New broadband network for Municipality of Lilla Edet next fall

Next autumn the Municipality of Lilla Edet, in southwestern Sweden, will have access to a municipality-wide broadband network provided by TeliaSonera Network Sales. On Thursday (Dec. 2), the municipality signed an agreement with TeliaSonera for the build-out of a network that will be ready for service in October next year. The network will provide broadband service to 99 percent of the households in the municipality, of which the majority will be able to get speeds up to 8 Mbit/s.

In Lilla Edet, about 3,000 of the municipality’s 13,000 residents commute daily to jobs in neighbouring municipalities. With the new network, these commuters will be able to work from home to a greater extent. When households and companies gain access to broadband next year, they will be able to choose one of the operators that will provide broadband services to consumers and companies through the new network. “The broadband network will increase the possibility for residents to telecommute from home and is necessary for the growth and development of local businesses and for the municipality’s development in general. It is important that the network will not only serve central towns and communities – instead, it will provide good Internet connections for the entire municipality,” says Bjarne Färjhage, chairman of the municipal executive board for the Municipality of Lilla Edet. All telecom switching centres in the municipality will be upgraded for ADSL, which utilises copper cable in the existing telephone network and allows a very high broadband penetration rate, even in very rural areas. Digital highways will also be built between communities to link them in a network in which telecom switches will be interconnected by fibre optic cables or radio links with a very high transmission speed. The entire network is scheduled to be finished in October 2005. Depending on their choice of broadband provider, all households and companies located within a link distance of 3.5 km from a switching centre will have broadband with speeds up to 8 Mbit/s. Those located within a link distance of 9 km can have broadband with speeds up to 500 Kbit/s. The network is also being prepared for future connections offering much higher speeds. “By combining the existing telephone work with new fibre optic cables and radio links, we can offer municipalities a fast and cost-effective broadband network. Lilla Edet’s network will almost cover the entire municipality and will surely be of great benefit to all people in the municipality who commute to work,” says Susanne Jacobsson, head of TeliaSonera Network Sales. During the past year TeliaSonera has signed agreements to provide broadband networks to approximately 75 municipalities in Sweden, of which 19 in Västra Götaland County in the southwest of Sweden.