverage across Finland.
Ukkoverkot offers data services to a customer base comprising enterprises, field and home workers, public sector agencies and the transport sector.
Ukkoverkot CEO Antti Pellinen commented: “Ukkoverkot is clearly in challenger position in the Finnish mobile market landscape, especially from a frequency resources point of view. Deploying disruptive technology like LTE 450MHz is a good technology strategy. It gives us high capacity and new value for the 450MHz band in mobile data use.
“In addition, the coverage properties are truly impressive, with countrywide network across the whole of Finland (~340 000 km²) successfully achieved with only few hundred sites.”
Huawei’s VP of LTE Wireless Networks Zou Yong added: “We recently unveiled the LTE 450MHz chipset that is available on customer-premises equipment and MiFi devices.
“The partnership with Ukkoverkot to deploy LTE 450MHz is another important step and, we look forward to cooperating with many more operators to deploy LTE 450MHz commercial networks and bring universal broadband to more people and ubiquitous connection for M2M or things to things.”
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