Broadband network inaugurated in Municipality of Vaggeryd

Residents of the Municipality of Vaggeryd now have access to broadband service. On Thursday (Feb. 10), a new broadband network was inaugurated that provides broadband service to approximately 86 percent of the residents in the municipality. The network, delivered by TeliaSonera Network Sales during the autumn of 2004, provides broadband with speeds up to 8 Mbit/s. Residents in the community of Skillingaryd can also get speeds up to 24 Mbit/s.

TeliaSonera Network Sales signed the agreement with the Municipality of Vaggeryd in October last year. The intention was to build out the first stage of the broadband network by the end of March 2005 to provide service to approximately 86 percent of the municipality’s residents. The network was finished earlier, however, and could therefore be placed in operation already today, on February 10. Residents in the municipality with access are free to choose one of the operators that provide broadband services to consumers and companies through the network. Depending on their choice of broadband provider, all households and companies located within a link distance of 3.5 km from a telecom switching centre can have broadband with speeds up to 8 Mbit/s. Those located with nine kilometres from a centre can get up to 500 Kbit/s. Depending on their operator, residents in Skillingaryd can get speeds up to 24 Mbit/s. “It is important for us to give residents access to broadband so enterprises will like to set up business and operate in our municipality, and households will enjoy living here. Broadband is of great importance, especially for maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit of small companies in our municipality. The long-term goal is to achieve 100 percent penetration of the municipality and we have now come far in reaching this objective,” says Bengt-Olof Magnusson, a director for the Municipality of Vaggeryd. Telecom switching centres in the municipality 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. Switching centres are also connected in a municipality-wide network that links towns and communities and has a very high transmission capacity. “We can build out the broadband network in a quick and cost-effective manner by combining the existing telephone network with a newly installed fibre optic network. Using this technology, we were able to connect almost all towns and communities in Vaggeryd already in the first stage, with high penetration in areas located far from densely populated centres,” says Susanne Jacobsson, head of TeliaSonera Network Sales. During the past year TeliaSonera has signed agreements to provide broadband networks to more than 75 municipalities in Sweden.