Customers will be able to use the growing GSM network, the build-out for which is currently underway.

“We have received many calls primarily from worried customers in sparsely populated regions wondering what will happen when NMT is shut down. It is therefore with pleasure that we are able to announce that the GSM network already covers more than 80 percent of Sweden’s surface area. Within a year, we are expecting over 90 percent coverage,” says Tommy Ljunggren, head of the mobile networks at TeliaSonera in Sweden.

Before the end of the year, Telia will also finish its build-out of EDGE technology.
EDGE is sometimes called turbo GSM and quadruples the speed in the GSM network. This means that customers can surf faster. It is also a viable option for increasing surfing speeds in the areas of the country that the 3G network does not reach, for example large portions of northern Sweden.

Telia is the only mobile operator in Sweden to enhance its GSM network with EDGE.
The goal is to upgrade all base stations by the end of 2007 and extend the GSM
network to cover 90 percent of the entire country by 2008.

NMT is based on analog technology (first generation or 1G). The networks were opened in Sweden and Norway in 1981, and in Denmark and Finland in 1982. By 1985 the networks had grown to 110,000 subscribers in Scandinavia and Finland, 63,300 in Norway alone, which made it the worlds largest mobile network at the time. The introduction of digital mobile networks such as GSM has reduced the popularity of NMT and some of the Nordic phone companies have suspended their NMT networks. In Finland TeliaSonera’s NMT network was suspended on December 31, 2002.