Telia to build superfast broadband network in Örebro County
TeliaSonera Sweden has signed a Letter of Intent with Örebro County to make the region one of the densest in Europe in terms of fibre optic-based network services. Today (November 19), Erik Hallberg, head of TeliaSonera’s broadband operations in Sweden, and Örebro County Governor Sören Gunnarsson, both signed a Letter of Intent in which households and companies in towns with more than 200 residents in the county will have the possibility to connect to the Internet over a superfast fibre optic network. The first community will be the town of Grythyttan in the Municipality of Hällefors.
The new fibre optic network will enable very high transmission speeds and Telia expects to offer up to 100 Mbit/sec in the near future. The network’s high transmission speeds open the door for providing bandwidth-intensive services, such as HDTV, multiple TV services, online gaming and CAD/CAM applications. Grythyttan will be the first town to have access to the fibre optic network. Here customers will receive an offer to connect to the network already in the beginning of December. The price will be SEK 4,000 per property and the offer is valid until the end of March 2008. Customers who order a connection in December will receive broadband service by the end of February 2008.
“In the beginning we will also offer customers in Grythyttan a very advantageous package of triple-play services with broadband speeds up 10 Mbit/sec, 11 digital television channels, video rentals over the network and telephony for SEK 224 per month,” says Erik Hallberg.
The intention is to give all towns and communities with more than 200 residents the opportunity to connect to the fibre optic network. Households and companies in more than 60 locations will be offered superfast broadband.
Örebro County Governor Sören Gunnarsson says the network opens up many opportunities: “It’s all about furthering growth and development outside city areas. The new network will make living in our county even more attractive but it will also give regional companies a new competitive edge, which is completely in line with the other advantages that our county offers, such as good transportation and an attractive geographic location. But the new potential of the network also opens up major opportunities for establishing new business ideas and new companies throughout the region.”
It is no coincidence that TeliaSonera has decided to offer fibre to homes and businesses in all communities in Örebro County with more than 200 residents. The county already has a solid basic network infrastructure in these communities which has been partly built with broadband funding from the Swedish government. Since fibre-optic lines have been laid to all telecom exchanges in the county, the distance between customers is small. Grythyttan, in the Municipality of Hällefors, will be the first densely populated area in the county where all households and companies will receive an offer to connect to the fibre optic network and subscribe to a package of services. The town of Grythyttan has multi-family housing, single-family housing, small businesses and university educational programmes at the Måltidens Hus pavilion.