Broadband network inaugurated in Municipality of Lerum

Press Release Oct 19, 2004 Broadband network inaugurated in Municipality of Lerum Lerum's municipality-wide broadband network has now been inaugurated. On Tuesday (Oct. 19) an information meeting was held at the municipal building in Lerum, where representatives of the municipality and the network provider, TeliaSonera Network Sales, officially placed the network in service. The new network will provide broadband to all companies in the municipality and 98 percent of all households. The agreement to provide a municipality-wide broadband network was signed between the Municipality of Lerum and TeliaSonera Network Sales in January this year and the broadband build-out is now basically finished. All telecom switching centres except one have been upgraded for ADSL, which utilises copper cable in the existing telephone network and allows a very high broadband penetration, even in rural areas. When the remaining switching centre is upgraded in the beginning of next year, the broadband network will cover almost 100 percent of the municipality. "It's really great that almost every single resident in the municipality will have access to the broadband network. We hope it will stimulate substantial growth for the municipality and region," says Henrik Ripa, chairman of the Lerum municipal executive board. Households in the municipality that have access to the broadband network are free to choose one of the 12 operators that will provide broadband services to consumers and companies through the network. Households and companies located with a link distance of 9 km from a switching centre will have broadband with speeds up to 500 Kbit/s. Depending on their choice of broadband provider, all households and companies located within a link distance of 3.5 km from an upgraded telecom switching centre can have broadband with speeds up to 8 Mbit/s. The build-out is also prepared for future connections offering much higher speeds. "The technology is based on a combination of new fibre optic networks and the existing telephone network, which allows us to build out the broadband network quickly and cost effectively, even in sparsely populated areas. This is how we have been able to give the Municipality of Lerum the highest broadband penetration in Sweden," says Susanne Jacobsson, head of TeliaSonera Network Sales. During the past year TeliaSonera has signed agreements to provide broadband networks to most counties in Sweden and more than 75 municipalities, of which 18 in Västra Götaland County. For further information journalists can contact: TeliaSonera's Press Office, phone +46 8 713 58 30 TeliaSonera is the leading telecommunications company in the Nordic and Baltic regions. At the end of December 2003 TeliaSonera had 11,957,000 mobile customers (37,610,000 incl associated companies) and 8,061,000 fixed customers (9,160,000 incl associated companies) and 1,631,000 internet customers (1,691,000 incl associated companies). Outside the home markets TeliaSonera has extensive interests in the growth markets in Russia, Turkey and Eurasia. TeliaSonera is listed on the Stockholm Exchange and the Helsinki Exchanges. Pro forma net sales January-December 2003 amounted to SEK 81.7 billion (EUR 9.01 billion). The number of employees was 26,694 ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2004/10/19/20041019BIT21320/wkr0007.pdf Lerum